by DAVID KERN

“…Life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable. Will will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts. That what we have is special. That it can be taken from us, and when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. We will all now be tested. It is these times, it this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.”
- Eric Taylor
Friday Night Lights
Season One, Pilot

There are people - men and women, both young and old - who are faced daily with seemingly insurmountable odds: difficulties and tragedies, disappointments and misfortunes from which they often feel they will never recover. They know what it means to be abandoned or forgotten, to be overlooked or misjudged, to be taken for granted. They know what it means to have dreams that seem impossible and hopes that have all but evaporated, to be on the precipice of invisibility. They know what it means to be so close to no longer mattering that they can feel and smell the stale air of in-consequence. They know what it means to have a heavy heart.

There are times in each of our lives when we are one of these people. From time to time we all fall down.

“We will all fall down.”

We will know what it means to feel as they feel, to know and breathe and hurt and hope and evaporate as they do. To be tested as they are. This is living after all. This is the sour, broken, dark part of living. The ugly underbelly of living. The part of which we prefer not to speak nor remember nor consider.

But “we will all fall down.”

But this is just one part of living; for there is, after all, a joy in breath and scent and taste and sight, in facing a challenge and in having a dream. Just as there is loneliness and brokenness so too there is healing and reconciliation; as there is suffering and despair so too there is triumph and victory. Just as there is failure there is success. There is always possibility. There is always that light.

This is what Friday Night Lights is about. All of it.

*****

Set amidst the surprisingly epic landscape of small town Texas and fueled by that town’s (the fictional community of Dillon, Texas) ever-growing obsession with high school football, FNL is, quite simply, the single best show on TV. High praise, I know, for a show that was banished this season from the prime time slots of NBC’s fall line-up to the little seen retreats of a Direct TV only channel. But it is a show so bursting with life and passion that it is, I think, impossible to remain unmoved by its subtle - but powerful - foray into the lives of the ordinary people who inhabit the town.

Friday Night Lights is, quite simply, the best show on TV

Dillon is a small town dominated by big characters, chief of which are Eric Taylor, the head coach of the Dillon Panther football team, and his wife, Tami, the school’s principal. Together, their fate, along with the fates of their daughters Julie and infant Gracie and the fates of a few dozen young men, are changed and decided by the outcomes of Autumn’s Friday nights. If the Panthers win, they are all heroes. If they lose, well then they are goats. This is pretty much how it works in the Lone Star State. Even Coach Taylor would expect nothing less.

But Eric and Tami are more than a football family. They are also mentors and teachers, friends and, of course, spouses. Together they help the many younger characters of the show - some football players, others decidedly not - navigate the difficulties and tragedies of broken families, broken hearts and, often, broken bones.

However, the show does not paint the Taylors simply as saviors. On the contrary, they too suffer broken hearts, they too fall from to time. After all, we are reminded, we will all fall. But the show does paint them as strong people, strong in their marriage, strong in their faith, strong in their love, and completely dedicated to helping the young people of Dillon to become similarly strong. Played with grace and tenacity by veteran actors Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, Coach and Tami Taylor are among the best characters to ever appear on TV.

But the show also follows the often dramatic, always poignantly depicted, lives of a set of Dillon’s young people. In episode one of the show’s first season, Jason Street (Scott Porter), the star quarterback, is severely injured, ending his football career. It is around this event that much of the show - especially the first season - has been built. Naturally, Street is forced to deal with the physical and emotional ramifications of his injury, but so is his girlfriend, Lyla (Minka Kelly), and his best friend, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), who blames himself for the injury. With the star quarterback injured, backup Matt Saracen (Zack Gilford), a skinny kid more interested in Bob Dylan and drawing than in throwing touchdowns, takes over, much to the delight of his hilarious best friend, rock star wannabe, Landry (Jesse Plemons), and the coach’s daughter Julie (Aimme Teegarden), who is rather infatuated (mostly because Matt is different than the other football boys). Meanwhile, Landry is obsessed with the town trouble maker/party girl, Tyra Collette, who happens to be dating Tim, himself a trouble maker who has little hope of much of a future. Of course, Street’s injury also concerns the team’s other star, running back Brian “Smash” Williams (played wonderfully by Gaius Charles) who decides that its up to him to rally the troops - and to do so with as much braggadocio as possible.

