Fall is in the air, and football season has begun. While I've always
enjoyed autumn, I never gave the pigskin much thought, but I know a lot
of my classmates got pretty excited about high school football. Their
enthusiasm pales, however, in comparison to that of the townspeople of
Dillon, Texas, where the television drama Friday Night Lights
takes place. For Dillon residents, supporting the Panthers is a matter
of civic pride, since it is the only football team in town. Most
businesses shut down on the day of a home game; the stadium is the only
place to be.
It is into this community that Eric Taylor (Kyle
Chandler) comes as the new head coach of the Panthers. Expectations are
high; the team has done very well for itself in the past, and the
current starting quarterback, Jason Street (Scott Porter), is one of the
most talented athletes recruiters have seen in years. The pressure is
intense enough even with this golden boy in the lead, but when a tragic
accident puts Jason out of commission, Coach Taylor must scramble to
keep the team in the running for the championships, and himself in a
job. That means trusting in sweet, shy, stuttering second-stringer Matt
Saracen (Zach Gilford), who has his hands full as it is holding down a
job and looking after his beloved grandmother (Louanne Stephens), who
slips in and out of dementia. Nervous and bumbling at the beginning,
Matt gains confidence over the weeks without sacrificing his deeply
ingrained sense of integrity.
While the show focuses most
prominently on the twin journeys of Matt and his coach as they try to
become comfortable in their new roles, we also watch several other
characters develop. Initially, Eric's wife, Tami (Connie Britton),
struck me as a bit of a bubble-head, but that first impression soon
corrected itself. A patient and caring wife and mother with occasional
bursts of temper that match her husband's, she finds her place in the
town when she takes a job as school counselor and begins advising
students, who benefit greatly from her concern. Her new job occasionally
causes friction, however, since she sometimes finds herself butting
heads with her husband on certain issues, like the school looking the
other way when football players cheat on tests. His daughter Julie (Amy
Teegarden), meanwhile, is 15 and full of attitude, an intellectual whose
determination to have nothing to do with the sport that obsesses her
dad falters as Matt gradually works up the nerve to ask her out.
As Jason learns to adjust to life in a wheelchair, his solid
relationship with perky cheerleader Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) begins to
crumble, despite her faithfulness in visiting him daily at the hospital
and in rehab. Meanwhile, he wonders bitterly why his best friend, surly
Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), hasn't come to visit; when he finally
does, their friendship is tested after Jason discovers a shattering
secret. Other notable students include bad-girl Tyra Collette (Adrianne
Palicki), Tim's on-again, off-again girlfriend; Smash Williams (Gaius
Chales), a hot-shot who is probably the most likely remaining member of
the team to go pro; and Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons), Matt's nerdy best
friend who dishes out bad dating advice while pining over Tyra. Tim and
Tyra remind me a lot of Daniel and Kim from Freaks and Geeks
and follow a similar progression, while Matt's struggles to keep his
new status as football star from going to his head recall Clark in
season four of Smallville.
All of these students have problems, and we often see the parents
taking an active role in helping their children through their
difficulties. The Taylors present the best example of a mom and dad
supporting each other and their child, and indeed they wind up playing
parents to dozens of students throughout the year. Eric can holler with
the best of them out on the field or in the locker room, but he is fair,
and he values respect and hard work. He does sometimes get a little too
caught up in his job, however, and that's when it's up to Tami to
remind him how important family time is. Apart from the Taylors, my
favorite parent is Smash's mother, Corrina (Liz Mikel), a widow and
devout church-goer who raises her children with a firm hand tempered
with expansive affection.
Lyla's affluent parents strive to
keep a stable home for their children, but her father Buddy's (Brad
Leland) philandering makes that difficult; Jason's parents are so
desperate to provide for Jason in the face of his costly medical bills
that they decide to sue Coach Taylor for their son's injury. Tyra's
mother (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) is deeply devoted to her daughter but
tragically addicted to men who take advantage of her, and she does
nothing to foster Tyra's opportunities to further her education. Tim
lives with his brother Billy (Derek Phillips), who generally is a bad
influence but at least is there for him, which is more than can be said
of his father (Brett Cullen, who's appeared on LOST and Ugly Betty,
two of my other favorite shows), who only shows up long enough to
remind Tim what a lousy role model he is. Similarly, Matt's dad (Brent
Smiga) spends most of the season off-screen, and his arrival from Iraq
causes more problems for Matt than it solves, at least initially, but
his grandma, even at her least lucid, remains warm and loving.
Each episode juggles all these storylines and characters quite well,
aided by a jerky cinematography style that I initially disliked but that
grew less distracting for me as the season progressed. There are many
scenes in which several of the key characters are scattered across a
room or a field, and often the camera will pan away from one
conversation to another occurring feet away. This seems to happen
especially often in the beginning, when there is a need for us to get to
know the different characters as quickly as possible. Later episodes
tend to put more focus on characters' individual paths, and there is
plenty of room for them to make mistakes and mature; writers Peter Berg
and Buzz Bissinger see to it that most characters do plenty of both.
Several of the characters - most prominently Lyla and Smash's family -
are vocally Christian, and it seems most of the townsfolk attend church,
which is refreshing to see, though it doesn't prevent anyone from
getting into sticky situations. More than half a dozen characters are
unfaithful to a spouse or significant other over the course of the
season, and there are instances of bullying, violence, unethical
practices, racism, underage drinking, theft and drug use. Such mis-steps
have consequences, however, and most characters are considerably wiser
at the end of the season than they were at the beginning.
Friday Night Lights
is a slice-of-life show that demonstrates how a town can be both
divided and united by a passion for football and how times of change and
trauma help to build character. Though the show was snubbed by the
Emmys and didn't manage to rein in a large audience, it has another
chance to find its footing this fall, and I hope it does because
whatever accolades it receives are well-deserved. I probably won't be
spending any time at the football stadium this autumn, but I'm all too
happy to get into the spirit by watching Friday Night Lights.
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