"Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable and we 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 that when it is taken from us we will be tested… we will be tested to our very souls."
- Coach Eric Taylor, Pilot
When people talk about the great American TV shows, there are names you usually see pop up repeatedly: The Wire, The West Wing, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men. You all know them, you've probably seen some of them. But a name that almost never seems to pop up is Friday Night Lights and that's an absolute tragedy on every level. This show is every bit as good as those, a complete masterpiece right from its breathtakingly good pilot episode to its staggeringly beautiful series finale. But it's somehow failed to acquire the praise and attention it deserves (aside from some vindication at this year's Emmy awards). Still, it's relatively easy to understand why it's been so ignored. A show about football in small-town Texas with a predominately teenage cast is potentially very easy to dismiss, isn't it? Another banal teen drama, like One Tree Hill, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. You couldn't be more wrong.
In the way that The Wire is an all-encompassing exploration of Baltimore, Friday Night Lights is an intimate yet emotionally mammoth examination of what goes on in Dillon, Texas - a town that lives and dies by the performance of its high school football team, the Dillon Panthers. Dillon itself is an astoundingly populated place of characters that are instantly recognisable and wonderfully realistic. And while football is very much at the core of the show (the hyper-kinetic, impossibly exciting games in the show are less games and more like epic battles), it's by no means the be all and end all. Make no mistake, this isn't a series about sport, it's a series about people; about their struggles and tribulations and victories. Sometimes it's deceptively brutal, other times it's more uplifting than any other show.
Friday Night Lights is bound together by Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, who deservedly won an Emmy for his performance) and his wife Tami (Connie Britton, who also deserved one). Not only are they the heart and soul of the show but they represent the most well-rounded portrait of marriage ever seen on television. That old cliché about a happy, healthy relationship being boring to watch feels truly ludicrous after you see these two together. And while Chandler and Britton are endlessly brilliant, the rest of the cast deserve a whole ton of praise, too. There are so many unforgettable characters brought to life by a ridiculously talented group of actors that it'd take me an awfully long time to do them all justice. So I won't, you'll just have to see for yourself.
And it's not just the characters, the acting or the deeply moving, understated writing; everything else about Friday Night Lights is nigh-on perfect. The show is shot practically documentary-style, allowing the cameras to pick up moments that would otherwise be lost. It's almost mind-blowing to discover that the actors didn't actually know where the cameras were half the time, which adds to the realism in their performances. The cinematic visuals capture Texas in a way that's both hauntingly stark and incredibly beautiful: you've never seen skies like these before. The music, by The West Wing's W.G. Snuffy Walden and instrumental, post-rock band Explosions in the Sky is entirely guitar-based, unlike any other television soundtrack, and is all kinds of brilliant
Friday Night Lights is something every TV drama fan should watch. It's a television classic, every bit as good as anything HBO have ever done and certainly worthy of anyone's time. I don't even need to add a caveat about it having a weak start, because it doesn't, it's amazing right from the very beginning. I apologise if I've been overly-gushy, but it frustrates me how often it gets overlooked - this really is a series you desperately need to see.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
Top 10 Episodes:
1.01 - Pilot
1.20 - Mud Bowl
1.22 - State
2.10 - There Goes the Neighbourhood
3.13 - Tomorrow Blues
4.01 - East of Dillon
4.05 - The Son
4.13 - Thanksgiving
5.05 - Kingdom
5.13 - Always
