Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Packers

Your team isn't going to the Super Bowl, so why have any optimism? The Hater Nation brings you back to reality with the Super Bowl Buzz Kill. Why your team won't win the Super Bowl:

The Green Bay Packers

The Packers are going to be interesting this season, but of course, all of the early season hype will surround Brett Favre and his quest to break one of the all-time records in sports as he becomes the NFL�s interception king. And that march towards the record could be a little distracting. Especially if some of the rumors are true that Favre has been, well, maybe using some performance enhancers to extend his career and make a push for the record.

Because as anybody knows, if Jake Plummer ever comes out of retirement, he is definitely going to break Favre�s all-time interception record.

Still, you hope that Favre has been doing it naturally, much the same way that George Blanda did. The former Bears, Raiders, Oilers, etc. quarterback did it on hot dogs and beer. But how did Favre do it?

THN dug up a college photo from Southern Miss to take a look at how the elder statesmen�s body has changed through the years. Because if we have learned anything from the Barry Bonds chase, it�s this�if your body does not look the same as it did when you where in college, you are on the juice. Hell, if your body doesn�t look the same from when you were in your mid 20s, you are certainly one the juice.

And sadly, but looking at the picture, we can see that Favre has gained a little weight from his college days. His arms practically doubled in size. Shame on you, Brett.

This could derail a rather promising season for Green Bay. Honestly, the Packers are on to something here. The young defense, led by A.J. Hawk and veterans such as Charles Woodson has a chance to be really good. Rookie receiver James Jones is going to be the starter by the fourth week, if not sooner because of injuries. Then you have a miserable division with the Vikings and Lions, plus the Bears will come back to Earth as most Super Bowl runners up do, there could be a chance for the Packers to win the division. The only concern is Brandon Jackson and Vernand Morency at running back. They aren�t good. Green Bay has enough to make it to the playoffs, but beyond that? Probably not. Especially as those whispers get louder.

Mad Men: Stair master

Spoilers for the latest "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I fill up my chip 'n dip...

"You know who else doesn't wear a hat? Elvis. That's what we're dealing with." -Pete Campbell
"Remind me to stop hiring young people!" -Bertram Cooper

Black is white, up is down, and Pete is absolutely right in a conversation where Mr. Cooper couldn't be more wrong. Though Pete's his usual overcompensating putz of a self the rest of the episode (we'll get back to his target practice foreplay in a bit), he's the only man in the Nixon brainstorming session who actually recognizes the threat John F. Kennedy poses -- not just to Nixon's presidential ambitions, but to the status quo that the men of Sterling-Cooper are dedicated to maintaining. Cooper and Roger see Kennedy's hatless-ness as a deficit; Pete recognizes the newness of it, and the fact that the country seems ready to embrace something new.

"Mad Men" takes place at the dawn of JFK's New Frontier, the tipping point when the culture (both high and pop) began being driven by young people. As Andrew Johnston wrote while discussing the Paul subplot in episode two, "the Mad Men era is one of the last times in American social history when younger men strived to appear older rather than vice versa." Of course Sterling and Cooper see Nixon as their dream candidate; they're on the losing side of history and don't even realize it. (Don's not immune to this, either, as evidenced by the deodorant campaign from a few episodes back where he dismissed all of Paul's space-age ideas as something that would scare housewives.)

While the Pete/Cooper exchange is just a small part of episode seven, "Red in the Face," the tension between the generations is a key part of the friction between Don and Roger. Roger, put out when his wife, daughter and mistress all go away on the same weekend, comes home for dinner at the Draper house and when Don's not looking, he makes a pass at Betty as he feels is his right as the senior man. (Note how dismissive he is when he says, "Oh, his war" when Betty mentions Don's service in Korea.) At first, Don -- his head still stuck on a conversation where Betty's shrink claimed she had the emotional make-up of a little girl -- puts the blame on Betty, but when Roger is a bit too effusive in his apology the next day, Don figures out what really happened and begins plotting his revenge, which is built entirely on him being younger and in better shape than Roger. (Note that he never really apologizes to Betty, though.) He bribes the building elevator operator to fake an out of service situation, then takes Roger out for a lunch overflowing with martinis, oysters and cheesecake -- the sort of thing he can just barely handle, but which he knows will cause Roger all sorts of discomfort when they have to climb 23 flights of stairs. Roger ends up projectile vomiting in front of the Nixon people, and I have to wonder how much of Don's glee at the end is about humiliating Roger and how much is about the prospect of not having to work for Nixon.

While Don is busy getting revenge, Pete and Betty are each suffering mini-meltdowns. Pete has to exchange a duplicate wedding gift and it's such an emasculating ordeal that he decides to use the store credit to buy a .22 caliber rifle to overcompensate for his feelings of penile inadequacy. This only leads to more hen-pecking from his wife, and so Pete takes the gun to the office again and creeps out Peggy by revealing a long, detailed fantasy about being an old-school hunter-gatherer in the woods. (What are we to make, though, of Peggy's trip to the lunch cart immediately after? I have a harder time reading Elisabeth Moss than anyone else in the cast.)

Betty, meanwhile, runs into Helen the divorcee at the market, and the snipped lock of hair from episode four comes back to bite her. "He is nine years old," Helen complains. "What is wrong with you?" -- which prompts Betty to slap her across the face (not as hard as the dad slapped the kid at the birthday party, but still) and storm out of the store without any of her groceries.

So here's my question for the peanut gallery: how accurate, if at all, is the shrink's assessment of Betty? We're supposed to view him as an aloof, sexist figure since he reveals everything about the sessions to Don, but at the same time, something is definitely wrong in Betty's head. Giving Helen's son the lock of hair was a poor choice, and slapping Helen was an incredibly childish response.

Another strong episode. What did everybody else think?

Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Buccaneers

Your team isn't going to the Super Bowl, so why have any optimism? The Hater Nation brings you back to reality with the Super Bowl Buzz Kill. Why your team won't win the Super Bowl:

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Now, long-time readers of The Hater Nation know that the Buccaneers preview provides a perfect opportunity to talk about Carmella DeCashowdidyouscorethischick? And you�re right. This would be a perfect opportunity, but the truth is, there is a lot of love for Jeff Garcia. And one of the THN patron saints, Jon Gruden. So it�s hard to talk about this team.

And let�s not forget about The Captain. Not the fruity mascot from the 1970s, but an actual fan that we drank beers with prior to Super Bowl 37 in San Diego. A dude we ended up hugging after that glorious Buccaneers victory.

Well, hopefully he was a Buccaneers fan and not some dude in an eye patch, because that would be like, totally embarrassing.

But back to the matter at hand, the Buccaneers aren�t going to win the Super Bowl. And they aren�t going to the Super Bowl. The unimaginative football sites can poke fun at the Bucs quarterback position, noting that Jake Plummer would have rather retired than play in Tampa Bay. And that�s lame.

But there might be some truth to it. Not that Jake wouldn�t want to compete with Garcia and Chris Simms and that polish guy, but who the hell is going to catch the ball on this team? Boise State has a more reliable group of receivers. Seems that maybe instead of picking up quarterbacks the way homeless pirates in San Diego collect bottles and hugs, the team might have gone out and addressed that glaring need at receiver. A position so bad, that Buccaneers fans are reminiscing about the Keyshawn Johnson era.

Sorry Tampa, much love for you, but it just ain�t happening.

Dog day treats

Two links courtesy of Matt at Throwing Things related to upcoming stuff on two of our favorite sitcoms: What the folks from "The Office" did on their summer vacations, and a Slap Countdown clock that's going to figure into early episodes of "HMYM." Some spoilers in the former, but clearly none the production team doesn't want us to know about.

5 for the Day: Underdog Sports Movies

Over at The House Next Door, I wrote a post about five of my favorite movies from my favorite genre of all time.

Tossed salad and scrambled eggs

The true downside of the Angels sweep of the Mariners is that the Yankees are now tied for the wild card lead in the AL. Not that it matters, as the Yanks have been nothing but a speed bump for the Angels in the postseason, and there is nothing to suggest that things will be anything different this season.

