Because cutting and pasting is easier than writing more stuff, here's a bit of an e-mail I wrote to Rob clarifying my position on the Freaks and Geeks DVD. (Click link for my previous post on the subject.)

I guess I didn't really give the commentary tracks enough of a shot, or, at least, I listened to them at the wrong time, i.e. after only seeing three episodes of the series. So the stuff in there about how such and such an extra would become a full character later and how nice they were and they were from Idaho and like that, I can definitely see how that would be really charming and nice if I was a fan, but not being fully committed to it yet, it sort of irked. It may not in a few months, and I'll definitely give them another shot after I've actually gotten through the set.

But, then, I guess I wasn't really the target audience for those tracks. I think the context in which the set came out very much colored the commentaries, from what I understand--this particular situation of not only being canceled, but the DVDs almost not coming out at all, and having a base of devoted fans who could put enough pressure on the company to make it happen. And so these things that people who worked on such a show (and it seemed like--and correct me if I'm wrong--the first time at the front of a TV show for a lot of the folks involved, so the disappointment was presumably more acute than if they were vetrans, to who this sort of thing happens all the time) might certainly think to themselves, or discuss amongst themselves, then became something that it was appropriate to express in commentary tracks for a broad audience, because the presumed audience was fans who held basically the same assumptions as them, i.e. that the show was something really special and that it was a crime that it was canceled. This may, in fact, be true, but just jumping into the show that's not necessarily apparent, and it did kind of weird me out.

But that's OK. I really did enjoy the three episodes I got to see, and will definitely end up watching the whole series. And THEN the commentary tracks.
posted by Mike B. at 11:10 AM 0 comments