i first watched this entire series one afternoon/night. i was living in boston, & it was the night before i was meant to move out of my packard's corner apartment (72 gardner street, for those of you keeping tabs on me). all of my belongings were packed & most of them were already brought home. & i hated my roommates. so the options were leave the apartment or stay inside my room. because i was feeling particularly lazy & unhappy at my living situation, i decided to stay inside.
i had almost nothing to entertain me. but thankfully, before i packed my boxes of DVDs into my mum's SUV, i had decided to keep undeclared with me in case i needed something to watch. & watch it i did. the ENTIRE SERIES.
but really, that's not much of a feat. because, like its predecessor, freaks & geeks, this one only aired for one season (an incomplete season at that. one or two episodes never aired at all). which is sad. because both shows deserved at least a second season.
(freaks & geeks deserved a lot more than that, but that's for another blog entry someday down the line).
undeclared is certainly no freaks & geeks. but it's still quite enjoyable. it's pretty light-hearted & fun. i think it pretty accurately portrays college, without getting too bogged down with the emotions involved. but the dialogue & plots are realistic. i believe what's going on.
according to wikipedia, judd apatow has stated, "one reason for the death of college shows is that it's difficult to be honest about campus life on network or basic cable. it's hard to portray truthfully. the truth is, kids are high, drunk and having sex. no matter what you do, you're fudging it."
ok, so maybe judd apatow is right. but they did a pretty good job. after all, lloyd does have plenty of sex. (not that it's any wonder why! look at him! he's a cutie!)
& the gang do their fair share of drinking (they even empty a keg into every single cup in their dorm room & try to drink it all before it goes flat). certainly things were left out of the overall college experience, but undeclared gives it a good try.
i think what really makes it great is the casting. i really love the male casting choices. seth rogan! charlie hunnam! in fact, all four of the main boys do a really good job with this material.
the girls, however, i was less than pleased with. carla gallo, i apparently do not like you in anything you are in. & monica keena! fuck you, i didn't like you on dawson's creek & i don't like you on undeclared. get off my blog!
the true casting gem, however, is in lizzie's (carla gallo, ick) creepy stalker boyfriend, eric.
this is seriously good stuff here.
jason segel, you are always great. you are welcome on my blog anytime.
so my major memory for this show is that a boyfriend of mine in high school got angry that i watched it one night instead of calling him to talk. what i never admitted to him, & haven't really thought about until right now, is that i was only using this show to avoid calling him for whatever reason. i think it was his birthday, & i was uncomfortable with the expectations that had been placed on me to be the "perfect girlfriend" in such situations. & i bailed, majorly, on calling him. but, i mean, i called him after.
needless to say, i obviously didn't remember much about this show. i think i did watch it. at least a few times. i remembered all the characters, & of the 4 episodes i watched, i remembered the plot of at least two of them.
i think that felicity gets a bit of a bad reputation. every time i mention it, someone inevitably groans & someone else mentions "that time she cut her hair". i mean, yeah, cutting her hair was probably a bad idea. but the show continued for two more years after that ill-fated season. so they must have been doing something right.
right?
one thing i liked about this show before i even began watching it is that there are only 4 seasons. so it's not overwhelming to want to get into, & it exists in it's own little world of college. she begins the show as a freshman & ends it as a senior. i don't know if the last show does any kind of a fast forward so we can see where all the characters end up after their lives at the university of new york, but i almost sort of hope not. i LIKE that the show exists in a little box, like a package tied with a bow. here is college life, complete.
i'm going to be honest here. i liked this show.
more than i thought i was going to, & definitely more than i did in 1998. probably because in 1998, i had absolutely no idea what college was. it was an idea to me only, something i saw in my future but of which i had no real concept. so can i relate to felicity more, having gone through my own 4 (to be fair, 3.5) years?
i don't know. i think so.
in my memory i remember felicity as "that show that tried to recreate dawson's creek for college kids". i mean, she's got a little dawson in her. she's over analytical about boys, life, friends, & classes. but that's about it. she's much more reserved than dawson is. in fact, i liken her more to angela chase than dawson leery. felicity is painfully shy, so much so that, even though she followed ben to new york, she had only ever had two conversations with him before (conversations that she remembers in painstaking detail). it's almost painful to watch her try to interact with ben, noel, her professors, basically anyone she meets. she's awkward & young.
unlike dawson's creek, we don't pick up with felicity already having a strong friend group in place. in fact, when the series begins, she doesn't have ONE friend. & when she does befriend julie, they have a very rocky start (basically due to the fact that julie & ben like each other more than they like felicity).
we also learn that felicity didn't do much in high school. she was very quiet, & seems to have done only what her parents wanted her to do. i don't even know if she had any friends then, either. we certainly never hear about any of them.
so really, we get to see felicity evolve from the very beginning. she's got no friends, no life, & almost no personality. she's got to cut out a place for herself in the world from scratch. imagine, dawson leery at, say, age 3.
i'm going to admit this again. i was into it. i'm not sure where her relationships with ben & the resident advisor noel crane (who has a webpage. seriously, go to that link) will go (although thanks, wikipedia, for spoiling a few details for me). i don't know who she will befriend next. or where her adventures in college will take her. & i'm interested. which has got to be a good sign.
apparently in later seasons, the writers began to run out of ideas for story lines. i mean, i guess there's only SO much drama that can go on during college.... (NOT). also, apparently the original writer was 32 & claimed to be 19 so there was a bit of controversy going on about this show. so i can't really vouch for the entire series. which is why i'm not giving this one more than four records as a rating.
but, i really & genuinely give felicity four records. i'm into it, & i hope that one day i can try out disc two. & who knows, honestly, maybe a lot more than that.
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