But you almost have to pity Seattle. A town that is unremarkable, other than its weather. And if you really must know the truth, New York City gets more rainfall each year than Seattle, meaning that the one thing its known for, other than a high suicide rate, was once again stolen by Gotham City. That suicide rate probably spiked on Wednesday like it was a Dungy family reunion after realizing that the Mariners were once again destined to play second fiddle in the AL West. Not that a five-game deficit (with 29 games to play) is insurmountable, but Seattle was already going downhill before the Angels kicked out the parking break.

Still, thanks for the hospitality Seattle, it was a nice way to start the week. And if it makes you feel any better, the rest of the country is pulling for you to win the wild card, so good luck with all of that.

Dog days open thread

I've got nothing today, people. No column, no show I watched last night to blog on (I went with the real Yankees over the "Bronx is Burning" finale, which I'll get to later in the week), no remaining "Freaks and Geeks" episodes. So it's open thread time, where you can ask any questions, post on shows I've skipped lately, whatever.

Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Seahawks

Your team isn't going to the Super Bowl, so why have any optimism? The Hater Nation brings you back to reality with the Super Bowl Buzz Kill. Why your team won't win the Super Bowl:

Seattle Seahawks

Injuries derailed the Seattle Seahawks who did the impossible last season�being a Super Bowl runner up that actually made the playoffs the following year. Though, when you really think about it, the Seahawks really did outplay the Steelers in Super Bowl 40, so it is only fitting that the Steelers choked like a Super Bowl runner up, while the Hawks gutted out another NFC West title.

And there�s the rub. The Hawks have ruled the roost in the NFC West, the NFL equivalent of summer school. But getting to the Super Bowl is another challenge because of the injuries.

Shaun Alexander last year tried to pray his way to health and that didn�t quite work out. Not to knock anybody�s spirituality, but this whole notion of God as a super hero is kind of offensive. A poster on some message board somewhere might have put it best when he/she said that God is not some genie in a bottle who grants wishes when you rub the bottle. God does not care about sporting events.

Or so you would think.

Turns out that God cares. A lot. Once knew a dude who was in God�s fantasy football league and he said that The Almighty was a serious competitor. He is also a big Kurt Warner fan, too, although he was pissed that he plugged his son instead of him after the Super Bowl, but God ain�t mad at him. Besides, after marrying Brenda is there really anything God could do to Warner at this point?

Don�t think that God doesn�t put a hand in determining the outcome of certain sporting events. God healed Terrell Owens leg because he knew it would be more painful for T.O. to actually be on the field and lose than to stand on the sidelines and think that he could have made a difference.

And do we even have to talk about the Buccaneers and Super Bowl 37?

Of course, the non-believers will point to Georgia Frontandrearie and Art Modell, and that�s tough to explain, but hey God work�s in mysterious ways.

But rest assured that God cares about sports (and reality TV� keep praying Amber), but that is going to work heavily against the Seahawks. And it has nothing to do with those lame uniforms. Turns out God is a huge Texas A&M fan. Huge. The deity doesn�t think much of the Seahawks stealing that whole 12th Man thing from Texas A&M. Seriously Seattle, why did you stop there? Why not go for a Gig �em Seahawks?

So there you have it. God hates the Seahawks, who have probably always suspected as much.

Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Raven

Your team isn't going to the Super Bowl, so why have any optimism? The Hater Nation brings you back to reality with the Super Bowl Buzz Kill. Why your team won't win the Super Bowl:

Raven

Stacy Keibler was once a Raven cheerleader. Now their cheerleaders have a bunch of dudes like
this guy.

Kind of a let down, huh? And that is what Raven has become. Probably the biggest letdown in the NFL.

Overshadowed in the Chargers epic meltdown against New England, was Raven�s absolutely flaccid performance against the Colts. Getting hoodwinked by the Patriots is one thing, but Tony Dungy outwitted Brian Billick, and killed any hope of delivering the one game everybody wanted to see last year, Raven vs. The Chargers.

Raven had the league�s best defense, but once again, the offense continues to be a sore spot. The team managed just six points against the Colts. Yes, that�s right, six freaking points. But not that anybody should be surprised. Raven has a great defense every year, but the offense blows. Then some wiseass in the booth points out that Billick was an amazing offensive coordinator in Minnesota, but he can never seem to get anything going in Baltimore. So they will continue to recycle offensive coordinator like Jim Fassel. Who got fired. They go through countless quarterbacks, like Steve McNair, who will eventually fail. Like he did last year. (Hey, what the hell was wrong with Trent Dilfer who won you a Super Bowl?) Now it�s Willis McGahee�s turn to come to Baltimore with a lot of promise, but he too will ultimately fail to get the Ravens going.

Hey, has anybody ever thought of getting rid of Billick? Raven seems content on pissing years away of having the best defense while the offense continues to grind its gears.

Look for Raven to have another great year, even with New England and Indy slated for December visits. Just don�t expect that offense to do anything as the team lets everybody down again.

Must-read blogging

Over at The House Next Door, Matt has written a very moving piece on the reported suicide attempt by Owen Wilson (who Matt knew back in their Dallas days).

Friday Night Lights: Is she really going out with him?

Today's column looks at today's "Friday Night Lights" DVD release through the prism of the Tyra/Landry story arc that began late in the season:

A great TV drama, like a great football team, is often defined by its depth. You need stars to succeed, but you also need players further down the roster who can perform when their number gets called.

I wrote reams and reams of praise about the first season of NBC's "Friday Night Lights": how it's the best show on network TV right now, how it's a drama about high school football that's of equal appeal to sports fans and sports haters alike, how it's so obviously great that NBC actually set up a Web site (fnlguarantee.com) offering a full refund to any unlikely soul who buys today's season one DVD release and doesn't like it.

Most of my talk about the cast, though, focused on the fantastic lead performances by Kyle Chandler as Coach Eric Taylor and Connie "The Emmys Are Irrelevant" Britton as his wife, Tami. One of the best pleasures of today's "FNL" DVD release is the development of a great top-to-bottom cast. In particular, two actors who began the season chained to the end of the bench -- Adrianne Palicki as outcast sexpot Tyra and Jesse Plemons as outcast motormouth Landry -- were playing like MVPs by the time the finale rolled around, both separately and in a beauty-and-the-geek romantic arc.

To read the full thing (including interview stuff from Palicki, Plemons and Jason Katims), click here.

Sports in the other city

Today's column (posted belatedly due to technical issues) previews tonight's episode of "My Boys," which tries very clumsily to distance the show once and for all from "Sex and the City," as well as the one-and-done fate of Fox's "Anchorwoman."

UPDATE: Some specific comments on the half-hilarious, half-annoying episode in the comments.

Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Broncos

Your team isn't going to the Super Bowl, so why have any optimism? The Hater Nation brings you back to reality with the Super Bowl Buzz Kill. Why your team won't win the Super Bowl:

The Denver Broncos

By The Bain

Sometimes I bag on THN. What do you expect? I've been here since the ground was broken. Like the dirty-mouthed old drunk who's watched his watering hole gentrified by a neighborhood influx of yuppies, I sit at the bar smoking Dutch Masters through my tracheotomy hole, rolling my cankered tongue at the young women, and loudly deriding the new brass rails and ferns, some of them planted in pots, others planted at keyboards. I keep it real, as you white children say.

I'm a ballet enthusiast. Used to don the satin codpiece myself back in the day and am quite versed in all technical aspects of dance. Perhaps the finest pas de doh I've ever witnessed unfolded right here at THN last season, after the Denver Broncos used their first draft pick to select Jay Cutler, a move that shocked Jake Plummer as much as it did his fans. And there used to be some very big Jake Plummer fans twirling on their toes here at THN.

