The first season of Friday Night Lights is over, and NBC has begun to rerun some (but not all) of the first season episodes. Fortunately, you can watch the entire first season over on NBC's site.
I've been catching up with the first season online, after having avoided it completely when it originally aired on television. You see, I don't like sports, and I especially didn't like high school sports. In fact, I pretty much hated every aspect of high school. You can imagine a show about high school football was going directly on my "Never Watch In A Million Years" list.
But then Patton Oswalt, the comedian/geeky nerd who buys comic books and writes about classic horror tales on his blog, gave his endorsement to the series, writing that it was "as complex and unforgiving as The Wire or Battlestar Galactica."
I don't know if I would make that exact comparison, but speaking as someone who had no interest in high school sports and who wore out a trench between the band and art rooms between his freshman and senior years, I must say that I've been completely drawn into the fictional town of Dillon, Texas and all of its citizens.
Friday Night Lights is not really about football, it's about a town that produces a number of pro and college athletes, and how that pressure permeates everyday life in the small town. Some kids know what it's like to have one or both parents trying to live vicariously through them, but imagine an entire town doing the same thing. If you think it's asinine for a town to behave that way, this series isn't going to change your mind. If anything, it'll make you even angrier, but that's exactly what a real drama should do. Friday Night Lights doesn't try to force a certain perspective, it lays it all out for you and never becomes preachy or sentimental. The situation the town finds itself in may not be familiar to many of us. In fact, it's downright inexplicable in many ways, but the series is about how people deal with that situation, and how the weight of it can be simultaneously empowering and devastating to the kids who are caught up in the midst of it all.
As a teenager, I grew up not caring about the football games anymore than the football players cared how well I played the upright bass in concert band, which is why I never bothered to watch this show when it first aired. High school might be clique-y, but Friday Night Lights is not. It is one of the most objective views of high school life I've ever seen, and if you can find a way to watch the first season before the second season kicks off, you should.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-28-2007 @ 2:54PM
Bash said...
Friday Night Lights is Dawson's Creek with a vengeance. 'Nuf said.
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5-28-2007 @ 3:15PM
Mel said...
Real critics have actually said it better. Get with the program. Oh wait, good.
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5-28-2007 @ 3:30PM
Matt said...
Congrats on getting in on one of the best new shows of last year...a show that, surprisingly, wasn't canceled. I figured it would join the crop of other great shows that NBC gave the axe to after giving them almost no shot (*waves at The Black Donnellys and Andy Barker. And, to a small extent, Studio 60*).
I'm also amazed at Patton Oswalt's endorsement of the show. He and Brian Posehn constantly go on nerd rage rants about "jock douchebags" and such, so it's surprisingly to see him express 110% admiration for a show that has a couple of those JDs. Just goes to show you that great television is great (and redundant), regardless of the subject matter.
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5-29-2007 @ 2:21AM
las6 said...
You really should change the title to read "Why EVERYONE should give Friday Night Lights a chance".
Seriously, that was the best new series last season. (then again, the competition wasn't that bad) And I too hate(d) all things related to "high school football". Even if I've never even seen a game in my life. But this series.. man, it's good. I think the fact that it's so great, despite the setting makes it even more brilliant.
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5-28-2007 @ 10:14PM
MrsEldubya said...
The book this show is based on was great. The show is very loosely based on the book but much, much better than the movie of the same name. I think half the charm of this show is the casting and the other half is the character development. This is really a family drama with some football thrown in. The directing style makes it one of the more original shows on tv right now too.
I'm glad you found this show and are enjoying it. With NBC putting it on Friday Nights at 10 pm (right?) this fall, I doubt this show will last another season. Hopefully word of mouth and articles like this will help. Thank goodness for Tivo!
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5-28-2007 @ 11:37PM
Bill said...
And just for the opposite viewpoint, I love football, and Friday Night Lights is still awesome.
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5-28-2007 @ 11:59PM
Diana said...
I'd make fun of you for finding it so late in the game but I only discovered it this past February. I also hate sports. Have fallen asleep in stadiums with thousands of people but I consider Friday Night Lights to be one of the best shows on tv. Mudbowl is in my top 5 episodes of television for the year. Such a brilliantly crafted hour of tv.
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5-29-2007 @ 3:36PM
Colin said...
I started watching this show online after the season ended and it hooked me right from the beginning. The acting, writting and east Texas setting create a very compeling, dimensional story that in the words of so many english teachers "shows not tells".
A good indicator of how good the writing on this show is how often it makes me laugh. The characters and story seem so real that the humor emerges on its own.
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5-29-2007 @ 10:24AM
frafoa said...
Yes.Friday Night Lights is definitely one of the greatest dramas in our generation.
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5-29-2007 @ 7:47AM
epobirs said...
Frankly, I don't care if this is the single best show ever about a sports focused small town. I only have so much time in a week I can give my attention to TV and it simply isn't going to be about a drama with a core subject that bores me comatose.
Let me know when there is a FNL series finale wherein the town is reduced to a smoking crater. I might record that and skip to the last ten minutes.
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5-29-2007 @ 10:00AM
eric f said...
agreed. I love FNL, and it is up there in my top 5 right behind Battlestar Galactica. I never made the connection, but the feelings between the two shows are very similar...interesting.
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5-29-2007 @ 10:33AM
Cody said...
I found out about this show in January and watched the first 11 or so episodes in one sitting. It is outstanding. When it was on the renewal bubble, I figured it was because people have the wrong perception of it. It's a show about a sports team, but it isn't really about sports at all (except for the entirely cliched 10-minute football game every two or three episodes). Sports enthusiasts don't like it because there's not enough sports, but drama enthusiasts don't know that it's such an incredible show.
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6-25-2007 @ 8:45PM
Joel said...
Hey Adam, hopefully you read comments on old posts- I just found this article.
Anyway, I'm really glad you found FNL. Every time a bell rings a new FNL fan gets his or her wings. I'm wondering if you can do me a favor and do a new post regarding NBC pulling the Sunday night reruns from their schedule. My goal is to hype up this show so that it gains new audience in season two. As you know, its a great show that deserves the critical acclaim its received and will receive (hopefully July 19th with the Emmy nominations).
I am very glad that the suits at NBC made the decision to stick with the show for a season two, however I do have a bone to pick with how they are setting it up. If I were a network exec I would blitz the audience with a showcase of the entirity of season one. Have it culminate in prizes like autographed boxed sets of season one, a background role, whatever. Instead they chose to show a few episodes from season one starting with episode seven and as of Friday pull it off of their Sunday night encore summer schedule. Not a strategy for success in my opinion. Who wants to start watching a show at episode seven? Is that a way to increase viewership?
Anyway, if you agree maybe you could help bring light to the situation through your higher profile. Thanks.
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7-05-2007 @ 10:59AM
NICK said...
God, I love this show. Watching it in the UK, and I originally checked it out because of the film. It's probably the best TV series I've ever seen. I'm just mystified why programmes like Lost and Desperate Housewives get so much press, when FNL kicks their asses out of the park. The acting is superb, the storylines clever without being patronising, and the script (usually) intelligent. I just wish more people would watch it, so that I wouldn't be sweating so much about it being cancelled.
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