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 here’s a scene in the pilot episode of NBC’s Friday Night Lights that is so unexpectedly good that I was left with the astonishing (almost disorienting) hope that a TV show on a major network might actually surpass the intellectual threshold of processed cheese.
The series, based on the book of the same name, or based on the movie based on the book of the same name, or whatever, is about a high school football team in the itty bitty town of Dillon, Texas. The scene in question takes place on the eve of the first game of the season, at the grand opening of a new Chevy dealership. We get a brisk montage of various itty-bitty townsfolk assailing the fresh-faced players.
"If he lets you call anything, throw the ball, son," the elderly female mayor says to star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter).
"Yes, ma’am," Street replies.
"Air it out. Just let her fly."
"Yes, ma’am."
"You’re a nice boy. You’ve got great manners."
"Yes, ma’am."
"Knock it off," the mayor snaps. "You can’t go into the game tomorrow night like that."
We crosscut to hunky fullback Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) who has been cornered by a besotted real estate agent. "I am so confused about what a blitz is. It sounds a little sexual. Have you ever blitzed an older woman?" she asks coyly. "You could, you know."
We cut back to Street.
"You like early Black Sabbath?" the mayor says suddenly.
"Early Black Sabbath?" Street says.
"It’ll make you mean," she explains.
The writing here crackles with subversive wit. In the space of a minute, writer/director Peter Berg captures the town’s pathological relationship to its teenage heroes, who have become the unwitting objects of their desperate, unmet desires.
There are other moments that tempt you into believing FNL may be something special. We see new head coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) being verbally molested by an endless stream of unctuous boosters. We see a Notre Dame recruiter seducing Street’s parents in the stands during a practice. The show makes no bones about the ways in which high school football has become a de facto plantation for young talent.
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The show inexorably descends into the kind of bathos that thrives whenever press releases contain the words "saga of hope" and "small-town America.”
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The cinematography is also first-class. Several of the shots — an empty main drag on game night, a wide Texas dusk falling behind a bank of sodium lights — have about them a sorrowful majesty. They get the hard-bitten feel of the town just right.
Unfortunately, this is still television, which means all the main characters must look like fashion models. It also means, for all the gestures toward genuine insight, the show inexorably descends into the kind of bathos that thrives whenever press releases contain the words "saga of hope" and "small-town America."
The best example would be the scene in which the high school team runs a practice that includes a bunch of Pop Warner moppets. Afterwards, in the locker room, Street gives the boys an inspirational speech, then asks everyone to kneel in prayer. The cutest of the moppets can’t resist hijacking the moment for the forces of Hallmark.
"Mr. Street, do you think God loves football?" he asks.
Street smiles humbly, for perhaps the two-hundredth time. "I think everybody loves football," he says.
Cut to me on my couch, retching and begging for mercy.
Which brings us back to Riggins, actually. He is the team’s designated alcoholic. We know this because he shows up for practice half-drunk. Coach Taylor, thankfully, has an innovative discipline program: he has his players circle around Riggins and take turns smashing him into the turf, as rock music blares in the background and the coach himself yells "Get up, son," in his best John Wayne twang.
Rounding out the trio of marquee players is Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles), an African-American running back who struts around spouting about getting his "Heisman on" and offering uppity rap couplets like the following: Panthers gonna get diabolical/like Tom Cruise gets Scientological.
Riggins and Smash can’t stand one another, in part because Tyra (Adrianne Palicki), Riggins’ totally hot and slutty ladyfreak, keeps flirting with Smash. In an ideal world, these three would
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In an ideal world, these three would discover the lucrative possibilities of internet porn and stage an interracial threesome.
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discover the lucrative possibilities of internet porn and stage an interracial threesome. Alas, this is prime time, so we have to settle for the rather predictable slow burn of racial tensions.
If the main characters are sounding a bit flat at this point, that’s because they are. You don’t need much more than a couple of adjectives to capture their essence. The guy we’re supposed to be rooting for is coach Taylor. Chandler renders him properly beleaguered by the pressures of his job, but he doesn’t seem to have much fire in his belly. I must now, rather reluctantly, quote the heart of his pep talk before the big game: "I expect you boys to execute. I expect you boys to play football."
It’s a good thing they brought their helmets.
As for the game itself, the producers have done a first-class job of capturing the football sequences. But the plotting undoes them. Toward the end of the game (spoiler alert!), the saintly Street gets injured. (Of course he does). He lies on the field, unmoving. Silence descends on the stadium. He gets loaded into an ambulance. His unsung backup, Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), leads an entirely implausible comeback. We cut to the hospital where doctors are performing surgery on Street’s spine. His injury appears to have rendered him paralyzed. We cut back to the game, where the victorious players are kneeling in prayer at the fifty-yard line.
It’s a gutsy decision to introduce this element of tragedy, but it kind of begs the question of how the show is supposed to carry on. I mean, doesn’t watching a young boy get crippled sort of call into question whether the townsfolk should be cheering a game in which young men do such violent battle? And actually, come to think of it, couldn’t Riggins have gotten just as badly injured in practice, when he was being used a human tackling dummy at the behest of his coach?
The problem with FNL is that the entire franchise is built on our slavish and juvenile worship of football. The producers may be smart enough to expose the iniquity of this arrangement in the pilot, but they haven’t the courage to condemn us for good. Next week, after all, Taylor and the boys will be back in action, full of pious bromides about their fallen QB and still convinced that God is on their side.
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Steve Almond‘s new essay collection is (Not that You Asked). It is, like much of his work, filthy.
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©2006 Steve Almond and hooksexup.com.
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