To those of us who recognized early in his career that Plummer is a sh*t hook, the move was no surprise. In 2006, after watching the aspirations of his perfectly healthy Broncos team get pissed away at home in the AFC Championship because of the phoned-in effort of a smelly, unkempt, foul mouthed, bird-flipping punk with the arm of a penguin, Mike Shanahan saw the writing on the wall.

"Anyone can fling it ten yards," Coach huffed to reporters after that game. "Janet Elway's colon can fling it ten yards."

A dig at Plummer?

Not if you asked the Cult of Jake. No, to hear it from Plummer fans, there were dozens of possible reasons why the Donks cashed out on a quarterback � because they wanted Jake to know he had a good backup, because they wanted to season Cutler for a lucrative future trade, because Cutler has amazing clipboard strength, because Cutler has brown hair, because Arthur Godfrey's dick was huge � not one of them being that they had a problem at QB.

Of course, that was it. Halfway through the season, Dirt Lip got the cane, freeing him to play professional handball, a sport perfectly suited to Plummer in that it a) has no fans, b) can be played drunk, and c) seldom requires passes of more than seven or eight feet.

Enough ancient history, you say. Why won't the Broncos win the Super Bowl now that they have a quarterback who can launch it? Answer: because their defense is going to be awful. In lunging for Cutler, the Donks neglected some glaring D problems, leaving them with a pass rush so flaky the Pillsbury Doughboy could use it for a fifi. In the secondary, Lynch and Bailey can still bring it, but they're getting old. Employing this pair as the last line of defense between LT and the endzone is like hiring Chris Benoit to manage a Bed Bath & Beyond. Mishaps are inevitable.

And that's why history matters. Had Denver said "no thanks" when Jake's Snake Oil Show rolled past town, their roster wouldn't be so flimsy. As it stands, the Donks approach this season like Steve Irwin bobbing toward the Barrier Reef... wild-eyed, misguided, and certain to be penetrated.

Busting loose

Spoilers for, in order, the "Kill Point" finale, "Flight of the Conchords" and, extremely briefly, "Entourage," coming up just as soon as I swap clothes with somebody who's not really my size...

Not a bad ending to "The Kill Point," I thought. There were some characters and set-ups that never really went anywhere -- Omar the sniper felt particularly wasted, as did the couple locked in the closet -- but there were so much else going on that I felt I got a reasonable amount of pay-offs. Mr. Wolf finally had to step in and deal with one of the psycho brothers (though when did Rabbit start acting crazier than Pig?), the writers faked me out on Cali's reasons for helping the escape (at first I assumed he had realized the only way to save the hostages was to get Wolf away from the other cops), and Leguizamo and Wahlberg got one more strong scene together at the end. I'm not saying it was perfect, but on the miniseries' own modest level, it got the job done.

(Also, for those wondering about the dedication card to the late "Shield" director/producer Scott Brazil, Brazil was supposed to direct most of "Kill Point," but died before production began.)

As I recall, last night's "Flight of the Conchords" was supposed to air sometime earlier in the summer, but it got pushed back to be the season's penultimate episode. As the show doesn't really do ongoing plotlines (when I interviewed them, the guys implied that after the Coco/Sally stuff was over, they were glad to be rid of any arc responsibilities), it's not a big deal, but it does have me thinking about why. As we've discussed before, the plot's kind of besides the point on this show, yet this episode felt a little overwhelmed by its story, which is one of those stock sitcom plots -- The Lie That Goes Too Far -- they've been doing since a few days after Philo T. Farnsworth invented the TV.

As such, this felt the least "Conchord"-y of any episode so far, even though I found it funnier than, say, either of the Sally episodes. I liked both songs, though the ode to Murray was the smarter of the two (the "Lord of the Rings" tune was largely carried by the video elements), and there were the usual brilliant little moments, like Dave's story about the five women who wanted to marry him, Murray not understanding why Mel was speaking Elvish, Murray insisting on calling roll at the impromptu band meeting, or Will Forte turning away from the guys without actually walking away. (His character, by the way, reminded me a bit of an old Alec Baldwin "SNL" sketch called "The Mimic," about a man who can only do three or four voices, all of them terrible.) It was unexpected but not off-key to have Jemaine be the more sensible member of the band for once, and Murray's explosion at learning he had been fooled was great, as was the revelation that he was bottomless for the entire final scene.

Finally (sigh), "Entourage." Well, at least the writers had Vince acknowledge that everything always works out fine for him, but it wasn't funny the way it was when Jerry Seinfeld did it in "The Opposite." Unless the Cannes episode features some amazing uptick in quality -- a practical impossibility, I think, since comedy road trip episodes invariably stink -- I can't imagine wanting to watch this show again next season, even if it's again the lead-in to "Conchords." Life's too short.

What did everybody else think?

The Post Mortem

Some people just never learn.

Daunte Culpepper has looked good during the preseason, and already the stories are out about the quarterback�s renaissance. Pep was amazing against the St. Louis football team and has played pretty well in the preseason leading to many proclamations by Raiders fans that the old Culpepper is back. Maybe the Raiders should consider trading JaMarcus Russell because Culpepper is the man, according to HowieLover75 on some Raiders message board. A thought echoed by many.

Hey morons, now it�s evident that using a crushed Coke can as a pipe has eroded your brain enough to allow you to be a Raiders fan. But it was only last (expletive) year that the Raiders were 4-1 in the preseason, leading all of the lemmings in the spike shoulder pads to believe that last year was going to be the Raiders rebirth under Art Shell.

How did that work out for you?

But hell, why tell you this? Yes, put your entire future on Culpepper�s shoulders and trade away Russell. Because winning preseason games seems like the only thing you are striving for and capable of.

NFL�s LEADING SCORER
The NFL has a new scoring champion, but no, it is not LaDainian Tomlinson�s record that has fallen. Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry is the father of nine children out of wedlock. That�s right Mrs. Bueller, nine children out of wedlock. Wow, who still has unprotected sex? After the third or fourth kid, the thought never occurred to him to wrap the thing up? Hell, a vasectomy would probably have been a better option if he wanted to continue to test fate. Speaking of which, knowing that Henry rides bareback should be comforting to those on the bottom of the pile.

And no, Henry didn�t harm any animals so that will thankfully keep people from thinking about the 18 lives that he might not have ruined, but probably put them at a heavy disadvantage.

And now, watching the NFL preseason so you don�t have to.

• The St. Louis football team is playing a game at Oakland. Uh, does somebody need to send Al Qaeda a football schedule?

• Damon Huard has been selected to be the Chiefs starting quarterback in Kansas City, not because he was so impressive. Hell, he didn�t even play this week. But rather, Brodie Croyle is just that awful. Wow, a quarterback from the SEC who blows. You never see that happening. So it will be Huard for the Chiefs. Might as well go ahead and spend that playoff ticket deposit now.

• There was a LenDale White sighting. Hey, he might not be one of the most disappointing players in the NFL. But you know it�s preseason when Vince Young is actually completing passes.

• With the birth of Tom Brady�s son this week, Hollywood should brace itself for the invasion of two quarterback Hollywood star (expletives) in 18 years when Baby Brady and Baby Leinart are hitting the club circuit and playing college football. And here is a little fantasy advice, stay away from any Carolina Panthers players. That offense is, well, offensive. That Panther of the side of the helmet should be viewed as a huge warning sign.

• Again, you should never wager on preseason games, but putting your money on Gomer in meaningless games always seems profitable, probably because he�s the only one who cares. What are his numbers in the Pro Bowl and preseason? Probably staggering when compared against his playoff and Super Bowl numbers. Hell, even Jim Sorgi got into the act. You know it just kills Sorgi to have to show up to these games sober. They should have gone Pop Warner and had Sorgi suit up for the Lions. what the hell happened to all of the Lions quarterbacks? The team had toyed with the idea of exhuming the body of George Plimpton to play QB on Saturday night.

• So God will give us a lightning storm to spare us the horror of watching a Redskins football game, and yet Dick Cheney is still alive? Something just doesn�t add up here. Then again, God's involved with more important things, like who is going to win the veto competition on Big Brother.
  

