Unsung: Undeclared and Underrated

Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at Undeclared, Judd Apatow's follow-up to his groundbreaking and short-lived show Freaks and Geeks.

When it comes to TV shows that had a short run but a huge impact, Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks was monumental. The hourlong comedy-drama was created by Paul Feig and ran on NBC in 1999-2000, focusing on a group of high school students in the Detroit suburbs in 1980-81. The network originally aired the show on Friday nights originally, but it was moved around to different timeslots before ultimately being cancelled after only 12 of the 18 episodes ran.

The show's stars ended up going on to bigger things: Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Martin Starr, Jason Segel, Busy Phillips and Samm Levine all had various degrees of showbiz success over the next 20+ years. F&G offered a realistic portrayal of high school students, as opposed to the wacky teens cracking wise in typical sitcom fare.

Apatow had a tough time with the cancellation. He ended up having back surgery for a herniated disc. Eventually, he decided to pursue the idea of what would happen to the Freaks and Geeks if they went to college and the show Undeclared was born. He didn't use the same characters and the show was a half-hour comedy instead of a full-hour comedy-drama, although Rogen was cast in a larger role.

Undeclared premiered on Fox in September 2001, centered around a group of freshmen at a fictional California university. The show was set in the 2000s instead of the early '80s and starred Jay Baruchel, Carla Gallo, Rogen, Charlie Hunnam, Monica Keena and Timm Sharp as the students. Baruchel (who was the Led Zeppelin fanatic in 2000's Almost Famous) played Steven Karp, a nerd looking to reinvent himself in college. His roommates Lloyd (Hunnam), a handsome British would-be actor, Marshall (Sharp), a music major, and Ron (Rogen), a business major. Lizzie (Gallo) and Rachel (Keena) live across the hall. 

There were cameos from Segel, Phillips, Starr and Levine, and supporting characters were played by young stars-to-be Kevin Hart, Amy Poehler and Jenna Fischer. Guest stars included Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller.

The college setting could have led to rote Animal House stereotypes, but like Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared took a thoughtful and sympathetic look at its characters. Sure, there was still partying and hooking up, but it wasn't all hijinks. Right after he moves into his dorm, Steven is visited by his dad (played by folk musician Loudon Wainwright III), who promptly tells Steven that he and his wife are getting divorced; while everyone else (including his dad) are partying down the hall, Steven is thrown for a loop and stays in his room.

Undeclared fell victim to a lot of the same network BS as F&G, but there were other problems. Fox aired the 17 episodes out of order, which made the narrative confusing at times. The show premiered two weeks after 9/11, at a time when people weren't necessarily seeking out comedies. Apatow found out the show wasn't getting renewed when they were filming the second to last episode.

While Freaks and Geeks has been embraced since its cancellation as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Undeclared has been all but forgotten. A DVD set was released, but the show has never been easy to find on streaming media; you can currently pay $1.99 per episode to watch it on Amazon Prime. But the full episodes are available for free viewing on YouTube.

Although it flew under the radar in 2001-02, Undeclared has proven to be influential. Apatow took his second consecutive TV failure as a sign to try his hand at movies and he had spectacular success with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (which made Steve Carell a star and gave his show The Office a boost), Knocked Up, This Is 40, Funny People and many more. Baruchel has appeared in Tropic Thunder, This Is the End, Goon and the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Rogen, who was a writer on Undeclared, became a movie star, appearing in Apatow movies and others and also writing and producing movies like Superbad and This is the End; he also directed The Interview and This is the End. Hunnam played the lead in the series Sons of Anarchy. 

The success of The Office, which was influenced by Carell's starring turn in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, led to the production of now-classic comedies like Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Community. Apatow's certainly not perfect, but he was a major force in 21st century comedy and Undeclared is an important part of that.