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Welcome to Dayle Loves This, wherein I recommend books, TV, and movies (and maybe other things) that rocked my world.

MTV. The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire. Labyrinth. Cheesy sword-and-sorcery movies in which Richard Lynch was always the bad guy. Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson. Neon colors, big hair. Malls. Styx’s Kilroy Was Here album. (You didn’t think I’d forget to mention Styx, did you?!)

::fond sigh::

Two TV shows send me back to that time on a blissful nostalgia trip: Freaks & Geeks and The Goldbergs.

Freaks & Geeks (1999­–2000) is a highly acclaimed show from Jude Apatow, that lasted only one season (the network didn’t get why anyone wanted to watch “normal” teenagers) and launched the careers of Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Phillips, and more. It’s billed as a comedy, but it has a great deal of heart and truth.

It follows two siblings, Lindsay and Sam Weir. Teenage Lindsay was a smart, “good” girl until her beloved grandfather’s death (and some other incidents), and now wearing his oversized army-green military jacket, starts hanging out with the “freaks” (a group of slacker stoners). Meanwhile, her younger brother, Sam, is navigating middle school with a couple of fellow “geeks.”

We see that the freaks can’t be lumped together as losers and each one has their own, sometimes difficult, story. We learn (as if we didn’t know), that the geeks might not want to be geeky, but they’ve got each other’s backs. The storylines and people aren’t prettied up—this is no Beverly Hills 90120—and the sets feel real for the early 1980s. When I first watched the last episode, I felt bereft: I’d known these people, and kind of felt like I was losing friends. Definitely a show I rewatch every few years.

By contrast, The Goldbergs (2013–present) is a sitcom and the characters are often larger than life, but it’s seen through the lens of the youngest kid, Adam, so that makes a certain amount of sense. Plus, the creator/writer, Adam F. Goldberg), is basically telling his life story as he remembers it. Both real Adam and TV Adam were the first kid in their neighborhood to get a video camera, and many episodes end with a side-by-side of the TV snippet and the original video. The dads may look different, for example, but they have the same blustery voice.

In one episode, Adam and his older brother, Barry, recreate a New Kids on the Block video, and at the end, we see the original video along with the TV version. It was so perfect I was rolling on the floor laughing.

Rounding out the family is older sister Erica, who wears 80s fashions so well and perfectly that my nostalgiac heart aches; and Adam’s mom, a big-haired, ugly-sweater-wearing powerhouse who doesn’t want to admit her children are growing up.

I may have been closer in age to Erica back then, but Adam is a science-fiction-loving geek, and I relate strongly to that, too. (Remember, this was before being a geek was cool.)

I’m only on the second season of nine (so far), but it’s a great watch for me when the current world is feeling bleak.

If you’re not nostalgaic for the 80s, these shows might not resonate with you as strongly as they do with me. I’d say check out Freaks & Geeks anyway.

Either way, Dayle is an 80s girl at heart, and she recommends these shows.

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