• Rex Grossman seemed to have a little bit of redemption when he tossed two touchdowns on Saturday night. But then he had to throw that interception, which was returned for a touchdown. So really, he tossed three touchdowns. But maybe the Bears should look into a system where Grossman only plays half of a game, and Brian Griese can play the second half. Hey, that might work.

• What are the Browns waiting for with Brady Quinn? He�s looked against third-stringers in preseason, but maybe you ought to give him a chance against the starters just to see what happens.

• What was Norv Turner trying to prove by keeping Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates in the game so long on Saturday? But Chargers fans had better get used to those games coming down to the wire, and hoping that the team�s superior players can make enough plays to win the game, because San Diego will never out-coach anybody.

• Looks like the Wanderers picked the wrong week to pull out of their funk. Especially for us die-hard Reading fans. But please, refrain from the Kansas City Royals jokes.

• The Angels open a critical three-game series at Seattle this week, but the obvious question is where is ESPN for all of this? Heated division rivals and two of the top three teams in the American League (if not all of baseball). And yet, the ESPN hype machine is nothing but a whimper.Fifty three of 1,000 words, and THN will be accused of being a Angels blog again. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
  

AND FINALLY
Leave it to Chad Johnson to add to the insanity of the whole Michael Vick situation with this gem.

"I love Vick," he said. "Everybody makes mistakes. The president of the United States made a mistake. To everybody that gets to see this: All y'all have made mistakes. Maybe not as big as this one. But we all make mistakes.

"We all have grown to love Vick the football player. I still love Vick the football player. I love Vick the person. He made a mistake. I'm going to support him regardless.

"And he will be back, man. You know he'll be back playing. He's one of the greatest athletes to ever play the game - ever. He'll be back, and he'll still be able to do the same things he's done on the field."

Yes, but did Haliburton get rich off the dog fighting?

Freaks and Geeks Rewind: Discos and Dragons

And so we've come to the end of our summer experiment. Very, very, very long spoilers for "Discos and Dragons," the final episode of "Freaks and Geeks," coming up just as soon as I learn to thread the projector...

"Discos and Dragons" was the In Case of Emergency finale. Convinced (rightly) that cancellation was imminent, Judd Apatow told Paul Feig to take as many ideas as he had for the future and stuff them into a single episode while he still had the chance. In fact, they even shot it a few weeks ahead of schedule, just so they would have a proper finale in the can should NBC shut down production early. But the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink aspect to its creation doesn't make the episode feel cluttered. If anything, the three major storylines seem together as if by design. What more perfect ending could there be for this series -- an 18-hour meditation on teenagers struggling to carve new identities for themselves -- than a triptych of stories in which three characters adopt completely unexpected new personas?

It's such a great finale -- one of the best ever, for any show -- that I'm going to ramble on a little more than usual. You may want to print this out and save it for bathroom reading, I don't know.

Let's start with the Dragons portion of the show, in which Daniel hits rock bottom and discovers the geeks are already there, just waiting to invite him to their D&D game.

This subplot actually begins as more of a pure geek story (even though the three central figures of the finale are all freaks). Bill, Sam and Neal are marching down the hallway, speculating on what people are going to write in their yearbooks -- Sam, optimistic, predicts some girl will confess a crush on him, while Neal knows that once again he'll get a lot of "You're a wild and crazy guy"s -- when a bunch of jocks run by, yell their intentions to clean out the geeks, and knock their books to the ground. While this is far from the worst humiliation any of them has suffered this year, it feels like the last straw to Sam, who complains that he doesn't want to be called a geek anymore, and wonders what's so geeky about them. Cue the perfectly-timed Harris, who wanders up with his new Dungeons & Dragons handbook, an easy answer to Sam's question.

Fortunately, sanctuary is only a few doors away, as the geeks arrive at the A/V room, where grown up, unapologetic geek Mr. Fleck always knows just the right thing to say to cheer them up. While puffing on a cigarette (a "cool" behavior he warns them not to imitate), he presents a graph of the lives of the jocks, starting with their early athletic triumphs. "Right there, where they cleaned you out? That's the pinnacle of their lives," he insists, then rattles off all the bad things that will happen to them in the future. The geeks, meanwhile, have nowhere to go but up: Ivy League schools, older girls realizing that they like smart guys, Fortune 500 jobs, and the inevitable moment where the jocks asks them if they want fries with that. (It's a lovely sentiment, but as the show pointed out repeatedly, our three main geeks weren't necessarily that smart -- or, at least, that academically inclined -- and I unfortunately could envision a future where Bill is serving fries to Todd Schellinger.) Sam, because he's 14 and has no interest in the "things get better when you're older" authority figure song and dance, complains that he wants things to improve right away. Mr. Fleck says the best they can do for now is to enjoy the simple pleasures in life... like the 18mm print of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" he just borrowed from his counterpart over at Lincoln. Neal raves that "A/V is paradise on Earth," but Sam doesn't seem convinced.

Speaking of not being academically inclined, Daniel is planning to cheat on Kowchevski's final exam off a guy named Dave, but on discovering that Dave broke his arm in gym class earlier that day, he goes into panic mode and slips out to pull the fire alarm. One problem: Mr. Rosso happens to be rounding the hall and tells him, "Better be a fire, bro." Rosso, as usual, tries to appear down with the young people, suggesting that Daniel thinks he's cool. "Don't think you're the Fonz or something? If a jukebox was broken, think you could hit it and it would start playing?" (Daniel, who probably hasn't watched "Happy Days" since junior high, if ever, just hangs his head in defeat.) Rosso says he's tried to be nice and is tired of Daniel taking advantage of that fact, so now he's going to humiliate Daniel by sending him to... the A/V room. One man's paradise on Earth is another man's Hell, apparently.

As all the geeks are having fun in A/V talking about their experiences screening the "girls' time of the month films," Mr. Fleck breaks the news about Daniel to them. Neal is indignant, both that someone would consider coming here punishment, and that they'll all have to suffer for Daniel's sins. Daniel, mortified and completely shut down (a state he'll remain in until the Dancing Sword scene) enters and tries to appear very, very small and quiet. Sam, who knows him through Lindsay, tries to be friendly without much luck, and the always-optimistic Gordon Crisp asks Daniel if he knows how to fix a projector. Daniel doesn't, and when Gordon offers to teach him, Daniel sinks even lower into his chair and says "Great."

In the cafeteria, Neal tries to get the other geeks to battlestations, insisting that Daniel will ruin the only place in school they like. Gordon shares the usual gossip about the freaks being high all the time and going nuts on drugs, and when Sam tries to defend Daniel as a good guy, Neal rebuts, "Sam, he gave you a porno. I wouldn't say you have a meaningful relationship with him." Over Sam's protests that they don't know him, Neal insists they have to make sure that Daniel shows movies every day so he won't be around to cause problems.

A day or two later, Lindsay, Nick and Kim are in English class with their fop of a teacher, when they're all stunned to see Daniel wheeling in the projector to screen the Zeffirelli "Romeo and Juliet." As the English teacher drones on and on about Zeffirelli casting real teenagers in the title role, Nick coughs out a "Geek!," Lindsay glances at Daniel with pity and Daniel struggles mightily to get the film going. After repeated assistance from some random kid, the projector starts working, the class gives Daniel a round of mock applause ("Saints be praised," sighs the teacher) and Daniel shrinks into a chair again, hating himself.

Daniel tries to throw himself a pity party, but Kim refuses the invitation, saying that it was his own choice to pull the fire alarm. "I suck at math!" Daniel moans. "I suck at everything!" Kim (either fed up with Daniel getting into trouble or feeling sorry for herself about the impending arrival of another crappy summer) has no pep talk to give him, and when Daniel complains that he always listens to her rant about her problems, she tells him coldly, "Why don't you go tell it to the fire alarm?"

