“Friday Night Lights” makes me all squishy in love
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!
December 14th, 2006 at 11:34 am
I “heart” this show. If I’ve posted that before, it merits repeating. I’m sorry, but Howie Mandel’s “chemistry” with the suitcase girls has nothing on Kyle Chandler’s chemistry with, well, every other actor on FNL. Also, I want to meet the people who cast that show— everyone’s perfectly employed, from the wife/guidance counselor to the mayor to the parents of the atoning cheerleader.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I have, for various reasons, seen many Grey’s Anatomy episodes. They are actually very different in my opinion. Yes, they are both melodrama; however, what makes FNL melodrama is simply that all this crazy s$^% is happening at the SAME TIME (but it’s stuff that goes on in every town — big or small — across America).
These things went on in your high school. Sure, you probably didn’t know the high school sports superstar who got tragically injured (even paralyzed) AND the cheerleader who hooked up with one other guy on a whim and was then subjected to a “SLUT” smear campaign on the Internet AND the guy whose parents left him to be raised by his older brother AND the high school student who was hooked on drugs (in this case, steroids) … but you knew one of these people, if not more. And, chances are, even more similar people and situations existed at your school; you just didn’t know about it.
Most of us have never been to medical school (which, I hear is nothing like Grey’s Anatomy), and most of us don’t have that much sex with the same, very attractive people. I’ve never lived with my grandmother and been the unlikely starting quarterback of my high school football team who also works at “Dairy Queen” or whatever and has a crush on my coach’s daughter, BUT I can relate to it. Oh, and plus, this show (FNL) looks cool and is relatively Coldplay-less.