When TV shows are taken away from audiences before anyone but grimy network execs want them to go, there is almost always speculation about what might have happened to the characters in the next season. That’s definitely the case for Freaks and Geeks, which NBC canceled after a lone critically beloved season. And now, some of the creative team and cast have shared what might have been for some of the characters had Season 2 existed.
Here’s what executive producer Judd Apatow said we could have expected from the titular geeks.
We wanted to show what would happen when Bill’s mom married his gym teacher, to have this stepdad pushing Bill into athletics. The show was going to have to change, because John Daley was getting taller, and it was also going to become about how these nerdy kids stay together when they’re changing in different ways.
I kind of love that idea. For one, the scenes between Martin Starr (who played Bill) and Coach Fredricks (played by Back to the Future star Thomas Wilson) were great, because those two characters had such differing ideologies about life. It would have been great to see how that relationship moved forward, especially if it meant Starr was going to be getting into some athletically challenging situations.
Plus, considering just how well Bill, Sam and Neal fit together personality-wise – especially compared to the rest of the people they went to school with – I can’t imagine how their dynamic could have been different , even if their bodies were changing. Sure, they hung out with other people like Harold and Cindy and that smelly guy Gordon, but these were three characters who meshed better than the Freaks, even.
Just how far would Bill have gone over into the “other” side? Here’s what Starr told Vulture.
Because of the decisions I was making off-camera, they had plans gearing toward Bill becoming a jock in the second season. They kind of talked about the potential of splitting us up as a threesome and the geeks parting ways, to some degree, and me fitting in with a different crowd.
It seems that Starr was joining co-star James Franco on trips to the gym to work out, which is probably what he meant by those off-camera decisions. Obviously muscles and a toned physique didn’t really fit so well with the lanky Bill, and they tried to sway him from that life path. But at least it seems like they’d accepted a Buff Bill was possible by thinking out some plotlines to have him as a jock. I guess. That might have gone terribly, though. Yeah, it would have.
The real question, of course, is whether or not Season 2 would have brought back Shia LaBeouf.
