*There are no spoilers in this post. Anyone can read this, whether you've seen none, some, or all of the TV show Friday Nights Lights. This is both a celebration of the show and an invitation to watch it.
I remember when Friday Night Lights premiered on TV. I laughed at the thought of another TV show converting from a good movie, sure that it would be bad. Movies-into-TV usually goes pretty poorly... Dangerous Minds and Clueless come to mind. Even more ridiculous to me was that they would air it on Friday nights... even if that was the name of the show, that was no reason to stick a new show on a crappy TV night unless it was doomed to fail. I figured it would be an instant flop, cancelled in its first season. I never really thought of it for a few years.
I was wrong. I got into FNL between its 3rd and 4th seasons after hearing Bill Simmons and Patton Oswalt praising it on a podcast. Billy had talked it up before, after its first season, but I just read that article and didn't think much of it. But this time, they talked about how the main husband and wife characters portrayed the most realistic marriage on TV, how great all the characters were, etc., and I figured I should give it a shot. After the first few episodes, I was hooked. I've noticed a lot of people tend to get hooked within the first few episodes, if not after the excellent pilot.
I never knew much about FNL until I started watching it because, probably like you, I didn't follow it in its first few seasons. Props to those who did. It was stuck on a bad TV night with bad advertising and people not realizing it was good (guys thinking it was too soap opera-y, girls thinking it was a football show for dudes). It almost got cancelled after each of its first 3 seasons. Its second season was cut short by a writer's strike, and as it was the weakest of the 5 seasons, it's fortunate that DirecTV stepped in and made a deal with NBC to keep the show alive (DirecTV would get the rights to air the show first, and the season was cut to a 13-episode order, instead of a 20+ order that a network show might normally have. Does this call into question whether it's truly a network show? Meh... it still would show on NBC without any changes. I say it's a network show).
Friday Night Lights is no LOST. It never reached the popularity of it, nor did it reach LOST's huge cult following in the last few seasons that I was very much a part of. It was no West Wing, never receiving its huge share of Emmys or award acclaim. Instead, it just gritted it out to have the joy of having more seasons to tell its story. In a better world, it would have gotten more. Its weakest season was in season 2, when it supposedly folded to ratings pressure by trying to bring in a ridiculous, hopefully ratings-grabbing plot that flopped, along with a slight sophomore slump that may have been a result of story fatigue after it balls-out first season. Its Seasons 3-5 were superb though, with Season 5 making an argument for its best season, a rare pattern in television shows, especially network TV.
Friday Night Lights will probably impress you from the start, with a pilot that sets things up in such a great way. Watch for the awesome first season, where the show went for broke with storylines from all over the place (steroids, racism, Internet bullying, to name a few) and succeeded with most of them. Watch for chilling sports scenes, which you'll find a few of each season. Watch for the Taylor household, a dad/mom/daughter combo where the husband and wife have realer conversations and dynamics than any you'll see on TV, and the parents have a relationship with their daughter that is portrayed so rawly and so well.
Watch for Coach Taylor, someone who you will wish was also your life coach. Watch for Tami Taylor, a character who is so much more than a coach's wife in this show and maybe the show's most important character. Watch for the players who deal with the pressures of football, school, family, and life, with the weight of the town on their shoulders sometimes. Watch for the female characters who are strong women in their own right. Watch to see up close the personal lives of these characters in a way that is honest and at times emotional to witness. Watch to laugh with the characters, to celebrate with them, and to cry with them. And yes, you will cry. Or at least, for me, my allergies would start acting up.
Watch for the second season, which is still good, just not as good as you would hope. Watch for the third season, where the show found a new spark while starting to say goodbye to some characters that were just too old for a show focused on high school football. Watch for the fourth season, a slightly more inconsistent season because of the transition of new characters, and yet a season filled with episodes of excellence and one of the best transitions you'll ever see for a show where TV characters left high school. Watch for the fifth season, a wonderful send-off that ends the show so well, on top of its game, still giving you chills and tears.
Friday Night Lights has a small cult following now, loved by the few who have seen it at this point. I imagine in the next few years, it'll get more and more love as it makes the rounds in conversations, similar to how The Wire has become more well-known in the years after its last season. It has cemented its place as the best sports TV show ever (not really a big competition, when you consider that there are mainly just things like... Playmakers... and... uh... but the fact that there are so few shows kinda proves how hard it is to make a show like this. I guess White Shadow, an old show, is supposed to be quite good. And how did I almost forget to mention Hang Time?). But I think it can also make a case for one of the best network shows ever and probably my personal favorite network drama. I've mentioned some of its great aspects, and I'll concede that there are some weak aspects about it (some minor plots and characters being dropped without much explanation, and a few storylines that were just weaker than they could have been). But the highs it reached and the consistency with which it reached those highs? Top-notch.
I plan on getting the whole series on DVD. There aren't many shows I'll do that for (The Wire and Arrested Development... maybe Mad Men and Breaking Bad when they end... maybe not Lost, and I'll see about sitcoms in the future)... but this show just brought it, and I love it. I might even get a shirt too, to rep. I'll truly miss seeing the stories of these characters, rooting for the team, and wondering what would happen next.
If you watch the show, I hope you feel likewise. If you haven't, I encourage you to check out the pilot and see how you feel. I think the pilot is great, and I think the second episode keeps up the quality instead of being a letdown. And it'll go on strong from there. You can get most of it, I think, on Netflix streaming. Or DVDs. Or... through uh, other means.
This was the little show that could. Boy, did it. And so I say, not for the last time: CLEAR EYES. FULL HEARTS...
