Why I love Friday Night Lights

You hear so much these days that “there’s nothing good on TV” to which I always have to stop and think what are you watching?  Because I know–just know–that anyone who says that is not watching Friday Night Lights.

When this show debuted a few years ago I was right there, tuning in, not at all sure what I was going to find.  After all, I had really enjoyed the movie, but I had no idea how that would translate to an hour of TV every week.

You see, here’s the thing about TV–you have to do it every week.  That’s why most hour-long TV shows are in some kind of procedural situation.  A hospital, police station, fire station, law office–some place where new challenges literally walk through the door on a weekly basis.  A small town football team?  Not so much.

But I was optimistic.  It had Kyle Chandler and a great producing team.  It could work.

And, boy, did it.

The first thing that I loved and respected was that it got the town right.  Dillon, TX is fictional, I’m sure.  But it is a REAL place.  I know because I grew up there and so did everyone else who ever lived in a small, rural community where community really is a way of life.  I’ve walked the halls of that school.  I’ve been to those pep rallies, and I’ve gone to church with Buddy Garrity.  I KNOW DILLON and Dillon is real.  The people who live there are real.  The challenges and heartache and pains that the characters encounter are real.

And that, my friends, is why Friday Night Lights has more reality than all the reality shows on TV.

Now, as I’m finally getting to watch the last season as it airs on NBC I’m still in awe of what it does, and I’m reminded of all of the other shows I’ve ever loved and the thing that they’ve all had in common.  I’ve talked before about how Vampire Diaries never saves anything for the swim back–how the great shows are never afraid of the game-changing moments.

And last night I realized that that’s especially true of Friday Night Lights.

A lesser show would still be dragging on, manufacturing drama for characters like Jason Street and Smash Williams, but Friday Night Lights was smart enough to let those characters go on; they trusted their own talent enough to create new characters who are equally heroic and heartbreaking.

It’s storytelling at its best and, as a story-teller, I just had to say so.

 

-Ally