Category: Random

Freaks and Geeks: A Review

Lauren2 Comments

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, Joey is a huge TV watcher and for years, he’s been burning through entire series of shows.  I tend to think the ones he picks are… um, questionable — MacGyver?  The Andy Griffith Show?  24? — but occasionally he’ll pick one that I don’t mind sitting in on a few episodes of.  Or, in the case of Freaks and Geeks, one that I don’t mind joining him to watch in its entirety.

This weekend, we finished watching the one and only season that the show made it through and while it’s been off the air for almost 15 years and maybe isn’t the most relevant thing for me to be talking about (though it’s gained popularity in more recent years), I still wanted to give my two cents.  If you know nothing about the show, the gist of it is two groups of high schoolers — freaks and geeks — and the two main characters/siblings — Lindsay and Sam — who belong to those groups respectively.  It’s the 80’s, it’s dorky dads, it’s high school relationships, it’s reputations and it’s James Franco.  Enough said.

I wasn’t hanging on the end of every episode and it wasn’t my favorite show ever, but now that we’re through all 18 one-hour episodes, I’m sad it’s over.  It’s amazing to me that they were able to go into such depth with all the characters in just one season.  They seemed like real people with real emotions and real problems.  In the end, I felt like I really knew every main character (and there were a lot of them!), from their hobbies and passions to their home life and everything in between.  And storylines were always followed up on.  No small feat, if you ask me.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what Season 2 might’ve been (especially with the way Season 1 ended!), but maybe it’s better off having ended with one good season.  It obviously didn’t hurt any careers (cough James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal) and makes for a quick TV-show binge.

Freaks and Geeks

Favorite Character:  Lindsay — I know, how boring, but to me, she was the most relatable and endearing character.  But I also really loved Bill (3 episodes in, he turns out to be hilarious!), Nick (is Jason Segal ever not lovable?) and Mr. Weir.

Favorite Moments: Ugh so many!  Sam’s accidental streaking, Neal insulting his dad via ventriloquism, Bill getting drunk, Sam’s jumpsuit, Nick’s disco dance, Daniel spiking his hair, Mr. Weir saying or doing anything.

Favorite Line: “You know, there was a girl in our school, she had premarital sex. You know what she did on graduation day? Died! Of an overdose. Heroin.”

On Letting Go

Lauren1 Comment

Sometimes I get in these ruts of overthinking things and maybe caring too much about stuff.  I blame my incessant need to have the future overly planned out (hello, control issues!), but at times it gets to be more than I can handle.  Ahem, an example.

This weekend we’ve got Rockies game, Avs game, Easter baking, Easter celebrating, make up and hair trials for the wedding, then come the work week, it’s two more birthday celebrations and another Rockies game.  Whoa!  Already, my brain is like “when will I have time to work out?” “when will I have time to cook so that we have stuff to bring to work for lunch?” “when will I fit in that 4 mile run I promised I’d go on in an attempt to be ready for the Bolder Boulder next month?” “and when will I even have time to go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the dessert I volunteered to make for Easter?!”

And I could spend a bunch of time incessantly planning out how to fit all of those things into the next few days, but… I just don’t want to.  It’s exhausting and a waste of what time I do have.  So what if I go 5 days without working out or GASP! have to buy lunch on the fly because I didn’t have time to put together a perfectly balanced meal at home.  I will live and life will go on.  Plus all those worrisome thoughts are just taking up space in my head that should only be filled with the idea of how much fun the next few days are going to be!  And sometimes, feeling out of control can be pretty freeing.

Life is about to get all kinds of busy.  Birthdays, wedding showers, bachelorette parties, actual weddings and vacations are all coming up fast and while my first instinct might be to go into a tailspin of anxiety, instead I’m going to remind myself that that’s a lot of incredibly exciting things to be busy with.  And that I might just have to give up some control in order to fully enjoy it all.

Happy Thursday, you all!