As the first season progresses and the town rallies around Street and the team, we learn more and more about each of the characters, their backgrounds, their family lives, their dreams, their passions, and much more. We learn that Smash’s dad died when he was young and he lives with his dedicated and hardworking mother, we learn that Lyla’s parents - her dad is a booster and local businessman and one of the best characters on the show - are having trouble at home, and that Tyra’s dad left long ago. We learn that Matt’s dad is in Iraq and that he is forced to care daily for his aging Grandmother. We learn that Tim lives with his deadbeat brother, Billy, and heads to practice and school drunk most days. He is generally considered the show’s heartthrob.

It is in these characters that the show’s true magic is born. While, in many ways, they are archetypal figures in small town America teen dramas, the Taylors and company are anything but predictable. Each of them are nuanced and complicated and each are portrayed with nuance by their respective actors. While Street is the typical good looking quarterback, he is also a young man who cares deeply about others and about responsibility. He strives to do the right thing and to do right by others. Smash is one of the most nuanced young African American characters on TV (a rare thing, regrettably) today and Charles’ performances have deserved award nominations three years running. At the beginning of season one he is a cocky, arrogant and misguided boy, but as season three progresses he emerges as a humble, thankful and promising young man, football star or not. And whereas Tyra and Tim Riggins seem to begin as one dimensional troublemakers, season three is evidence of how they have grown up: as much as any two characters, they are evidence that there is always the light of possibility.

Like its previous counterparts, season three is miraculous. As the season begins, many of these characters are facing dramatic and difficult decisions. College is on the horizon; the highschool is running out of funding; new characters - and thus new competition - arrive in town and, of course, sometimes, it’s just about getting older and, hopefully, growing up. It is wonderful, although at times heartbreaking, to watch these people grow up and fight for their dreams; most of all, it is a delight to see them helping and inspiring one another. In the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that I spent a great deal of each episode misty eyed and humbled by what I saw. And with no deal in place yet for a fourth set of episodes, the season ends with a lovely mixture of resolation and stasis. While leaving room for that potential fourth season, the writers also manage to bring sufficient, and at times joyous, resolution to the season. Be forewarned, however: the easy way out just isn’t FNL’s style. Sometimes these resolutions are hard to swallow, a little bittersweet, if you will.

Friday Night Lights captures these details and relationships and troubles with such care and compassion that the characters begin to feel like friends and their troubles like the troubles you and I are facing. They aren’t merely devices to add drama or move the plot along. Yes, they are dramatic and yes they do move the plot along, but only because the show is about the people and these are the things the people are going through. There is an organic, natural relationship between the events, the characters and the viewer. They aren’t forced, they simply happen, like they do to you and I and characters react as you or I might react.

The show captures this sense of organic realism through unique and lyrical production that employs just three cameras on each shoot and typically shoots entire scenes in one take. Often the scenes are shot with little to no rehearsal and with very little set direction; instead the directors allow the actors to move about as they feel the characters would, to inhabit the places (mostly homes), to be more than simply in them. Much of the time, scenes are shot from a distance - across a room, through a window, even across the football field - thus creating a documentary feel, a sense of intimate voyeurism that invites the audience into the living rooms and bedrooms and classrooms and cars. Enhanced by the music of Austin indie band, Explosions in the Sky and beautiful, earthy, lyrical photography, the town of Dillon and its people come alive: it is a unique and colorful community.

Unfortunately, despite a dedicated, albeit small (supposedly around 6 million viewers, many of which are from more affluent demographics), group of passionate fans and widespread critical acclaim, the show has struggled to garner the ratings the network desires, and so it is under the constant, threatening eye of NBC’s higher-ups. In fact, the soon-to-be-aired-on-NBC third season has been running this fall on DirecTV, who helped offset production costs. Currently, there are no plans to bring the show back for a fourth season, but if viewers are tuning in Friday evenings - or at least watching on NBC.com - then, hopefully, we’ll get another year in Dillion, Texas, among friends.

More than football, Friday Night Lights is a show about relationships and community, about being let down, letting others down and surviving the accompanying disappointments; it’s about learning what it means to be a friend, a team mate, a spouse, a parent or a child. Its about dreaming and surviving and loving. Its about succeeding gracefully and failing with class. Its a show about dreaming and passion.

Its about the fragility of life and the vulnerability of being human, about being tested and looking inside oneself.

Its about being alive.

David Kern is editor-in-chief of Into the Hill. He really loves this show.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Film Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.