The media portrays teenagers on TV shows as rebellious, sex-crazed, and unreasonable. Freaks and Geeks, created by Paul Feig and produced by Feig himself and Judd Apatow, is a one-hour television show that aired on NBC from 1999 to 2000. The show centers on siblings, Sam and Lindsay Weir , and their friends while they all attend McKinley High School. Freaks and Geeks is a series that portrays teenagers in a way that the media does not because of the lessons the characters must learn, the choices they choose to make, and the struggles they must endure. Many teenagers have to learn a lot from events in their lives. Freaks and Geeks shows characters adapting to changes in their lives and learning to adapt to them. Neal Schweiber, a freshman at McKinley High School and friends with Sam Weir in episode 12, learns that his father is having an affair with his mother. He reacts to this situation by lashing out at his friends and other family members. Neal finally accepts the fact that his father cheats and adjusts to life with it. It shows the changes in Neal's home life and he learns to adapt to them. He becomes a mature adult and learns the lesson of life. This lesson is for people, like her father, who are having a mid-life crisis and have tried many things to avoid that feeling. Another example is Sam Weir, in episode 17, breaking up with his longtime crush, Cindy Sanders. Sam learns that Cindy is actually very shallow and boring and that's not what he's looking for. This moves away from the stereotype that the popular person always breaks up with a less popular person and that people always think that the teenager always has true love in high school. Sam in particular learns the...... middle of paper...... struggle to not be a failure in life. He endures until he finally succeeds in Dungeon & Dragons. This probably gave him the motivation he hadn't received as a child. Success in a teenager's life is something that gives one the desire to achieve it again. Freaks and Geeks gives a fresh and realistic portrayal of adolescence in a nice little TV show package. It moves away from the media stereotype of adolescents by showing the lives of adolescents in a new light. It reveals the lesson many adolescents must learn to become mature adults, the choices they must make that will affect their lives in major or minor ways, and the struggles endured by many that cause them to make rash decisions or lose in what they did. TO DO. Freaks and Geeks is a show that I recommend to anyone who is tired of the stereotypical shows that the media puts on television..