Freaks and Geeks - late to the party

Having heard from Nick that he has a 29-piece drum kit (WTF???), one of the guys says "Maybe you'll bump it up to an even 30 someday."

Yeouch.

Count me among those who loved the eventual revelation of dreamgirl Cindy Sanders as ... a pretty girl who was just kind of boring. Sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality.

 

I don't think Busy is the best actor/actress on F&G, but her turn in "Kim Kelly Is My Friend" was tremendous. In 60 minutes she went from a one-note bully to perhaps the most sympathetic character on the show.

I really thought Jason Segal and Linda Cardellini provided the best performances on the show portraying two kids who came from completely opposite backgrounds, yet proved equally vulnerable to peer pressure.

If Bill Haverchuck had more screen time, Martin Starr might have won this "honour." (that's for you ) He was responsible for two of the most iconic images in the show: Making out with hottie cheerleader and the laughing while eating peanut butter scene. As Dyno said, that was as heart-breaking as it was hilarious, and he never said a word.

 

BYH, haven't seen the entire season yet--just the first six episodes and I'm basing my comment perhaps on the "Kim Kelly is My Friend" episode which was hilarious and frightening at the same time.

I know what you're saying about Jason Segal's character but he strikes me as cartoonish and kinda one dimensional. And not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

Bill is deathly allergic to peanuts. He was eating grilled cheese in that scene.

 

I gotta disagree on Joe Flaherty. To me, he is a dad that we rarely see on TV. He isn't a complete buffoon -- when you get to the scenes where Nick is crashing at the Weirs, you can see that he is a good dad -- he works hard for his kids, doesn't always understand them... He is like a lot of the dads I was around growing up. He was used as comic relief in the early episodes, but he shows his stuff later on.

 

You're right--except for Fawlty Towers

 

Like I said, I've only watched six episodes but his riff on death and various ways to die in the early episodes were really lame and not funny at all. His character was kinda jarring because it seemed totally out of place given the rest of the characters in the show.

I kept thinking, " Hey, Joe, it's not SCTV and John Candy is dead".

 

Christ am I an idiot. Completely blanked there.

Thank you for taking pity on me and not hammering me too badly there.

JR: I hope I didn't spoil anything, but I think you'll like Segal's work a lot more as the show goes on...and Flaherty's as well. Pope is definitely right about him portraying the average Dad of the 70s and 80s. It wasn't always smooth, and he was sometimes misunderstood, and he often didn't understand HIS kids, but he loved his family and children unconditionally and always wanted to do the best thing for them.

 

I felt the same away about the dad during the early episodes. I believe his character becomes stronger in the later episodes. He was presented as a bit of an out-of-it clown in the early shows. But he remains true to his convictions, sticks up for his kids, and becomes less of a clown and more of an I-know-I'm-not-in-on-the-joke-but-this-is-still-funny guy.

 

Hammer you? I feel like a huge dork knowing a TV character's food allergies (although I do realize it was a big plot point in an episode).

 

To BYH & TSP: I'll reserve judgement on Flaherty. Thanks

Probably not fair to pounce on a character after (tonight) seven episodes.

Never heard of the game Pit before that episode.

 

My family plays Pit all the time. We've lost the bell, or it broke, so we set a spoon in the middle of the table and winner has to grab it.