Question: Doth my eyes deceive me? The Hollywood Foreign Press nominated seven (!) women for Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama at the Golden Globes, and somehow Connie Britton's name isn't on that list? The list looks like a bunch of names who should be nominated, not who actually deserves it (though Glenn Close was pretty stellar). For my money, Connie Britton is consistently the best female actress on TV and the best part of a really fantastic show. I was hoping that this time around Friday Night Lights would get some love. On the upside, I was thrilled to see that Jon Hamm and Mad Men were both deservedly nominated (and, amazingly, no Gandolfini or Sopranos, in their respective categories).
Answer: Sadly, it seems that Friday Night Lights is going to stay off the radar of most of the commercial awards, including this one. Maybe FNL is too all-American for the Foreign Press, who knows? It is a disappointment, but not a surprise. As I note in my Dispatch, I was actually
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You mean Landry? Jesse Plemons, Kyle Chandler by Bill Records/NBC
Guest blogger Casey Marsella (Heroes) here! Leah couldn't make it tonight, but I'll do my best to recap this amazing show!Landry! Landry! Landry!Jesse Plemons made Dillon (and FNL fans) stand up and cheer tonight. His performance is what I love about this show. I’ve always noticed that the people who seem "out of place" are usually the ones most comfortable in their own skin. Landry used to be the goofy, one-liner sidekick, but he was always sure of himself. Tonight he proved that. His halftime speech was the highlight of the episode: "We can win together or lose alone." It was the perfect lead-in to: Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose!So, who’s together and who’s alone?Let’s start with the Taylors. Tami is thrilled to have her husband back, but not enough to give him the "green light." Coach was gently shot down and forced to sleep on the couch so Tami could finally get a good night’s sleep. The next day, the bags under his eyes initiated an unwanted ...
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He's back! Kyle Chandler by Bill Records/NBC
Guest blogger Casey Marsella here! I'll do my best in the absence of Leah, so here we go...Coach Taylor returns to Dillon! His first priorty is his family at home. Julie finally came to her senses last week. Let's hope she lightens up to her new sister soon. Coach Taylor's other family also needs some help. Will Matt and Smash come to blows again? When will Riggins and Street return home? And if they do: Will they be part of the team again?Tyra was congratulated for her detailed description of a rapist found dead... but where's the watch?Check back for my full recap after the show!
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Question: I felt compelled to write because of Martin P.'s recent comment about his Texas friends who avoided Friday Night Lights "like the plague." I've lived in Texas my entire life, and I do understand his friends' concerns. I usually cringe when TV shows or movies employ characters supposedly from Texas, because usually the accents, attitudes and, honestly, everything else is completely off. However, I am happy to say that the powers-that-be at FNL have been spot-on. I went to college in a small town very much like Dillon and probably very near to where Dillon is supposed to be located, and from the pilot onwards, I was nostalgic. The accents are perfect. The genuflecting to high-school football is perfect. The slice-of-life approach to family, faith and friends is perfect. I live about an hour from where they film, and so from the opening credits, I just grin, because I recognize the roads and open country and various locales. This show gets it right, and it makes me proud to be a ...
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MacGregor is out and Taylor is in. Chris Mulkey by Bill Records/NBC
Episode Recap: "Backfire"Who didn't have a little flutter in his (or her) heart when Coach Taylor, back in his Dillon Panther blues, stood up in front of that room like nothing had changed and said, "Let's go. Let's have some fun today"? What a way to end an episode that already just seemed to fly by.Aside from that weird, Mafia-like threat from Coach MacGregor ("I have a family, too, and you just remember that. I'll be seeing you again"), Eric's homecoming was nothing less than joyous. Julie and Tami are well on their way to patching things up, especially now that it looks like the grungy Swede might be out of the picture. Matt Saracen has someone back on his side again, and Buddy should probably be considered the town hero.Ah, Buddy. We may have just been witness to the only game in Panther history that Buddy honestly wanted his beloved team to lose. It was quite a sight to watch him hold back a grin as Smash got blocked again and again, leaving Dillon with a humiliating loss on t...
