Freaks and Geeks was something of an epochal television series, but this aspect is routinely overwhelmed by the humor, pathos, or superb characterization. The latter qualities are in such abundance that the series’ jabs at Reagan-era politics and the transitory fashion (the residue of disco, the ill-conceived appropriation of punk) are often unnoticed.
Undeclared’s epoch, by contrast, is entirely nonspecific. Its state university could be anywhere with warm weather, and its students a cross-section (of race, gender, and, of course, major) of most any other school. It is calculatedly anonymous, but it is also funny—the pathos that distinguishes Freaks and Geeks is largely absent here, but there’s the same type of humor, contrived from circumstances that would be humiliating if you were directly involved.
Finally, there’s a conceptual and literal chronology to Judd Apatow’s career that I find fascinating—how each of his projects (now films) precedes the next in terms of maturation: high school / college / sexual maturation / parental maturation. And more significantly, how each of them incorporates the same actors, who, as they grow older, are given larger responsibilities to consider.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Shout Factory DVD
28 May 2007 12:35 PM | Submit Comment
