This episode of “Freaks and Geeks” (No. 14, “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers”) never aired on the network that made it. It didn’t appear until after NBC canceled the series, and its single 18-episode season reran on the Fox Family Channel in fall 2000. And it happens to include my favorite scene. Here it is:

A little setup: Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) is having a terrible time of it. He's a latchkey kid. He’s horrible in phys-ed class. And he learns, in this episode, that his mom is seriously dating his gym teacher, whom he hates.

First, the music. “I’m One” by the Who, from the 1973 album “Quadrophenia.” It builds from mournfulness (“I’m a loser / No chance to win”) to a defiant chorus. And it's a great example of how “Freaks and Geeks” chose its soundtracks. The episode is set in 1981, but it avoids on-the-nose ’80s-song choices. Paul Feig, the show’s creator, once told me that the thing about the early ’80s in the Midwest was that they were really still the ’70s.

We start with a sequence of quick cuts.

Cheese.

Cake.

Margarine.

Bread.

Frying pan.

This cooking sequence tells you that Bill has done this many times before, alone. (He will put as much cheese on his sandwich as he wants.) He has a routine, and the episode is partly about his dealing with having that routine disrupted.

I love how Bill has the remote (the size of a brick) already waiting at his TV table. There's so much characterization through detail here.

Bill turns on the tube just as Dinah Shore introduces the stand-up comic Garry Shandling. The “Freaks and Geeks” producer Judd Apatow — who once said this was the most personal scene he had ever made — had been a “comedy geek” as a kid and later worked with Shandling on “The Larry Sanders Show.”

Note: Bill doesn't react when Shandling comes on. He's not watching to watch Shandling; he's watching to watch TV for company.

When Bill sits down with his sandwich, it's a lonely long shot.

And now he’s framed tighter, after Shandling comes on.

With each successive cut, we get closer and closer to Bill.

… and closer.

Shandling gets closer, too, as the routine goes on, and Bill becomes absorbed in it.

This is beautiful — Bill’s not just laughing, he’s liberated.

Through much of the scene, you probably noticed, there are gobs of food stuck to Bill’s teeth. It’s gross and just perfect. This was a kind of indie-film realism not on television in 2000 — and even now, it’s rare to see someone on television truly acting as a person acts when no one is watching.

The camera captures the connection between Bill and this comedian he has never met. He talks back to the TV as if there were a friend in the room. He makes a toast.

Now the camera is so close, the edges of Bill and Shandling’s faces are outside the frame.

They’re connected. Their heads, even, are tilted at almost the same angle.

One thing I love about “Freaks and Geeks” is that it understands how much pop culture means to teenagers — whether they’re comedy geeks or sci-fi geeks or heavy-metal geeks or Dungeons and Dragons geeks. Pop culture is not just about entertainment; it’s also about identity and community, finding your people.

This scene may be the purest expression of that. It takes you from melancholy to sheer delight in 90 seconds.