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Flunking show expelled

'Freaks and Geeks' leaves NBC with three-hour finale

Freaks and Geeks
"Freaks and Geeks" cast members will bid farewell to primetime in a three hour finale on Saturday  

July 5, 2000
Web posted at: 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT)


In this story:

Unblinking look at high school

No audience

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon



(CNN) -- It's the anti-"90210" -- a funny, bittersweet, sometimes uncomfortably close-to-home take on adolescence. But while critics embraced the series, "Freaks and Geeks" flunked the Nielsen test.

Now it's closure time for the show, which NBC dumped earlier this year but has brought back for a final summer fling. Three episodes will air end-to-end Saturday from 8 to 11 p.m.

While disappointed by the show's demise, Executive Producer Judd Apatow said he's pleased it's getting one last airing in prime time.

  SCHEDULE
NBC.com: 'Freaks and Geeks'
8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, Saturday, July 8
 
  ON TV
 

"We're excited anytime anybody gets to see the show," he said. "We're very proud of the episodes. We think they are the best ones, so it was very hard to have them not air for so long."

Apatow, who developed "Freaks" with creator Paul Feig, said they had an inkling the show wouldn't make it past its inaugural season, so he and his partner fashioned a final episode that could work either as a conclusion or a carry-over.

It leaves conflicted Lindsay (Linda Cardellini) in another math nerd-cool crowd dilemma: choosing between summer school at the University of Michigan and following the Grateful Dead. On another front, studly Daniel (James Franco) flirts with geekdom as he discovers the wonders of "Dungeons and Dragons," while fellow freak Nick (Jason Segel) dabbles in disco.

In one of the earlier episodes, Sam (John Daley) finally gets a longed-for date with Cindy the cheerleader, with unexpected results.

Unblinking look at high school

The approach all along with "Freaks and Geeks" -- set in a Michigan suburb around 1980 -- was simply to do an honest show, Apatow said.

"Most of the other shows were escapist fare, were opportunities for kids to watch kids who are better-looking than themselves make out with people who are better looking than them," he said.

"We wanted to do a show that revealed exactly what high school was like, as terrible as it was and as wonderful as it was. We always thought those kids are the majority of kids who are out there. ... I think that's why the show connects with viewers, because they can tell it's real. They can tell we're not making these stories up."

Samm Levine, who plays a nerd on the show who's wise beyond his years, said the topics on the show were timeless: from finding your identity to just fitting in.

"It doesn't matter if it's 1950 or 1980 or 2000," he said. "Kids still deal with the same things, and I think we really nailed that."

No audience

John Daley plays Sam Weir, a kid who tries to get the attention of a cheerleader by offering to act as the team mascot  

Apatow regrets that the show -- which NBC pulled during the World Series shortly after its debut -- didn't have a better shot at building an audience.

"I can never say this show would have been a giant hit in a good time slot left on every week," he said, "but I think when you have a new show that demands viewers' attention, if you take it off the air every three weeks for several weeks, there's no way they can make the habit of watching the show, because TV is basically a habit for most people."

Levine is more outspoken. He credits inadequate promotion by NBC for contributing to the show's demise.

"It was just really mismanaged, so that was very disheartening that they were never truly behind the show," he said.

Levine's role is primarily as a sidekick, but he figures prominently in an episode that will never air on NBC. It may surface soon, though, on another cable network, which Apatow said has agreed to air all 18 original episodes (Since the network hasn't made an official announcement, he declined to say which one.).

Despite the demise of "Freaks and Geeks," the people who put it together know they were part of something special.

"It was a quality show, and we put a lot of work into it," Levine said. "And it showed."



RELATED STORIES:
Marvin Kitman: It's all 'Geek' to us
March 29, 2000

RELATED SITES:
Freaks and Geeks
NBC - Freaks and Geeks


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