Today is the premiere of the third season of Friday Night Lights on DirecTV. Due to some odd circumstances, I'm actually going to be able to watch the show in real time on an HDTV. As you may or not be aware, I've moved back to Jackson Hole where I am currently staying in a vacation rental where one of the amenities is DirecTV on a very pretty television. Personally, I have no interest in getting DirecTV as cable with my TiVo suits me just fine especially since everything else is available online in some form. Though it is nice to get to watch one of my favorite shows without having to wait for it or download it illegally.
This summer I borrowed my brother's copy of H. G. Bissinger's book on which the TV show is based. The book chronicles the life of a town which lives and dies by the Permian high school football team in 1988. The struggles of the residents of Odessa outside of football are comparable to current events. In an election year, the first President Bush has a campaign stop in Odessa, and the town's economy goes up and down with the cost of oil. It's an excellent read. The book is controversial as it paints an honest portrait of the town of Odessa, and it was understandably not well-received after it's release by the community.
The movie based on the book, however, was a disappointment. Unlike the television series and book which focus on the entire town, the movie narrows its scope to the football season. I tolerate football mostly because it is a large part of my family's life (my brother is a punter on his college team, my stepdad calls the high school games for local radio). The book focused on the community and football. The television show excels at exploring the relationships, high school, and small town politics with the common thread being football. The movie's emphasis on football is where it fails to live up to the expectations set by the book and the television show. Unfortunately, I saw the movie sometime during the second season of the television show, so my opinion is tainted and maybe a little too harsh.
The television show is often dismissed by the pasty award shows, but it is comparable to other overlooked greats such as The Wire in the quality of production, acting, and storytelling. It's not about just football, and I think it is hard for some to move past the uniforms and see the realistic stories of the hard-working people in the middle-class town. Television viewers seem to seek the escapism of the shows with far-fetched portrayals of snotty rich kids instead of Friday Night Lights. It's been a struggle for Friday Night Lights to remain on the air even though its relatively inexpensive to produce. Only a bizarre deal between NBC and DirecTV is keeping the show in production. Watch it.
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