Clear Eyes, Full Hearts… We’ll Deal with that Later

In my 2000 plus posts her on the 9th Green, I am sure I have made my fair share of stupid statement; it is probably a weekly occurrence (if not more often). But none is dumber than when I trashed the Friday Night Lights pilot equating it to one of the funniest unintentional comedy of all time. Let’s hop into the Scooter Time Machine all the way back to 10/10/06:

I’ll have to admit, there were a few chill scenes throughout the first episode like in practice like the guy that fumbled the ball who had to go in front of the tackling squad. But the show is brought down by the same reason I don’t watch sports movies, it is filled with too many cliché. The worst being the quarterback predictably going down, I knew this was going to happen the moment the backup quarterback came on screen. Then they had the backup comeback from not just a touchdown deficit, but two in the final six minutes to win the game. You know, just like Varsity Blues.

And if that is not bad enough, I even predicted that Friday Night Lights would be canceled before the then new to NBC Sunday Night Football aired its final game of the season. And here we are five years later and I do not know why I continued to watch after such a bad first impression (probably Lyla Garrity’s ponytail, the single greatest ponytails ever in the history of ponytails) but it is a good thing I did because the show finished its run as one of the five greatest shows ever to grace out television screens, topping my list of the Best Television Shows the last four year and racking in seventeen Scooter Television Awards (the most of any series).

In defense of my first impressions of Friday Night Lights, my main problem with the show was the football, from the Varsity Blues rip off of the first episode to the sixty yard hail Mary in the last one, the football was riddled with clichés throughout the series’ run. Seriously, the Panthers won way too many games in the final seconds that a perennial Texas state championship contender had any right to win. There had to be a few tomato cans on their schedule.

But Friday Night Lights was not about football, it was about the people that inhabited a football town. And the show created more characters worth caring about then any show in the history of television. Jason Street adjusting to his new life. Tim Riggins sacrificing himself for his brother. Matt Saresen balancing his new position and life at home. Trya Collette getting herself into college. Vince Howard, with one foot in prison, turning his life around. Becky Sproles dealing with the hardest decision of her life. And with many television shows unable to create even one character to root for, Friday Night Lights even had a multitude of recurring characters that could have a whole show focused around them: Buddy Garrity, Mama Smash, Grandma Sarasen, Billy Riggins, Mac McGill, Herc, Tinker, all of which I would have watched a spin-off featuring them.

As great as those previously mentioned characters are, at the heart of Friday Night Lights were Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami. There is a good reason why many of the characters listed them as role models individually or what they inspire to be in a relationship. They managed to support each other but still managed to keep their own voices. In a show that had depth in great relationships (Eric and Buddy, Landry and Tyra, Landry and Matt, Matt and Julie, Tami and Julie, Tyra and Tami, Trya and Lyla, Coach and Lance, Tim and Billy, Tim and Becky, Billy and Luke, Vince and Coach, Tim and Jason, Tim Jason and Lyla, Smash and Tim, Smash and Mama Smash, Matt and his grandma, Vince and Jess, Coach and Jess) the coach and his wife stood above them all and may be the greatest duo in the history of television. To do all these relationship’s justice would require a 400 page book to cover them all rightly.

Sure there were a few hiccups throughout the shows run aside from the football, most notably the second season. Landry killing a dude gets plenty of hate, but people seem to forget that season two also gave us Matt hooking up with his grandmother’s nanny and if it were not for the writer’s strike, Julie could very well have hooked up with her English teacher (which I guessed just got postponed for four seasons). But it was the strength of the characters that whenever the writers took a misstep, the characters were still worth rooting for. It is because of that it was a little disappointing when a handful did not show up in the final montage.

Since reboots are all the rage these days, is 2012 too soon for a Friday Night Lights reboot? C’mon, FX, how about fast tracking that. And for those that missed the series, were watching the ABC Family re-airs before they were yanked (then why are you still reading), or just want to watch the series again, ESPN Classic just began rerunning the series from the beginning.

Friday Night Lights 5.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Friday Night Lights the series gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.