Watch This Movie
Have you ever followed a really great television show and later wondered why it was yanked off the air? Have you ever watched your favorite show become dumbed down more and more with each passing season? Have you regularly bemoaned the inexplicably mediocre programing on television? This movie answers all your questions! Well… maybe not all of your questions, but it’s pretty darn funny.
The movie? The TV Set written and directed by Jake Kasdan, son of famed screenwriter Lawrence (Raiders of the Lost Ark) Kasdan and, more importantly, director of multiple episodes including the pilot of Freaks and Geeks. Those who know me know my unwavering love of this Judd Apatow produced, prematurely cancelled NBC series. I have declared repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, that it is one of the greatest shows ever put on the air and hands down the best high school show ever. That’s right, “My So-Called Life” fans, even better than that other prematurely cancelled show.
While The TV Set is not precisely about “Freaks and Geeks” (the show within the movie is about a young lawyer who returns to his home town), it is a very revealing take on how a very serious, dramatic and personal project can be taken apart piece by piece for the sake of ratings. Not even ratings but the perception of ratings. I won’t bore you with a critique of the film, but suffice to say it is bitingly hilarious. So biting, in fact, it is just this shy of tragic. And Sigourney Weaver is hilarious, absolutely brilliant, as the top network exec that runs pilots and audition tapes by her 14-year-old daughter and turns absolutely every conversation into something about her.
Granted, it’s not exactly Network (I mean, really, what is?), but it’s such a great take on this business of show, and it will make you wonder how anything of quality can get on the air with a bureaucracy that thick to get through. It’s just a great little loveletter to all those great shows from “Freaks and Geeks” to “Arrested Development” that were killed before their time. Plus, it’s a really small film worth supporting if you can find it, and you’ll have a good laugh.