Oy! What’s this, then?
Friday Night Lights is a televised drama series produced for NBC. It’s currently in its fourth season, with the fifth (and possibly last) season beginning in April (these last two seasons are only 13 episodes long). It revolves around a high school football coach in the a small town in Texas, as well as the players on his team and the people surrounding it.
Why are you bothering me about it? I don’t like sports in my TV!
Because I watched the pilot on a lark after having been vaguely entertained by the movie it’s based on (that goes by the same title). The funny thing though, was that the TV Series was substantially more interesting, and had a lot of qualities that’s not that easy to come by today. More often than not, a drama series is either about a lawyer/doctor/cop, and more often than not, the episodes are formulaic protagonist-heavy.
Friday Night Lights escapes all those traps, and while it does revolve somewhat around a football team, it’s more in a tangential way, kind of like how Mad Men is about an ad agency, but really it’s not.
It should also be noted that the coach of the team is one of the most terrific characters I’ve come across on TV; easily up there with Al Swearengen, Joshua Lyman, Mal Reynolds, Greg House, Barney Stinson & Ari Gold. Everyone should give this show a try, if only to see how interesting coach Eric Taylor manages to be (and he does so by just being a good guy; no quirks, no funny lines; just a good father & good human being).
And one last thing:
Friday Night Lights isn’t a ground-breaking show, or a show that could in any way be considered a “must watch”, unless you’re hungry for a good drama (there aren’t too many out there right now). I hope you give it a try, ’cause the show’s really struggling with its ratings, and if it doesn’t get much better it’ll get cancelled after the 5th season (which, I’ll admit, is a good run, even if s2 was cut short because of the writer’s strike).
I like it. I think you would, too.
3 Comments
Thanks for the rec, but I must admit, if I was to find time in my busy schedule to overcome my strong antipathy towards anything sports-related, I’d check out Sorkin’s “Sports Night” before this one – what with it being Sorkin and all.
Perfectly understandable, of course
I think you’d be a fan of this show though, so keep it in mind.
I will. I buy your sales pitch, if it’s more about an interesting character than about the sport, I’ll probably at least think it’s decent. Problem is I’m in a position now where I’m cutting DOWN on the amount of shows – not raising the number. :/