(I feel like the episode's missing a scene, or even a line or two of dialogue, that gets more deeply into Kim's reasons for distancing herself from Daniel. It's not like he's done anything to her directly that would piss her off, but at the same time her being on the outs with him helps set up her scenes with Lindsay in the Deadhead plot, as well as Daniel's scenes with the geeks.)

In the hallway, Bill and Neal are getting excited about the upcoming D&D game. Bill wants to be a thief named Gorthon, even though Neal complains that he always falls down a well trying to steal stuff. Neal's going to stick with his Kragenmor the Destroyer character (apologies if I misspelled that one; my F&G script books are packed away right now) and asks Sam if Logan the Huge will be joining them. Sam's still suffering his bout of geek self-hatred and says he doesn't want to play. Neal accuses him of feeling too cool since he dumped Cindy (even though part of the reason Sam dumped Cindy was so he could go back to having fun as a geek). They argue over whether the game's too geeky, and Sam realizes he left a book back in A/V. He goes to retrieve it and finds Daniel slaving over the projector and a manual, desperately trying to learn how to be good at something for once.

The next day in A/V, Harris is boasting about the D&D campaign he has planned for that night (Gordon and Bill naturally go off on a tangent about the hot-looking goddesses in the handbooks) and mentions the use of the Dancing Sword. Daniel, who's been sitting small and silent as usual, stuns everyone by asking what the Dancing Sword is. Harris explains that it's a sword that can fight independently of its owner, and when Daniel complains about knights staying home and sending swords into battle for them, Sam tells him that the owner has to be nearby, and that the Dancing Sword is just a gimmick to allow you to fight two enemies at once. Daniel's genuinely impressed by this, and Harris -- who, don't forget, once suggested Daniel might make a good Dungeonmaster -- invites him to come play tonight, to Daniel's confusion and Neal's dismay. Harris insists Daniel would like it, and when Daniel laments that he wouldn't be good at it, Sam talks about how much fun they have telling stupid jokes and scarfing down junk food. Then Gordon -- lovable, always look on the bright side of life Gordon -- puts it in irresistible language for Daniel: "And the best part is, you get to pretend to be somebody you can't be in real life." Daniel agrees to play but tries to manage expectations about how terrible he'll be. Harris says he can't be worse than Bill, then asks Sam if he'll play. With his sister's cool, leather jacket-wearing friend in on the game, suddenly D&D seems more intriguing to Sam and he agrees.

That night in the Weir dining room, the geeks set about transforming Daniel into one of their own. Harris explains that Daniel will have to roll for his ability scores, and when the other geeks complain that Harris likes to use his role as Dungeonmaster to mess with their heads, he says in this marvelously sarcastic (and yet very Canadian) tone of voice, "Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps I should let you encounter kittens and grandmas, so as not to upset you." Daniel rolls the dice, and it quickly becomes clear that he'll be a dwarf. Daniel doesn't want that, he wants to be a big destroyer guy like Neal plays as, but the guys convince him that dwarves are better at a lot of things than people give them credit for. (Again, this is just the message Daniel wants/needs to hear.) So he agrees, so long as he can call himself Carlos (no doubt an homage to Santana, which he and Nick discussed back in "Tricks and Treats"). "Carlos the Dwarf?" asks Bill, incredulous. "Yeah, you got a problem with it, Gorthon?" Daniel retorts sarcastically. When he sees all the geeks recoil at his tone (again, they don't know him), he laughs and says he was just joking, and from there on out, things go smoothly.

We don't see any actual playing of the game (though there's a deleted scene where Daniel figures out how to get everyone safely out of a dark cavern), but we see a montage of everyone -- especially Daniel -- having a blast. We return a few hours later (a record finish for a D&D campaign?) to Daniel proudly declaring, "Greetings, princess. It is I, Carlos the Dwarf. The dragon has been slain, and you're free to rule your kingdom." Harris congratulates him, the geeks all applaud. Daniel looks the happiest that we have ever seen him and asks if they can play again tomorrow night. As Daniel goes to the kitchen for a soda (after first asking the other guys if he can get them something, another sign of how happy and grateful he is to be in their presence, as he would never make the same offer to Ken), the geeks quietly huddle up and ponder the significance of Daniel's presence. "Does him wanting to play with us again mean he's turning into a geek or we're turning into cool guys?" asks Bill. Sam mulls it over and decides, "I'm going to go for us becoming cool guys."

If it hadn't been for Daniel's stint as a punk in "Noshing and Moshing," and, to a lesser extent, some of the scenes in "Looks and Books" (including the deleted bit where he asks Kowchevski for tutoring), I might have a harder time buying the geek wish-fulfillment aspects of all this. But Daniel's clearly been someone searching for a new role to play other than King of the Dirtbags, so why not Carlos the Dwarf?

So here's my question: in your imagined second season of this show, how long did Daniel's geekdom last? It's kind of a nice respite from all the crap in his life, but at the same time Daniel's 3-4 years older than his new pals, and if there's been a ruling impulse in his life other than self-loathing, it's a need to seem cool. He agrees to play in part because he's estranged from his own group; Kim and Nick mocked his moment of shame with the projector, and he and Kim had another of their temporary break-ups. What's going to happen when Kim comes back from following the Dead and finds out that Daniel's been hanging out with a bunch of freshman nerds and playing Dungeons & Dragons? How much is Ken going to make fun of him for this? And would Daniel have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for his new friends, or would he immediately fall back into his old pattern of delinquency and not giving a damn? And how exactly would Mr. Weir respond to the hoodlum he didn't want around Lindsay (more on that below) suddenly hanging out with young Sam?

While you mull that over, let's move on to Nick's story of death by disco.

It's the Friday night before Daniel's fateful D&D game, and the bowling alley on 15 Mile is having its weekly disco night (where Mr. Rosso picked up the woman who gave him herpes), DJ'ed by none other than the guy who sold Sam his Parisian night suit. Daniel and Ken show up, dragging Kim and Lindsay (but not Amy, no doubt a victim of the out-of-order production) along for a freak tradition: mocking disco and anything associated with it. Daniel and Ken count to three and yell out "Disco sucks!," which brings the entire dance floor to a halt... including a polyester-clad Nick, who's there with Abba-loving Sara, whom he's been dating on the sly for a while now.

The freaks are all aghast and, back at school, they try to get to the bottom of this strange new relationship. Kim insists to Lindsay that this is just a ploy to make Lindsay jealous. Ken does a slow burn as Sara calls him "Kenny" and invites him to practice dance moves with her and Nick. They're so excessively schmoopy that Ken finally asks Nick, "When does Allen Funt come boogieing out?" Nick, having gone completely to the dark side, starts comparing disco favorably to Led Zeppelin, and Ken bluntly states the making-Lindsay-jealous theory. When Nick storms off, annoyed, Ken grabs Lindsay and begs her to start dating Nick again; "I can't take much more of this."

In his basement -- still bereft of the drum kit -- Nick and Sara practice their moves in preparation for him competing in that week's dance contest at the bowling alley. Nick marvels at how good he is at this, since he couldn't stand disco. Maybe, he suggests, "you end up being the best at something you hate." As if that wasn't enough of a warning sign to Sara, he goes on to talk about how good Lindsay is at math even though she doesn't enjoy it, and Sara wisely calls a time-out to find out what Nick's feelings are for his ex. Nick pledges his allegiance to Sara, and she confesses that he's had a crush on him since the sixth grade. "I can't believe that you like me," she says. (She's Nick's own Nick, way too into him for anyone's sake.)

The night of the contest, Ken literally drags Lindsay through the bowling alley, begging her to help him undo Nick's disco brainwashing, but the DJ spots him as the heckler from last week and tries to mock him in turn. As the bouncer drags him out, Ken points that the place is empty and disco is dead, but the DJ insists (in a marvel of spacey devotion by Joel Hodgson), "Disco is alive! It's alive, I tell you! You know it, and I know it, and" -- as he puts "I Will Survive" on the turntable -- "Miss Gloria Gaynor knows it, too!"

(One person who doesn't know it: the bouncer, who tells Ken he's right, and that Disco Night will be replaced by Foxy Boxing as of next week.)

