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Last night’s television selections were top notch. Thank you TV Gods! Let’s start with the show no one watched: Friday Night Lights.

Since the series premiered last October I’ve been waiting for them to tackle the very apparent race issues in Dillion, Texas. What made this week’s efforts so brilliant was how such a weighty (and rarely seen on network television) subject was played against one of the funnier b-stories they’ve had in the “Powder-Puff Football” game. It’s hard to work race into a single episode without it coming off as an After-School-Special discussion topic (luckily it appears this weeks actions by the team’s black players will be carried over into the story lines for at least the next week). Still, the motivations were direct but never seemed forced. I liked how Smash went from having more or less no real opinion on the school’s (and the town’s) divide to being an organizational leader calling for their football practice walk-out.

Also interested was how the whites were responding to all of this controversy. In classic American fashion their comments would always sound encouraging upon first listen but after replaying back in one’s mind came off at best close-minded and at worst horribly racist. Friday Night Lights succeeds like few mainstream entertainments do because this difference is never just flat out said.

On the cheerier side of the fence, the Coach’s reaction to his daughter being picked quarterback for Powder-Puff football was priceless. For a character who is seen smiling so rarely, it was great to see him teaching Julie Football Theory 101.

Also, did anyone else think that Landry’s thoughts on “pheromones” might have been one of the weirder things he’s ever said?

Over on ABC, Lost kicked off is sprint to no where. More on it right after the break…

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Wednesday brings us two different “(K)Nights,” both watchable if ultimately canceled.

First is Friday Night Lights, I show I’ve gone on the record once or twice as calling the greatest show currently airing on any network. Last night’s episode, the season’s 14th, was even stronger than usual. Unlike most serialized dramas on television, FNL is so much more about mood and realism than it is about the story — which isn’t to say the story isn’t wholly compelling, but its something you find yourself thinking about well after the episode has ended.

For a show that has After School Special-derived log-lines (”Tim meets up with his alcoholic dad,” “Coach Taylor learns about compassion”) it’s brilliant how matter-of-fact the stories are. Even when characters are giving speeches, which has happened a lot more than normal since the new year (this episode excluded), they’re done with such conviction you’re never left groaning.

Second in my Wednesday night lineup is Knights of Prosperity, a show I couldn’t have been more excited to air only to now forget that its aired until after I check my DVR. This might make it sound like the show isn’t funny. It is. The problem is that in the current landscape of network television comedy it isn’t funny enough. The Office, over its two and a half seasons, has gone from ratings stain to the cornerstone of NBC’s Thursday night (as well being the one comedy on television that more or less defines an era). Knights doesn’t have that ambition, or the laughs to back it up. For whatever reason, the masses have decided to hold their sit-coms to such a high standard it’s no wonder so few succeed. Basically, if the viewer isn’t laughing constantly for the entire thirty minutes they flip the channel (having Jon Cryer apparently also helps).

All this is a round-about way of saying that even I, a comedy fan, have fallen into this trap. For whatever reason just having a funny, quirky show isn’t enough to get me excited. It could also be that its hard to commit to a series that you like, but don’t love, when it seems certain to be canceled. What do they say, “Fool me once. Foolio it is?”

I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, but I suspect its die-hard fans react to that show the way I react to Friday Night Lights. Both series are primetime soaps hoping to turn the viewer into a little girl while swooning over its characters, though obviously in completely different ways. Friday Night Lights cleverly disguises all of these girly emotions under a raw visual style, a realistic-for-network-television looking cast, and of course football. But make no mistake, FNL wants to make you cry, and I love it!

Friday Night Lights manages to pull off the unenviable task of presenting all of the worst moments from high school in a way that makes them strangely appealing and makes you strangely nostalgic. It’s like Freaks in Geeks set in the south if every character in the school was a jock (I know, I know, that show sounds just about the worst… but trust me, it works).
What really sells the show, especially in these past three weeks, is Kyle Chandler’s portrayal of the coach. The way he interacts with the quarterback who is wooing his daughter is absolutely hilarious, and dare I say brilliantly realistic. No line in network television has been delivered better this season than last week when he asked the QB if he could hang up his Members Only jacket. It was a throwaway line delivered about as perfectly as one could ask. His character is a person who’s day-job involves barking orders, but who is increasingly powerless in matters of the home.

