Good Thor's day, all, El Cosmico here, with some words from a concerned reader, regarding the cancellation of a favorite to many, Freaks and Geeks.
Yea, this show has met its fate, and while I confess that I wasn't a huge fan of the show myself, I always think it's a shame when a cute girl like Linda Cardellini gets squeezed off the air. Anyway, the fact is, a whole lot of you seem to have loved this show, and one fine reader took the time to send a good lot of words our way. Many thanks to Boogie2001:
Greetings,
Over the past two days, I have caught a sad stream of reports declaring the very unfortunate cancellation of Freaks and Geeks. For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, all I can say is "How typical". Freaks and Geeks is the only new show on televion that shines a realistic light upon adolescence. It is a true gem because unlike WB's "Dawson's Creek" or the dreaded "Popular", which do little more than tell teens what they should try to be, "Freaks and Geeks" tells kids that is ok to be what you are. With the use of realistic characters and situations, the only problem the show had was not only the lack of over all promotion by NBC, but also an unruly ammount of schedule shifting, which one of the show's producers described when he said:
" From a Saturday at 8PM time slot, from a two episode launch that was then interrupted by the World Series, from a two month "hiatus" (yet another word I've grown to hate) only to relaunch and be pulled after a few weeks, to another month off only to be relaunched yet again and then cancelled after two airings well, we've gotten some pretty shabby treatment."
Perhaps this only proves one thing about television in general. Anytime an attempt in made to place any thing that is truly inspired within the crevices of this "idiot box", it either goes three ways:
1)It is slowly smoothed out over the years to conform to convention, those forfeiting its edge (The X-Files)
2) Its formula becomes copied over and over so many times that you can no longer enjoy it (Seinfeld).
3)or it is just simply snuffed out by the unruly tag team tyrany of television executives and the Neilsen ratings system.
It seems as if the Freaks and Geeks were flunked out by the last one.
The producers are trying to shop the show's unseen 5 episodes as well as the rest of the series to other stations such as Fox and WB. IF you know of a way, please try to contact these channels and beg them to air the show on their station.
Fare thee well, Boogie2001
Here's a copy of a letter from the official site, http://www.freaksandgeeks.com, addressed to all fans of the show:
"A thank you to our fans.
Dear "Freaks and Geeks" fan, supporter and friend, Well, what can we say? We've never been the kind to sugarcoat bad news so here it is. Not that you don't already know... We've been cancelled. Although in this wonderful business we call Show Business, the term they‚ve used is "pulled." Yes, we've been pulled. Indefinitely.
"Indefinitely pulled."
Strange term, isn't it? It's like when they say on the news that somebody was "fatally wounded." I heard that term for years and thought that they meant the person who was "fatally wounded" was just hurt really, really bad. It took me years to figure out that they meant the poor sap was dead. And so, I guess that means "Freaks and Geeks" is fatally wounded. Doesn't make us feel any better, does it? We don‚t know what to say. We fought a good fight. You the fans were so amazing and so supportive and so diligent and so loyal that it boggles the mind. If you ever question that we didn‚t appreciate all that you did, put that out of your heads right now. We are in awe of you. Without you, we probably wouldn't have lived this long. But you kept the life in this always-in-danger-of-dying corpse and let us live to see yet one more "relaunch" (another word I've grown to hate). You wrote the letters, you sent the emails, you told your friends, you put the word on the streets. Heck, some of you even called Garth Ancier's house, a gesture that will always make me laugh (but don't do it again!). Bottom line, you guys are the best. And you didn‚t deserve to have the show you loved and we loved treated this way. But we were doomed from the start. From a Saturday at 8PM time slot, from a two episode launch that was then interrupted by the World Series, from a two month "hiatus" (yet another word I've grown to hate) only to relaunch and be pulled after a few weeks, to another month off only to be relaunched yet again and then cancelled after two airings... well, we‚ve gotten some pretty shabby treatment. But, hey, that's TV. That's the way it works sometimes, and you try to sneak stuff by them and sometimes you do and it's a hit and everybody's happy. But most of the time it doesn't work and you have to be happy that you got as many out there as you did.
But we still have five great episodes that you haven't seen that we're desperately trying to get shown somewhere so you can see them and if we can't, we'll drop some tapes into the unofficial tape distribution system and let you see them that way. We're very proud of these shows and nothing would kill us more than for all of you to not be able to see them. So, before we go on too long, let us just say that we love you, we thank you, and we all fought a good fight. We haven't given up the fight yet but we've definitely lost this battle. But we're still pushing to get this show to rise up somewhere else. It's all we can do. And we know it's what you would want us to do.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We couldn't have done it without you. And we've said it before but we'll say it again and this time we mean it more than ever:
You ROCK!!!
Your friends,
Judd and Paul"
So, there you have it...but the fact is, there's always another network around, many of them who don't demand ratings the way the broadcast networks do, and are just looking for a niche demographic. SOOOO... if you love this show, post a talkback and let people know, AND go to the Freaks and Geeks website and send them a letter of support.
-El Cosmico
mail me at:elcosmico@austin.rr.com