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Eric hopes he can get his old job back. Kyle Chandler by Mitchell Haaseth/NBC
Episode Recap: "Are You Ready for Friday Night?"Is this show about football or hockey? There was so many smackdowns (verbal and physical) tonight, that I think I'm forming bruises in sympathy. What does it say about a show when the characters who are doing the best at the moment are the ones who recently committed murder?That's right, you Tyra and Landry fans — the deed has been done, is probably going to be done again. And it seems like they're genuinely in love. Dillon's former bad girl — who seems to have passed on her particular brand of anger to Julie, but more on which later — is in a relationship with a guy that respects her and won't take advantage, so it's just too bad that the entire foundation of their love is that they killed someone. Their watch-shopping scene was the sweetest and lightest of the night ("it really doesn't look anything like [the old watch] except that they are both watches and have hands and tell time"). Definitely a welcome respite fro...
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Matt tries to figure out how to deal with the women in his life. Zach Gilford by Bill Records/NBC
Episode Recap: "Bad Things"Regular readers of this blog know that this show make me cry on a pretty regular basis. Tonight's episode was no exception, though I'm not sure what part was most affecting. You'd think it would be Jason still coming to terms with his paralysis after recovering some muscle function, but that's really just par for the course on this show. As usual, Connie Britton's flawless portrayal of a new mother with a crumbling psyche was wrenching to watch. Was there any scene in which she wasn't desperately trying to swallow her sobs? And the thing is, it all seemed so completely organic — there was no screaming or a melodramatic "Why me?" moment. It's hard not to love a show that allows its characters to fully comprehend the ridiculousness of their choices, and when Glenn (the guidance counselor in need of guidance) asked Tami why exactly she and Eric were living apart, her acknowledgement of, "I don't know, that was just my idea, it was just a stupid idea," wa...
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Angie Harmon in Women's Murder Club by Danny Feld/ABC
My loyalties are so divided on Friday nights. I want ABC’s so-so new crime drama Women’s Murder Club to do well enough to bring some much-needed eyeballs to the charming romantic comedy Men in Trees, which finally returns from a cruel nearly eight-month hiatus. With James Patterson’s name as a selling point for Murder Club (though he’s not writing this series any more than he appears to be penning half of the books that go out with co-writers’ names on his ubiquitous book jackets), the show certainly has a shot at commercial success, even on a night that’s widely considered a graveyard. Remember: This same night, and this same time period (9 pm/ET), is where the original CSI launched to even less fanfare, and the rest is TV history.But I also don’t want anything to take audience away from Murder Club’s competition, most notably NBC’s ever-fragile Friday Night Lights, which offers another superb episode this week. Even if like many observe...
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Question: I've been a fan of yours for a long time. Your columns are must-reads for me. I started watching Friday Night Lights over the summer largely based on your praise of the show. I became addicted. So thank you for that. But I have a huge problem with the murder in the season-opener. And not just the murder, but the disposing of the body. It's the first time I can recall this show being over-the-top melodramatic and unrealistic, and it's also the first time I can't see how a problem can get resolved without incredibly dark, depressing results. Please tell me I'm missing some option, that the show can get past this and I can look forward to enjoying future episodes.
Answer: This is pretty much the universal first reaction from everyone I know about the Landry-Tyra storyline in the season-opener. I think most fans can wish this simply hadn't happened, or that at the very least they would have just left the body where it fell after Landry's attack and justifiably claimed
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The Taylors adjust to their new situation. Connie Britton, Aimee Teegarden, Kyle Chandler by Bill Records/NBC
Episode Recap: "Last Days of Summer""Welcome back to another glorious year of Panther football." I'm not ready to classify the football as glorious just yet, what with this new Coach McGregor (the anti-Eric Taylor) and all, but the show itself is certainly back and in sublime form.Let us first welcome into the world Miss Grace Taylor, second daughter of Eric and Tami, sister to suddenly moody teen, Julie. Now Eric has another daughter to defend against football players and Swedes; too bad he's a plane ride away in Austin. His new coaching job at TMU is having a deleterious effect on his family and (I'm not even being dramatic when I say this) the entire football-loving community in Dillon, but more about that in a bit. Julie won't talk to him because she considers him to have been an absentee father for the last 8 months, and Tami — Connie Britton, proving yet again how wrong the Emmy voters got it with her incredible performance tonight — is absolutely destroyed that he c...
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