While watching the show, NBC asked me to ask all of you to go to NBC.com and watch Friday Night Lights episodes (which they have all of in their entirety) so that when the show comes back in the new year people will actually tune in. Seemed like a simple request.

So go watch it!

I seem to be writing about NBC a lot lately, though the network is in such disastrous shape it begs discussion. Here’s what we all know: NBC is in last-place. Because of this, and because parent company G.E. is responsible to its shareholders for increasing the value of its stock, NBC recently had to fire 750 employees in a massive restructuring move that included moving MSNBC from its current home in New Jersey to Rockefeller Center with the rest of NBC news. With hindsight we’re able to ask the always important question, “Jersey?”

Additionally, NBC has decided to remove all scripted comedies and dramas from the 8 o’clock hour in lieu of cheaper game shows and reality fare. This will affect the bottom line initially, but one has to wonder if Howie Mandel is really the best choice for a lead-in (over and over and over again).

This restructuring is suppose to put more of a focus on NBC’s digital properties, because, if you haven’t heard, this ‘digital’ thing might really take off. The problem is that even if this is true, someone still has to program at least 21 hours worth of prime-time television each week. After the jump, I think I’ve figured out how to do it…

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Continuing in the age-old tradition of talking-up shows that are certain to be canceled, let me take this time to give some more props to Friday Night Lights the NBC drama people should have been talking about all along.

Last night’s episode, crammed between NBC’s election night coverage and starting twenty-minutes late, was great in the way every episode of the show is great. What specifically struck me this week was how the creators are able to take very familiar high school storylines and present them in a way that either seems more realistic than their simple-minded counterparts, or presents them with a level of intensity you wouldn’t expect.

This week, the recently promoted quarterback had to decide between gelling with his new super-cool footballer friends, or be loyal to his super-uncool unfootballer friends that he’s known for years. Pretty standard fare. If Freaks and Geeks had lasted a second season its assumed this is the direction the show would have gone with the Sam character. Its a high school story as old as high school itself. Friday Night Lights stands out because it used this trope as the backing for a story that was really about racism– a topic that isn’t easy to broach on a network television drama without coming off as preachy or disingenuous (see: Studio 60…). Instead we’re given something pretty meaty to think about while watching a story we’ve maybe seen once or twice before.

Last week’s Friday Night Lights was quite good. This week’s Friday Night Lights was amazing. The show is able to create a vividly real and heartbreaking image of small-town life in the south. Though I feel “small-town” is a bit of a misnomer. The town represented in the series isn’t really all that rural. It’s big enough to have its own television media, commercial chains (Applebees), even a Planned Parenthood. Perhaps “small-city” would fit better. Either way, what the area doesn’t have is much in the way of opportunity. Unless, of course, you play or coach football, or you have a son or friend or boyfriend or husband who plays or coaches football.

The shaky camerawork and washed out colors give Friday Night Lights an aura of sadness — a sense that there’s only one way out of this town: football. The Wire suggests the only way out of the inner city is through either playing ball, rap, or dealing (though really neither). Friday Night Lights paints small-town USA as the inner city of the American South, a location where poor whites and poor blacks are stuck together, with the only way to a better life being right through the end-zone. Still, Friday Night Lights doesn’t seem to have the unrelenting cynicism that The Wire has, which frankly, is kind of nice.

The greatest moment in the series thus far has been a line delivered by a cheerleader at the bedside of her recently paralyzed star-QB boyfriend:

“You are Jason Street and I am Lila Garity and everything is going to work out just like we planned it.”

The way the line is delivered, you can tell Lila almost believes what she says.

