MONDO EXTRAS

JA: Christina was in the [sexile] episode, and we thought she was so funny that we kept bringing her back, until we finally moved her in.

JM: She started with one line.

H: Is that one line from "Addicts," where she swoons over Heath's Shakespeare speech?

JM: No, we shot the other one first, actually, even though I guess it aired afterward.

H: Do we ever get to see her move in, or does that just sort of happen?

JA: She moves in during the last episode of the season [laughs]. It's actually the tenth one we shot, but it airs last for no explainable reason. It's an episode we really like, where Steven becomes obsessed with The Bible while [Heath] becomes obsessed with existentialism. And it's about Steven rejecting Lizzie because he gets really into The Bible. That's also the episode where Tina is trying to move into the room Lizzie and Rachel share. The person door moves out, but they make a joke about how they never met that person, and Tina tries to finagle her way into getting the room. Look, I'm getting you way ahead on all your recaps.

H: How far out of order will things get between now and then?

JA: Everything is in order the rest of the year, except for that show airing last.

H:. Wasn't the Ben Stiller episode supposed to be last?

JA: Now that's airing third-to-last. And there may be a few that air out of sequence but [because of the plot] it doesn't matter whether they're out of order.

H: So without saying anything bad about FOX -- because FOX is so great, FOX is like candy -- does all that bizarre out-of-order nonsense bother you?

JA: Their theory is that most people only see one out of any four episodes, and that when you're launching a show, you put your favorite episodes first and have all the strongest ones air right off the bat. And for the rest it doesn't matter, because in theory, people aren't watching every single week. I don't necessarily agree with that theory, mainly because any two people would disagree on what the best episodes are. Usually what happens is, the original ones wind up not being their favorites. When we did Freaks & Geeks, our third episode was about Lindsay being invited to have dinner with Kim Kelly. She goes to Kim Kelly's house, and it's a crazy white-trash house, they're fighting and screaming, and it's about what happens when you visit The Crazy House in your neighborhood. And they didn't air it -- I don't think they ever aired it on NBC, or if they did, it was much later, after we'd been cancelled -- because it didn't feel like the same tone as the rest of the show. But that was our intention -- for any kid on Freaks and Geeks, the tone of his house would be totally different than the other person's house. But there is some validity to the idea that the first six episodes of any series should be similar to a pilot, in that you shouldn't be lost and need to catch up on what's happening. During the first six episodes, a lot of people are seeing the show for the first time, and if they don't understand what's happening with the story, it makes it harder for them to jump in. Of course, for some reason I never pay any attention to that [theory], and so this [reordering of episodes] happens every single time.