Lindsay's on her own, and Nick insists to her that he's not doing this to win her back. "I'm not some idiot," he says. "You told me to move on, and so I did." Nick goes on and on about how Sara's introduced him to all kinds of new things, and that he even quit smoking pot. Lindsay -- who might still be with him had he been willing to give up the ganja -- is taken aback, and tries to recover by complimenting him for the achievement. "You seem like you're having way more fun with her than you ever did with me," she says, before wishing him luck in the contest and walking out.

As Nick turns back towards the dance floor, he looks completely and utterly defeated; he was putting on a good front for Lindsay, but everyone was 100 percent right that this entire thing has been one painful, unsuccessful ruse to win her back. (Lindsay's expression as she exits is harder to read; obviously, she's upset he couldn't find the strength to stop smoking pot while he was with her, but I can't decide if she wishes she was still with him now that he's clean.)

The opening bass line of "The Groove Line" begins, and after Nick casts one last regretful look back at the departing Lindsay, he puts on his angry game face and launches into an epic dance routine, at once smooth (the moves themselves, which he's great at) and ridiculous (the look on his face, which is 1000 times too intense for the moment). In one of the commentaries, Apatow laments that intercutting the dance scene with Lindsay's departure casts the scene in a much sadder tone than he maybe wanted, but I think that's what makes it brilliant. It's comic and tragic at the same time: Nick now trapped in a relationship he hates as much as Lindsay hated being with him, discovering that he's a far better disco dancer than he ever was a rock drummer, strutting around that dance floor looking like he wants to kill someone. If it didn't require so much advance knowledge about Nick and Lindsay and their doomed relationship, I would easily pick it as the perfect scene to show to someone to explain the genius of the series. As it is, Segel's dancing is so funny I might use it, anyway.

And even if Nick's dancing gets a little too sad for Apatow's liking, the button to this subplot is so hysterical on its own that all should be forgiven. After Nick's turn is over, he's replaced by "the magical disco stylings of Eugene," a floppy-haired, leisure suit-wearing guy who doesn't so much dance as do a little mime and then start pulling out scarves, canes and playing cards for various tricks. The crowd eats it up, and as Nick sees even this hollow victory slipping away, he protests, "They didn't say you were allowed to do magic!" (As if he would have been able to had he just been allowed.) Sara then commits the cardinal girlfriend sin of rooting for the other guy, saying of Eugene, "Wow. He's really good." (Check the look of disgust on Nick's face in reaction to that; as if he didn't already hate this relationship enough, you know?)

Finally, we come to the one D-word left out of the title: Deadhead.

The same English teacher who took such delight in disparaging Daniel announces to the class that our very own Lindsay Weir has been selected to attend a prestigious two-week academic summit at the University of Michigan. Lindsay doesn't seem pleased by this development, especially after hearing a description that involves daily ranking, competitions and rivalries -- in other words, all the things she gladly left behind when she quit Mathletes.

Mr. Rosso is dumbfounded by Lindsay's unhappy reaction. She protests that she hasn't studied much this year; are the other students in Michigan that dumb? No, Rosso tells her; she's just that darned smart! He starts quoting lyrics from the Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain," which she predictably doesn't recognize, and after a bit of Abbott and Costello ("Quoting the who?" "Not The Who! The Grateful Dead!"), he pulls out his copy of "American Beauty" (the album, not the movie) and explains that it helped get him through a lot of confusing times in college. (Or did it? More below.) Sensing her confusion, he loans her the record to help her get through finals and get her mind right for the summit -- not realizing how badly this one decision will backfire for McKinley High's academic pride.

While Lindsay's walking through the cafeteria, the Deadheads we first met in "Smooching and Mooching" spot the album tucked under her arm and compliment her good taste. Lindsay admits she's never heard it before, and they tell her it's the best album ever. Deadhead Samaire gushes, in her glassy way, "I wish I never heard it, just so I could hear it again for the first time." After school, Lindsay drops the needle on the record, and as "Box of Rain" begins to play, she lets the music slowly wash over her, until she's swinging her arms and dancing around like she's standing in the mud at Woodstock. (Cardellini and Segel must have been killer dance partners when they were still together, no?) Clearly, the music speaks to her like it spoke to Mr. Rosso.

At dinnertime, Jean and Harold rave about Lindsay getting into the summit, and are taken aback when she suggests she might not go. "Are you wacky?" asks Harold. (John Daley has a great moment where he laughs and repeats "Wacky?" with his mouth full of food.) "You are going to that summit, Lindsay. It isn't even open for debate." Jean and Harold explain that she'll be exposed to so many great people, get a foothold into attending any college she wants, and shut down any of Lindsay's attempts to protest.

At the cafeteria, the Deadheads tell Lindsay stories of following the Dead around on tour. Deadhead Samaire talks about a show in Jersey where it started raining, and everyone danced in the mud, and when a rainbow fell over the stage, "I started crying." (The funny thing is, Samaire sounds exactly like she does when she's not playing a stoned character.) The male Deadhead pulls a Gordon Crisp and puts the culture into language Lindsay can get behind: "It's about being together and having a good time... Judging has nothing to do with it. That's not what the Dead are about. It's about being connected and being free." They intend to spend a week and a half after school ends following the Dead from Texas to Colorado, and when Lindsay sheepishly explains she won't be able to go because of the academic summit, they cement their position as her new idols by not judging her about it, saying, "You gotta do what you gotta do."

While walking the halls with Kim, Lindsay complains about the summit and how it'll feel like going back into school. Kim, as she did with Daniel, declines to feign sympathy, instead noting that at least Lindsay gets to leave town for a while and do something, while Kim herself will be stuck behind because she has no money and, besides, Daniel hates going anywhere. Lindsay -- relatively well-off Lindsay, with her functional, supportive parents -- tries to suggest that Kim can go anywhere she wants, but Kim -- she of the ramshackle home, harpy of a mother and creepy stepdad -- replies, "That's easy for you to say, Lindsay, 'cause you get to leave. I don't."

(Watching the episode in chronological order, we then spend a while with Lindsay and Nick at the bowling alley, but when I sorted my notes by storyline, I was struck by the fact that the Kim scene leads directly into the next one. I've always wondered how much of Lindsay's decision has to do with her desire to escape her brainy good girl image once and for all and how much is her trying to help out best pal Kim. I think it's probably 70-30 image reinvention, but I could be persuaded to change that ratio.)

The Weirs walk Lindsay to the bus, Lindsay lying that she doesn't want to be driven to Ann Arbor so she can spend the trip thinking and getting her head straight. Jean and Harold are overflowing with pride, and Sam says he's going to miss her. Neal and Bill run up to say goodbye, Neal offering a box of chocolates as his latest futile attempt to woo Lindsay. (Bill, hilariously, notes that they give the same gift to his grandma whenever she travels by bus -- along with pinning her name and address to her coat in case she gets lost.) Lindsay kisses them both on the cheek, and Neal is naturally outraged over Bill getting equal reward even though he didn't spend a cent.

We hear the acoustic guitar of "Ripple" begin to play, and Linda Cardellini absolutely destroys me with the way she turns back from the bus steps and says, "Hey, Mom?" Jean, ignorant of what her daughter plans to do, beams and says, "Yes, sweetie?" Lindsay, fully aware that she's about to break her mother's heart -- that she's going to fundamentally alter her relationship with her parents, forever -- tries to find a way to apologize in advance, but all she can say is, "I'll see you soon."

The bus pulls away, the Weirs and Neal and Bill waving enthusiastically as Lindsay has to live with her decision. But by the time the bus pulls up to a stop (still in town? in Ann Arbor? I'm never clear, and it's obviously an LA city street), she's clearly made her peace with it, and steps off to see Kim leaning against the Deadheads' VW Microbus (of course they drive a Microbus), waiting to greet her for the start of their journey along the concert road. Lindsay strips off the conservative jacket she'd been wearing and gladly pulls on her familiar Army jacket (embracing her freakdom once and for all). Everyone piles into the van, and Samaire drives them up to the corner where the bus is sitting and then off in the opposite direction.