It seems like last week there there was so much television being watching by yours truly I barely had an opportunity to report back with my thoughts (and without thoughts, we really don’t have much of a website). So here are, more or less, my notes on a week’s worth of programming:

Friday Night Lights (Tuesdays 8pm NBC) - Inexplicably placed on a Tuesday, Friday Night Lights is being put into my regular rotation because its one of the few shows I’ve seen on network television that doesn’t shy away from the racial and economical issues affecting small cities in America. The pilot was a by-the-numbers local-boy-makes-good football story and yet the emphasis was never put on the game itself, but on the characters and how football is really the towns only shared experience. The shows realism seemed startling.

Help Me Help You (Tuesdays 9:30 ABC) - I liked seeing Tim Meadows as the rival therapist. Tim Meadows is the type of SNL alum who was so poorly used on the show it might have tainted an otherwise brilliant career. Otherwise, if it weren’t for the complete lack of comedies on television, I probably would quit watching this show. In classic Hollywood fashion, the series takes place in a New York City that reeks of Los Angeles (the LA subway may on one of the sets didn’t help).

The Nine (Wednesdays 10:00 ABC) - First and foremost, “Egan Foote” might be the greatest character name of the season. As for the character, well, we’ll just have to wait and see. As a whole, The Nine was both good and interesting, but like Studio 60… we won’t be able to get a real look at the show until the second or third week. What is interesting about the setup for The Nine (a group of people are held hostage in a bank for 52 hours, and throughout the shows run we’ll get to see what happened in there) is seeing if audiences will use the hostage-taking as a canvas in which to project their own personal tragedies. Perhaps the bigger question is wondering if people do happen to project themselves into the series, will they like what they see? The Nine asks viewers to dig a little deeper into their own psyche in order to start relating to the characters on screen. I’m curious to see if viewers will be willing to do that.

Freak Show (Wednesdays 10:30 Comedy Central) - The voice-talent alone is a force to be reckoned with. Frankly, I could listen to Jon Benjamin read XML manuals and find it hilarious, though the show still pales in comparison to The Venture Brothers, which might be the pinnacle of six years worth of Adult Swim programming. Aside from South Park, Comedy Central has never really had much authority in animation.

Peep Show (BBC, DVD) - I put down the TV remote for the DVD remote and checkout out the british series, Peep Show, which was recommended to me by a friend. It’s a fairly high concept show about two roommates who are a bit of an odd-couple (one’s a button down office worker, there other is a carefree musician). The twist is that the entire show is shot from the point-of-view of one of the characters. As in we, the audience, are constantly looking through someone’s eyes and are able to hear their thoughts. Its a cool-enough idea, and could certainly propel a series, but it also doesn’t hurt that the characters frequently make the worst decisions you could imagine. I’d basically equate the style of comedy to something of a British It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Definitely worth checking out.

Ugly Betty (Thursdays 8:00 ABC) - Nice to see “Dawn” from the British office show up here as the host of “Fashion TV.” That makes two network shows where she’s been spotted in a small role this season. LET’S MAKE IT THREE!

SNL (Saturdays 11:30 NBC) - The only redeeming parts of this episode were the “New York City Stories” shorts that were done with Fred Armisen and Amy Poehler. Specifically the first one where Armisen played Scorsese. That made me laugh.

South Park (Wednesdays 10:00 Comedy Central) - I don’t play “Worlds of Warcraft” but enjoyed this episode nonetheless. I’m curious how much support they had from Blizzard, as their logo was all over the episode.

Extras (Thursdays 9:00 BBC-2) - It’s not out in America yet (January), but let me be the first to tell you that the second season of Ricky Gervais’ Extras is leaps and bounds above the first (which is saying something since the first season was hardly shabby). This week’s episode featured Chris Martin from Coldplay pimping his new record “Coldplay’s Greatest Hits.” I know that doesn’t sound all that funny (”You’re gay because you like Coldplay”), but trust me… it is. There’s video available via the BBC.

Due to my work schedule, my sleep schedule, my surprisingly high diet of live rock ‘n roll, and the Met/Dodger game is currently airing in front of me, you can hardly expect me to hammer out a post on last night’s pilot episode of Friday Night Lights, no matter how good it may have been (it was quite good).

I’ll do my best to get some solid posts on here before week’s end, but — HOME RUN CLIFF FLOYD! METS TAKE THE LEAD! OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AWESOME…