Freaks and Geeks
Paul Feig
Maps out the bittersweet terrain of adolescence with honesty, humour and warmth, marking out small moments of triumphs alongside bigger moments of sheer awkwardness and embarrassment. The setting is McKinley High in Michigan circa 1980. Lindsay Weir, ‘Mathlete,’ moves from the geek camp to the freak camp as she strikes up friendships with Daniel Desario (with his “bedroom eyes and ratty hair”), his girlfriend Kim Kelly, sarcastic Ken Miller and Nick Andopolis, who never quite gets over her after a short-lived relationship. She’s in the process of figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. Her younger brother Sam, together with his best friends Neil Schweiber and Bill Haverchuck are firmly in the geek camp, and have to deal with being picked upon by jocks and ignored by girls. But when Sam gets the girl of his dreams, it turns out to be nothing like what he expected.
Watching the episode ‘Kim Kelly Is My Friend’ was a rather odd experience. It featured the same characters but was meaner in toner and darker in spirit compared to the rest of the series. Could understand why it wasn’t shown when F&G aired.

Undeclared
Judd Apatow
Just about as short-lived as Freaks & Geeks, on which Apatow was the executive producer. It was essentially F&G go to college with many familiar faces popping up including Seth Rogen (who played Ken Miller; Rogen also pulled writing duties on Undeclared), Jason Segel (Nick Andopolis) and Samm Levine (Neil Schweiber).
Sweetly geeky Steve Karp is all set to experience college life with his suitemates, including ladies’ men Lloyd Hathe (British import Charlie Hunnam), Lizzie Exley (alas with an obsessive older boyfriend), Rachel Lindquist, sarcastic Ron Garner and oddball Marshall Nesbitt. Popping up more often than Steve would like is his recently divorced father (Loudon Wainwright III). The tone was decidedly more comic, with mayhem usually ensuing as the gang tangled with cheating on term papers, pledging, getting jobs and falling in and out of love.