The End.

I've always loved that ending, but it really angers some people I know well -- including my wife and one of my sisters, both of whom attended summer academic events in high school and had a great time. I feel like, having gone back and looked at all 18 hours of this series, Lindsay was no longer a person who was capable of enjoying herself at an event like that. "Looks and Books" clearly showed that. If it wasn't the Dead, or Kim's need for some kind of summer adventure, she would have found another excuse not to go. It's who she had become, for good or for ill.

And while we're debating whether Lindsay made the right choice or not, let's also have a spirited argument about my old good-looking corpse theory: that I'd rather have one perfect season of a show than witness it get watered-down over the years as producers repeat themselves, try to attract a bigger audience, etc. It's a theory directly inspired by this here show. While we have no way of knowing what the creative team would have been able to do in the event of a miracle renewal, I imagine NBC would have put on major pressure to make the show more commercial, just like "Homicide" wound up featuring all those serial killers and evil drug lords and beauty queen detectives as a compromise for its continued survival.

For what it's worth, I asked Apatow what remaining plans he had for a second season that didn't get used up by episodes like this and the Sam dates Cindy arc, and this is what he wrote:

I wanted to write about Lindsay having a real drug problem. Bill's mom would marry the gym teacher and Bill would be forced by his step dad to play on the school basketball team. And I would have explored Neal's parents' divorce trial and his life as he lived with his mom and saw dad on Sundays.

If Paul Feig or any of the other writers are out there and want to share any other stories they hoped to do in year two, fire away. Clearly, though, there was lots of material still to be written about these characters. (Lindsay having a drug problem -- no doubt part of her time with the Dead -- would have set up an unexpected role reversal with the suddenly-clean Nick.) But do you think the show could have still been the show we all worshipped if it came back? And what would you have wanted to see in a second season? (As I mentioned last week, my big hope was for some scenario, any scenario, that put Bill and Kim Kelly in a room together for a few minutes, just to see what happened.)

Some other thoughts on "Discos and Dragons":

• Because I hadn't seen most of these episodes in so long, when Harold banned Lindsay from ever hanging out with the freaks again after the car crash in "Looks and Books," I couldn't remember whether we saw him relenting in a later episode or if the writers just let it slide. Based on Harold inviting Nick into their home in "Smooching and Mooching," it feels like the latter. I just wish it had been more directly addressed at some point, as it would have added an extra layer to Lindsay's decision to forsake the summit in favor of following a hippie band with her freak best friend. In our mythical season two, Joe Flaherty was going to rain some major hellfire and brimstone down on Lindsay for this.
  
• One last possible chronological boo-boo: "American Beauty" was released in 1970, only 10 years before the series began, yet Rosso talks about listening to it while he was in college. How old is he supposed to be? Dave Allen was in his early 40s at this point; would Rosso have needed to still be in school to dodge the draft in his early 30s, or is he supposed to be significantly younger than the actor playing him?
• One other "American Beauty" question: how do hardcore Deadheads feel about that album? It and "Workingman's Dead" are the only two albums of theirs I own, in part because, as I understand it, they're atypical of the band's studio output, as well as the concert jams that made them famous. Would Deadhead Samaire really have been that over the moon about that record?
• Speaking of Dave Allen, Mr. Fleck is played by Steve Higgins, who, along with Allen and Higgins' brother David Anthony Higgins (from "Ellen" and "Malcolm in the Middle"), were the stars of "The Higgins Boys and Gruber," one of the first series on The Comedy Channel (one of the two channels, along with Ha!, that merged into Comedy Central). The creator and producer of that show? Mr. Joel Hodgson.
• And speaking of Hodgson, I've neglected until now to mention that one of his "MST3K" co-stars, Trace Beaulieu, appeared repeatedly on this series as the biology teacher, Mr. Lacovara. He has a very funny moment here in the cafeteria, where after assuring Lindsay that attending the summit put him on the path to his current level of success, he turns and knocks over a student's lunch tray. As the students all jeer, he raises his hand and says, "That was me! I'm a clumsy clod!" in an overly-cheerful way that suggests he suffered many such humiliations when he was younger before learning that self-deprecation is the only way to survive them. (God, this show was great with the little moments like that, wasn't it?)
• Another lovely little touch: the beret Sam wears while playing D&D. (Also, even though Sam keeps the other geeks hanging about his involvement until the last minute, they wind up playing the game at his house; chalk that one up to the Weir dining room being one of the show's standing sets, I guess.)
• Seth Rogen's Canadian accent didn't come out too blatantly for the most part during the season, but there's a line where he's complaining about Nick's love of disco and says, "No, thank GAWD!" like he's on the verge of ordering a Molson's and some back bacon.

Up next: B'dee, b'dee, b'dee, that's all folks! Sorry. (If you're coming to the party late, you can find all the recaps by click on the Freaks and Geeks label below, or just clicking here.) This has been a fun little experiment. Some of these episodes I had only ever seen once, and most I hadn't watched since the real turn of the millennium. So it's been a pleasure to watch them again and rediscover certain things (James Franco was funny! Joe Flaherty was a good dramatic actor!) while reconfirming things I already knew (Martin Starr, genius! Jason Segel, completely unafraid of public humiliation!).

I know at least a few people who worked on the show have seen these. Apatow's aware of it, and Gabe Sachs stopped by the "I'm With the Band" post to talk about how cool it is to see everybody praising the show so many years later. If anyone else who was lucky enough to be involved with this series is reading this, I hope it's gratifying to see so many people haven't forgotten the love. (Also, judging by the comments and some of my e-mail from people who just bought the DVDs, there are still people willing to experience it for the first time all these years later.) It was a classic as soon as it aired, it is a classic now and it's going to stay a classic for as long as there are teenage outcasts (or semi-reformed adult outcasts).

At the tail end of my "The Little Things" recap, I said I'd like to do this again next summer with another brilliant but canceled selection, and there are already a lot of suggestions in those comments. Feel free to keep 'em coming, keeping in mind some of the following criteria that made "Freaks and Geeks" such a good choice: 1)Only ran one season (and less than the full 22, at that); 2)Is readily available on DVD so the people who didn't see it can catch up if they want; 3)Is deep enough to merit extended recapping and analysis (this would leave out most straight comedies -- including, much as I love it, "Undeclared"); 4)Is just old enough that there's some nostalgia to revisiting it (that would probably leave out something like "Firefly"); and 5)There's an ending. Maybe it's not a definitive, all your questions answered ending, but the creators got to go out on the note they wanted. Anyway, when the upcoming TV season starts winding down in May, I'll look back over the suggestions and consider my options. (It took me seeing "Knocked Up" in early June to give me the idea in the first place; be nice to have a head start this time.)

Whew. What did everybody else think?

Jekyll: Half a life

Spoilers for the "Jekyll" finale coming up just as soon as I turn the power back on...

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?

There were some obvious problems in the final two hours, notably the horrid accent by the actress playing Mrs. Utterson (she made Benjamin sound like he came from Southie or something), and I feel like the epilogue raised far more questions than it answered. But until then, there were plenty of cool moments: Hyde discovering that he has digital rewind (and good on the FX team for that stuff), the revelation that Hyde wanted to save Claire and the boys ("I'm a psychopath with superpowers, and you're my girl!"), the hilarious punchline to the protracted set-up with bad-ass mercenary Mr. Carver, Hyde declaring "we are coming," Hyde telepathically sending "RUN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE" messages to all of Peter's goons, Peter's good manners increasing proportionately with his homicidal intent, etc.

Looked at as a group, I'm not sure it hangs together perfectly. Nurse Reimer became irrelevant after all that set-up in the first two episodes, and despite the amount of time spent trying to explain Tom's origins, I'm still confused. (Better they had just left the mystery unsolved, I think.) But James Nesbitt was brilliant, and Moffat gave him lots to play while playing his usual structural games.

