I felt compelled to write ...
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 Texan. (Even though I still don't quite get the end-all devotion to high-school football.) Thank you for continuing to champion such a remarkable drama.
Answer: Rest assured that Texans came out of the proverbial woodwork to let me know that, in Linda R.'s words, "there are plenty of Texans who are watching
Friday Night Lights for its honest depiction of small-town Texas life, along with its masterful characterizations."
But to show that I am willing to present alternate views, even when it pains me to do so, here's a rebuttal (not of the Texas angle, but decrying the show itself) from Kylie M.:
"What a disappointment Season 2 has turned out to be. After talking this show up to all and sundry last year and encouraging friends to watch it, I'm now loaning out my Season 1 DVDs with the disclaimer that they might want to stop there. I wish I had. I watched Episode 3 and thought that the show must surely be using new staff writers. Who are these pod-people characters inhabiting my favorite show? The idiotic decision to write the coach out of Dillon and therefore out of his family is pure agony to watch. Julie's turned into an annoying, completely clichéd teen (and in the process broke up one of TV's sweetest teen couples). Smash has reverted to his former one-dimensional self. Lila's 'God loves me' storyline is fast-forward-worthy, but it's the absolutely ridiculous Tyra-Landry storyline that's annoyed me the most. You're telling me that the people who created Matt Saracen (one of the best teen characters I've ever seen on TV) and wrote the Coach and Tami as one of the best TV couples ever, as well as Street's rehabilitation storyline, Smash's drug storyline and racism-driven strike couldn't come up with any other way to get these two together? Please. Why couldn't Tyra realize that Landry was smart, sweet, kind and funny without him having to kill for her? It's just so stupid. I give up. I really wish NBC had done the kinder thing and canceled the show last year, rather than bring it back in this god-almighty mess. There's nothing left to tune in for."
Obviously, I disagree on many of these points (although not so much the Tyra-Landry plot mechanism, which has been pretty widely and understandably criticized). But given the woeful
Friday numbers, I wouldn't doubt there's some genuine discontent going on among elements of the fan base about a number of these issues. While
Kyle Chandler and especially
Connie Britton played this separation storyline to the hilt, which is now thankfully moot with the coach coming back to Dillon, I agree that it was hard to buy them agreeing to be apart during her late pregnancy. It did come off like a story contrivance, although again, the actors sold it. But I'm totally buying Julie dumping Matt. I don't approve, but then, I'm an adult. I want them to be together and I want Matt to be happy. Julie's a kid and was feeling trapped for a variety of reasons. Nothing clichéd about that, and the emotional fallout at home (culminating with Tami slapping her rebellious daughter) has been some of the most searing drama anywhere this season. Smash getting all cocky again thanks to the new coach's slavish attentions on making him the team's star? How is this out of character? Look where it led on the field, to his violent conflict with the frustrated Saracen. Great drama. Lila finding God over the eight-month break? Given where she lives and who she is, I buy that, too (although
Minka Kelly has always been a weak link in the cast, so that may be part of the problem). People in broken families often turn to the church for solace, and as has been pointed out here before, religion is so often unseen and unexplored in prime-time TV, and so often trivialized and demeaned that
Friday Night Lights should be encouraged, not sneered at, for going there. Is
Friday Night Lights as perfect this season as it appeared to be in its freshman year? No, and a lot of that has to do with the nature of weekly episodic TV, where writers and even actors don't want to repeat themselves but can't always come up with as inspired material the second time around. Kylie may be right that if
Friday Night Lights had only produced that one brilliant season, the show's reputation might have been better off. But I refuse to think that TV is better off without
Friday Night Lights, even in its current imperfect state.
