Friday Night Lights

Taking a slight departure from music today... Back at the New York TV Festival earlier this fall, I won the 1st season of Friday Night Lights on DVD. I had never seen the show and I didn't think I was going to like it based on the subject matter (I am not a big football fan), but it was free and I was bored one day so I popped in disc 1. I think I watched three episodes in one sitting. And I proceeded to watch 2-3 episodes every single day after that until I finished the 1st season. I was completely addicted and I was very disappointed when I finished the 1st season and found out it was going to be 3 whole weeks until the 2nd season started. I may have even gone through withdrawl.

Some stuff about the show takes a little getting used to, like the grainy look and the shaky hand-held camera work. But you get so sucked into the plot and the characters that you get used to the raw style of it and you stop noticing. The two things I don't like about the show: I have to suspend disbelief quite a bit at times (like Jason - who hasn't even technically graduated high school - being hired as an assistant coach). And, in the first season, there was an episodic formula where each episode revolved around a game and somehow the stakes for every single game were so high and they would be losing until the very last minute and they would make a touchdown just as time ran out and win it. That little formula started to annoy me.

One thing I love about the show is the characters. My favorite character is Tim Riggins. He could easily be a one-dimensional "macho, getting in fights all the time, jerk" type character. But he's much more complex than that. In fact most, if not all, of the characters are complex - rarity in TV these days.

The Season 2 premiere was last night, and I can't say I loved it. However, the previews for the next episode and rumors that I've heard gave me lots of hope for the coming season. Some parts of the premiere were great, but others were not. What's with Julie being so angsty and bitchy? She was so well-adjusted before. And I was very unhappy in the preview for next episode when it showed her kissing "The Swede." And why do they call him "The Swede"? He's not Swedish. But like I said, everything I've heard gives me great hope for the coming season. And I did like how they didn't follow the episodic formula from last season. In fact, there wasn't even a game in this episode. I wonder what they're going to do when half the main characters graduate at the end of the season.

share this post on de.licio.us / facebook