What did everybody else think?

Sleep deprivation is easy. Comedy is hard.

Today's column was inspired by a field trip I made in the middle of press tour to check out an event run by the one and only Ken Levine:

The thing about believing in dreams is that you have to learn to ignore all the people who keep telling you to wake up.

Last month, 20 dreamers arrived at the L.A. airport Hilton to attend The Sitcom Room, a two-day "sitcom writing fantasy camp" set up by Ken Levine, an Emmy-winning 30-year TV veteran who's worked on some of the best comedies ever ("M*A*S*H," "Cheers," "The Simpsons").

Richard Porter, 39, came from Phoenix, where he long ago lost any affection for his software engineering career. Isabel Gaddis, 46, came from Seattle, having recently decided it was time to do something she enjoyed, and why not sitcoms? Lizbeth Finn-Arnold, 39, came from Morganville, where she's been writing scripts while raising two kids. Jesse Allis, all of 16, didn't have to travel far; he was a child actor looking to become an adult writer.

All were fans of Levine's writing, both for sitcoms and on his blog (kenlevine.blogspot.com), where he shares old war stories and composes spoofs like the hilarious "Studio 60" takedown "If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball."

After some preliminary remarks and Q&A, Levine divided his 20 students into teams of five. He gave them a mediocre scene he had penned for a fictional sitcom and told them to rewrite it -- while factoring in "notes" from non-existent network and studio executives and other assorted mishaps straight out of Levine's own career. The teams worked furiously, and the next morning got to see their versions of the scene performed by a trio of actors. They critiqued each other and by all accounts, everyone learned a lot and had a great time.

Then came Sam Simon.

To read the full thing, click here.

Doctor Who: I'm only human on the inside

Spoilers for "Doctor Who" coming up just as soon as I dig up some beer...

The "Doctor Who" fans who have already seen the entire season have been pimping the "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" two-parter as the Alpha and the Omega, the bestest "Who" thing ever, or close enough to it. I have to assume that a large part of that enthusiasm comes from the "Family of Blood" half of things and the way it builds on what's already happened. "Human Nature" is a very strong episode, but it didn't blow me away on a level that, say, any of the Steven Moffat-penned episodes have.

The premise -- the Doctor, on the run from powerful aliens with stolen Time Lord tech, has to hide from them by becoming human, blotting out all knowledge of his true identity and leaving Martha as his escape hatch -- is a strong one, but not unprecedented in TV sci-fi. A lot of the episode, in fact, evokes two of the best "Star Trek" episodes ever: "The Inner Light" from Next Generation and "The Visitor" from Deep Space Nine. Maybe it's more groundbreaking from a pure "Doctor Who" fan perspective, as the guy's spent 40-plus years acting the aloof god (save the Paul Cornell-written novel that inspired Cornell's script for these episodes), but the basic idea didn't floor me.

But again, that doesn't mean it's not a great episode. David Tennant's been accused of overacting in the part, of making the Doctor just a bundle of tics and shouting. I don't necessarily agree with that, but there's no mistaking his fine performance here, as he finds a way to seem completely human and yet with enough of a trace of Ten that I said, "Yeah, that's what Ten would be like if he was a regular person." And given the set-up, I imagine he's going to have even better material to play in part two, once the Doctor inevitably returns to godhood and has to reflect on what he's gained and lost in the process.

That said, what makes "Human Nature" really fly is Martha. This is, what, her eighth episode to date, yet she doesn't seem half as established -- both as a person and as the Doctor's partner -- as Rose did by her eighth episode. (The great "Father's Day," also written by Cornell.) Whether by design or coincidence, too many episodes this year have spent significant portions of time with the Doctor and Martha split up, and those moments when they're together tend to be largely about the Doctor defining his relationship to her in comparison to his friendship with Rose. But she saved the day last week and the Doctor gives her the ultimate trust this week, and she in turn trusts him not to get her stuck as a maid in 1913 England. Martha really handles herself well here, even when she's doubting herself and running back to the TARDIS to seek guidance from the Doctor's living will recording.

Meanwhile, Martha finally says aloud what's been obvious for a while: that she loves the Doctor, and not in the undying friendship way that Rose had with Nine (and possibly with Ten), but in a "Okay, if he has two hearts, what else does he have two of?" way. If the writers keep pairing the Doctor with attractive young women, sooner or later the matter of a companion falling for the guy is going to have to come up; what better time than when he's become (temporarily) human?

I wasn't floored by "Human Nature," but my hopes remain high for the conclusion in two weeks (razza frazza Labor Day weekend scheduling). What did everybody else think?

The Weak Ender

Justin Timberlake is going to portray a hockey player in some upcoming movie, with Jessica Alba playing his love-starved wife. (Sorry, FanHouse already made the Timberlake is bringing hockey back joke.) What is interesting to note here, is that Alba was, at first, going to play the owner of a hockey team. Not that she would be the first hot chick to play a professional sports owner in a movie. That title, of course, going to Timberlake�s ex, Cameron Diaz, who when she heard that Alba was going to play a female sports owner, threw a container of Clearasil across the room and screeched, �Whore!�

Oh, and if you have never had the opportunity to Google search Jessica Alba picks, just realize that Ms. Alba loves to sunbath while laying on her stomach. A lot.

O.J. SIMPSON�S LETTER TO MIKE VICK
THN was able to snag a copy of O.J. Simpson�s letter to Michael Vick, wondering why he turned himself in. No seriously, this is totally real.

Dear Mike,

What the hell are you thinking? Believe me I feel you. I know what it�s like to have to kill a bitch that is acting out. But damn son, all you have to do is prove to 12 idiots who couldn�t get out of jury duty that some racist cracker cop planted those dogs in your yard. What you should have done was have Warrick Dunn lead a slow-speed police chase through Atlanta, showed that the bloody leash did fit and then write a book entitled, �If I did run my own dog fighting ring.�

If you had done that, you and I would be sipping rum and cokes, drunk dialing Fred Goldman while burning $100 bills on the golf course in Florida while searching for the real backers of that dog fighting ring. You messed up man.

Regards,
The Juice.

Wow, O.J. makes a good point. Always take the jury trial Michael.

• All of the dogs confiscated at Michael Vick�s property will be put down. Say what you will about Vick, but at least he gave those dogs a fighting chance.

• No legal expert here, but why wouldn't Vick just hire Lindsey Lohan or Nicole Richie's lawyers? He'd be out of jail in a day, and starting for the Falcons this week.

• Who starts for the Raiders first, JaMarcus Russell or Mike Vick? You know that's where Vick ends up in 200.

• The Angels took two of three from the Yankees and Red Sox, but dropped the final game in each series. That, of course, led to a wild celebration by Yankees and Red Sox fans who partied like it was the World Series. But you can forgive Yankees fans seeing it�s been so long since they won a world title.

• NFL preseason football: Making life easier for Orioles fans.

AND FINALLY
Just completed a fantasy draft this week and took Gomer in the first round. (Hey, don�t be stupid, the guy puts up gaudy fantasy numbers.) What�s interesting is that Sportsline shows you statistics on the percentage of people who own certain players. For instance,
Gomer is owned in 99 percent of fantasy leagues out there. But what league is this 1 percent? Like, let�s say your quarterback goes down and you have to search the waiver wire� oh look, here�s Gomer Manning.

You have to image that 1 percent league is the Jim Sorgi family fantasy league. You just know that Jim Sorgi�s mother is convinced that her son is just as good, if not better, than that pretty boy, Gomer. You could just imagine Sorgi�s mom getting loaded during a game and screaming at Gomer. �Hey, put Jim in, you fundamentalist (expletive) Dungy. (Expletive) Peyton Manning. What? I don�t care if Archie is sitting over there. He should be out watching that (kitty cat) Eli, instead of showing up here. Plus he has two sons in the NFL, why can�t my boy play?�

Man, the Colts family section must be fun. Well, as long as one of the Dungy kids doesn�t take too many Advils or something.