Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Friday Night Lights - Who's Your Daddy

WHY ARE NONE OF YOU WATCHING THIS SHOW?


While The Nine has disappointed me slightly after a strong pilot and Jericho became a complete joke after a good pilot, Friday Night Lights has stayed consistent after an amazing quality pilot with subsequent episodes that has only deapened the richness of the characters.

Last night on Friday Night Lights, newly aquired QB Voodoo joins the team (late) for practice and makes little effort to fit in. Jason Street is moved to rehab and pretty much gives up hope for his hand (or anything else) to recover. Lyla guilts about her makeout session with Tim Riggins, who has desperately fallen for her. Coach Eric Taylor and wife Tami argue as the Coach is required to throw a traditional party where Tami discovers too late that the entire town pretty much shows up. Julie Taylor has a dance recital on the Fridays (that don't have games on them), so that people might actually show up, including her father Eric. The Panthers biggest rivals The Tigers wreck The Panters locker room, and despite Coach's advisory, a group of Panthers, including Tim, Smash and a reluctant good-boy Matt Saracen, head to the Tiger's QB to smash up his car, with Matt getting recognized. Matt is subsequently beaten up while tossing garbage out back at his workplace, and is rescued by Coach Taylor, brought to the recital, where Matt is given a chance to flirt with his crush Julie, this after Coach had just told Matt to release his energy by getting his crush into the back of a car so that he would be loose and tense-free for practice the next day. In the most hilarious moment, Coach Taylor realises the inadvertent cupid he had played post-recital.



While this episode continued to touch on every character in the town of Dillon, the episode really belonged to Matt Saracen who we seem struggle to take care of his dimentiad grandmother, take advice from his father in Iraq, and deal with the pains of high school, the confidence to lead a football team, all while having to keep a part-time job to pay the bills. At least if this show doesn't make it and gets cancelled, we will have discovered a wonderful actor in Zach Gilford who heartbreakingly OWNS this show through Matt's character.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I confess--I'm not watching. My schedule is just so packed that I can't bring myself to add a show about football to it, even if it's a good show about football. Maybe if they do a catch-up marathon, or something, I'll check it out.

I don't think The Nine has dropped off in quality THAT much, though...

Vance said...

Well, The Nine is still really good and yes, basically the top 4 new shows could all swap places and still be valid, still, Friday Night Lights just breaks my heart week after week, but I'm totally understanding the number of shows on the list. It's getting ridiculous even by my standards so I have no idea how normal non-tv-addicted people pick and choose shows.