Everybody above a certain age who knows what it was like to grow up as one of the awkward background kids in high school is likely intimately familiar with the title Freaks and Geeks, either due to the cult classic NBC series by that name or from having both of those names hurled their way on a regular basis. This turn of the century slice-of-life series set in a 1980s high school felt relatable enough to a wide audience that it's still considered one of the best shows of its type ever made. Unfortunately, it only got 1 season. But according to series creator Paul Feig (yes, that Paul Feig) and executive producer Judd Apatow (there are literally no other Judd Apatows), the reasons for that might not be what everyone expected.
Freaks and Geeks was not only a fondly remembered hidden gem, but it served as a launching point for the careers of a number of big names. Stars like Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, and Busy Philipps all got their big break on this short-lived series. But it turns out that Freaks and Geeks, which had its original run on NBC, could have kept going after the network canceled it. This came after a year of executives constantly hounding Feig and Apatow to make the series more optimistic, which proves more than anything that network bigwigs have apparently never been to high school. So after the fun police decided to shut it all down, MTV swooped in and offered to pick them up, but there was a catch.
"When the show was canceled, there was an offer from MTV to continue making the show at a much lower budget,” Apatow explained when speaking with Collider, “And we all decided we didn't want to do a weaker version of the show." Freaks and Geeks wasn't exactly a Marvel-level bank-breaking production, but a drop in budget would definitely mean they wouldn't get to keep making the show they had already grown attached to. But that wasn't the whole reason they decided to pass on the offer.
"It was a weird time for me because my mom died two days before we got cancelled," Feig said, mentioning how working on the show had already been a particularly taxing experience. "And I think I had a moment of like, 'I can't even deal with any of this.'" In fact, the team had already prepared for their inevitable cancellation, even filming the final episode of the season as a proper series finale. So all the emotional toil from knowing they were being canceled, to barely scraping by on the budget they had at NBC, to Feig losing his mother, and finally to MTV offering them a severely decrepit lifeboat came together to really drive home that they were fine ending Freaks and Geeks there.
That's not to say there were never any regrets, of course. "There's moments so many times I go like, 'Wow, we just got away with these 18 episodes,' and I'm sure we would've done other great episodes, another great season," Feig said, looking back at the years since. "But at the same time, it's set in amber now and there's something lovely about that." Everybody has regrets about the past, but it's good to appreciate what was even if what could have been continues to haunt the mind.
The fact is, Freaks and Geeks was an extremely relatable experience for generations of viewers, even many of those who weren't even alive during the time period where it took place. Whether or not it could have kept going is a moot point considering how influential it was and still is. Nobody cares what might have happened if Leonardo da Vinci made another "Mona Lisa." They just appreciate the masterpiece that's there.
Freaks and Geeks is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. and CBC Gem in Canada.
Source: Collider