Freaks and Geeks

source: NBC Universal / Getty Images

As with most cult favorites, I'm late to the party on the 1999-2000 television show "Freaks and Geeks". But honestly, how many of us teens were watching "Freaks and Geeks" the first time around? Weren't we too busy setting ourselves up for later disappointment, watching The WB with its loquacious teen melodramas? Not caring about how teens lived in the oh-so-vintage '80s? How many of us touched NBC, aside from its Must See Thursday nights?

Now that I'm older (and frankly, a little bitter that life did not turn out the way The WB promised it would), I fully appreciate the quality television NBC offers. "Friday Night Lights" was probably one of its greatest gems, and "Freaks and Geeks," while not nearly as serious or earnest as "Friday Night Lights," speaks of high school with the same honesty.

This is a world where romances last two weeks, teens are too self-involved to spend more than half an episode bullying their peers, and kids are just trying to get by. Cindy is a genuinely nice girl, in spite of being a cheerleader. She is equally nice to the geeks, the freaks, and the popular kids. And one of the most balanced adults I've seen on television, guidance counselor Mr. Rosso. (Although some of the guidance counselors at my school were as bad as you hear.)

Most people of my generation seem to think that "Mean Girls" was the pinnacle of what high school was like, but I just can't relate. "Freaks and Geeks" ... that I get. And to think, one of the co-creators was Mr. Poole from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch."