I'm all about the underdog, even—perhaps (sadly) especially—in the area of pop culture. There are television shows that are painfully good; they're special from their first episode but are doomed at conception. Doomed to good reviews but low ratings, doomed to short but glorious runs while American Idol shrieks into its 47th season. You know them: Freaks and Geeks. Arrested Development. The Wire (which may be the finest show ever produced and which HBO—mercifully—allowed to live up to its potential. But that's another post. Or two).
Now the wonderful Friday Night Lights flounders like a mackerel on the ice while NBC prepares to lower a bat to its head.
I was skeptical of FNL at first. It's not that I don't enjoy a dose of sports with my Swan’s Way; I grew up in a northern Albertan oil town where hockey provided not only a social structure and but also a liturgical calendar. So I get that sports and sport culture can be important (if problematic), even thought I denied it for years (see: my disaffected feminist youth). Perhaps it was the fact that she show was an offshoot of a forgettable film about high school football, but I had to be convinced of its merits. And I was.
FNL stands out for several reasons. The acting is strong. The music is subtle but epic. Real issues are at stake. Most of the characters ring true. The relationship between Dillon Panthers coach Eric Taylor his wife Tammi (I love her name. C’est trash!) is the most realistic portrayal of modern marriage on television.
The female characters are full-blown people; they can be genuinely unlikable in the way that only legitimate characters are (I wanted to slap Julie myself when Tammi caught her making out with The Swede).
The players who need to be larger than life are executed perfectly - Buddy Garrity is that guy, that one small town guy, the car sales patriarch whose money and influence and (he thinks) charisma make the game go round. Tim Riggins is a white trash lady killer with slumping ambition and dirty hair, but he’s really a misguided good guy (or do I just want to think that?). And he's a joy to behold. Smash Williams is a cocky jock, but he's also a true warrior and the love of his mother's life.
I also love that show is about rurality, about trying to figure out where you belong outside of a small community where family and tradition and football account for so much of your identity. It's about Dillon itself, a town that struggles with the new economy and old problems like racism, addiction, war and family dysfunction. Like film, television has relied on cities with big personalities for a long time: Sex And The City and Seinfeld, for example used the backdrop of New York, with its flaws and flavours, to great effect. But really great stuff can happen on the margins. Northern Exposure made the terra nullis of rural Alaska the most philosophically and narratively rich place in America. One of The Wire's numerous strengths is its ability to bring the life of an overlooked and unsexy city (Baltimore, where Carrie Bradshaw has never worn Vivenne Westwood) to the fore and to make us love it despite its violence and corruption. When FNL does take us to the big city, that city is Austin, Dallas's eccentric cousin, and again, we're on the edges of relevance.
FNL is certainly not perfect. It jumped the shark this season with the melodramatic tribulations of Tyra and Landry and the sudden emergence of Mat Saracen’s inner drunken bad ass; I’m tempted to blame this on network pressure to create lower quality but more marketable content; it's hard to believe that FNL's writers would have independently crafted these story lines given the intense but realistic story lines of the first season. Even so, it's still a great production.
One last note: tough and trashy femme fatale Tyra is a Col(l)ette. Perfect!
This week's episode might be the last. Let us watch on Friday friends, for Saturday Dillon may die!
