Welcome Back

Last night an old friend came back to visit. It was the season premiere of Friday Night Lights on NBC. I know it's been playing on DirecTV for a few months now, but I'm on cable and it was nice to be able to watch the show again. I love the way that this program captures small town life. It reminds me so much of home in Mississippi, a place where the Friday night high school football game is the subject for the entire town to discuss all week long. It's based upon the movie of the same name which was released in 2004, and I also loved the film's evocation of what it means to live in a place where there is so little to do and where so much depends upon the one thing that brings everyone together once a week. The TV series is perhaps even better than the film at presenting that sense of unity.

I think the characters on the show are all sharply drawn, particularly Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami (the amazing Connie Britton). I think they are the most realistic married couple on television these days; they love each other, but they find each other quite puzzling at times too. The young actors who play the members of the football team are all excellent, particularly Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen and Taylor Kitsch (probably the hottest guy on television these days) as Tim Riggins. My favorites on the show, though, are Adrianne Palicki as Tyra Collette, the former bad girl who's trying to reform her ways so that she can get out of the small town she's in, and her admirer, Landry Clarke, played by Jesse Plemons. Their moments together are a highlight of every episode in which they appear, and I can certainly understand Tyra's desire to leave behind the small town mentality. The only other relationship that comes close to being as interesting is the one involving Coach Taylor and the number-one booster of the team, car dealer Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland). They are the funniest couple since Oscar and Felix shared time on the small screen, and last season they had some of the best moments in the show's brief history.

So few people are watching this show, and I don't really understand why. I don't really like football, but this isn't truly a show about sports. The games are just a topic. What it's really about is the way that people in small towns like this interact, how they manage to get along with (or, sometimes, not get along with) the other people. Having grown up in a town much like the fictional Dillon, I can assure you that the makers of the show get it right each time.

This could be the last season of the show. The ratings have never been good, and they're probably going to be miniscule now that the show is on Friday nights for just 13 weeks. So it seems like it's going to be another TV program that I and a few critics enjoy, but no one else in America seems to "get." (Sort of like Swingtown, which I loved, but which hardly anyone else managed to watch.) I expect I'll have to comfort myself someday soon with boxed sets of the complete seasons on DVD. In the meantime, I know where I'm spending my Friday nights for the next few months.