'Freaks And Geeks': Should There Ever Be A Reunion?
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Despite NBC’s best efforts to screw up Freaks and Geeks during its initial crud network run, it has endured at Keanu Reeves-like-levels and is similarly ubiquitous.
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The show spawned a Judd Apatow comedy acting pipeline that might not be pumping crude at the same volumes it once did, but man, did it gush for a while. And the accolades, and the influence, and … Busy Phillips! Not bad for a show that originally only aired 12 out of 18 episodes.
During a Vanity Fair interview, Co-creator Paul Feig detailed what would have happened if the show had received a second season. It goes a something like this: Lindsay becomes a human rights lawyer, Bill joins the basketball team, Daniel goes to jail, Nick’s Roadhouse Dad makes him join the Army, Kim gets pregnant, and Neil & Sam join the drama club and swing choir, respectively.
Apatow Productions/Dreamworks Television
All intriguing, sorta – but that only covers the immediate aftermath of season one and since that never actually happened, I’m going to ask the unthinkable: should Freaks and Geeks ever do a reunion?
Legions of you (for me, a legion is twelve people, probably the number reading this right now) I’m guessing just leapt to your feet, balled up your fists and defiantly yelled “Khhaaaan” like Shatner in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I wish. Actually, it was probably “Noooooo,” and I get that – it was certainly my gut reaction when I first thought of this click-gathering premise.
We nerds looove pop culture we perceive as pure – and the track record of returning to old beloved shows (Attn: Party Down reunion: don’t blow it) certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence: if Freaks and Geeks got the Fuller House treatment millions of faces would become angry, maybe even vicious on the internet.
But.
Give it a second, and another if you need to.
Are you telling me you wouldn’t want to know if Daniel is still even alive?
In the worst of all imaginable fates, did Neil become a dentist, like his ding-dong dad?
Sam = doing just fine, except for a dalliance with gambling that might be moving towards being a problem.
Does Lindsay’s life end up being more like her Mad Men character’s – totally subverting all expectations?
And how about another end-around with Kim, who totally sheds her high school skin and becomes … a teacher?
What about Bill? Is he ripped? Yes, Bill is ripped!
Nick, oh boy, not gonna speculate there beyond his drum kit reducing to 18 pieces.
And lastly Ken, who is, of course, a standup comedian.
I totally understand if you hate every one of those characterizations, but I hope you see my point: this could work. It could work because those characters are so compelling and well-drawn they’d land, well, wherever Apatow and Feig, who would absolutely have to shepherd the thing, touched them down.
That wherever is also really key. I’d vote it not be Chippewa, Michigan. It’d be ham-fisted to have them show up at a class reunion or a funeral. I’m going long, here, real long: corral them all in Pawnee.
Anyway, Apatow and Feig could figure that out – hopefully with that sorta-sweaty barking teacher that ran the mathletes.
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Top Image: Apatow Productions/Dreamworks Television
