'Friday Night Lights': Fumble!

Image credit: Bill Records

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

'Friday Night Lights': Fumble!

Hi. Remember me? Probably not. And I don't blame you. After all, it's been a few weeks since my last Glutton column. Excuses? Oh, I've got tons of them. For one, I've been busy working on other things. Secondly, Glutton video producer extraordinaire Jason Averett was busy out at Sundance, and then editing together my on-location Survivor video blogs (shameless plug alert!). In fact, he's been so busy, we still haven't had time to shoot the latest ''Five'' video, so you're getting ripped off even more by only getting a mini-column of sorts this week. Anyhoo, I'm back. But if you feel this column to be lacking in both inspiration and execution, I am merely following the lead of this week's column subject — Friday Night Lights.

Now before you start sending nasty e-mails calling me all sorts of vile names, let me remind you what a supporter I have been of this program. Last spring I wrote an entire column practically begging NBC to renew the show for a second season. Granted, part of the reason I campaigned for its return was because my wife threatened to kick me out of the house if it didn't, but still, I was a big supporter.

One thing that happens when you are a fan of a show is you often tend to overlook its shortcomings. Unfortunately, FNL's second season has been full of missteps that simply cannot be ignored. It started with the awful — awful! — decision to turn Landry and Tyra's relationship into a Lifetime movie of the week. A stalker attacks Tyra! Landry defends her honor! Things get out of control! A murder! A cover-up! Puh-leeze! For a show that prides itself on subtlety, this melodramatic twist was just plain embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as having a character named The Swede.

We could forgive these early problems, and when those storylines ended, we assumed we were heading back on the right track, but the fumbles just keep on coming. An episode a few weeks back featured former jailbird-turned-Dillon Panther Santiago stopped on his way to practice by an old ex-con buddy. Right as it happened, I paused the episode, looked at my wife, and said the following:

''I've seen this plot device a million times on a million shows. Here's what's going to happen. The prison buddy is going to try to get the newly reformed Santiago to go back to his old ways. Santiago will resist, saying he is now on the straight and narrow. The prison buddy will then accuse him of selling out and ditching all his former friends. Santiago will worry about his street cred, so then will decide to hang out with them. Eventually, the prison buddy will do something bad, and Santiago will have to make a choice whether to go down that old road or follow his new path, even if it means turning on his friends. He will choose the latter, he and the former prison buddy will mix it up somehow, and by the end of the hour the entire storyline will be over and done and wrapped up with a nice pretty bow on top.''

And wouldn't you know it, that is exactly what happened.

No, I cannot see the future. But I can see the past. This whole plot device felt straight out of a very special episode of Punky Brewster on the dangers of peer pressure. I'm not sure which is worse — the fact that it was so easy to telegraph and predict, or the fact that it played out all in one episode. Developments like this used to build slowly, much like they do in real life. That was the whole appeal of Friday Night Lights when it first came on — its realism and subtlety. This episode felt more like a procedural drama like CSI or Law & Order, where your beginning, middle, and end are all crammed into 40 minutes and never spoken of again.

Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. I'm referring, of course, to this past week's episode, when Matt Saracen, out of nowhere, went all bad-boy on us. Apologists will claim that Saracen's rage was boiling over because of all the people that had abandoned him in his life — his father, then Coach Taylor, then Julie, then his girlfriend/mother's caretaker. Fine, but this show is all about characters, and not for one second do I believe that — without any prior warnings — sweetie-boy Matt would overnight turn into a grade-A jerk. The ridiculousness started with him calling his teacher a bitch — repeatedly. That sound like Saracen to you? Next thing we know, QB1 was skipping school to pound beer with Riggins, and showing up to practice wasted. The cheesiest bit of all actually had him contemplating buying a motorcycle — because nothing spells ''cliché bad boy'' better than a bike. I half expected him to put on some shades and utter ''I'll be back'' before peeling off into the Texas dustbowl. It was the most nonsensical, out-of-character activity since cool, calm, and collected Curtis on 24 all of a sudden went haywire and made Jack Bauer put a bullet in his brain. I hate when shows come up with twists for characters that make no sense whatsoever.

The whole thing just seemed a lazy, dumbed-down version of the Friday Night Lights we all fell in love with. No nuance. No subtlety. Just cliché after cliché. Second seasons can be tough on serialized dramas. Just look at Heroes. And remember Desperate Housewives' sophomore outing revolving around some dude being locked in a basement? Thankfully, that show rebounded. Hopefully, Friday Night Lights will as well.

I also can't help but wonder if these saucier self-contained storylines are a direct result of network interference. Ratings-wise, FNL had no business getting renewed for a second season. I have to believe that at some point the suits at NBC said something to the effect of ''Look, we're going to bring you back, but here's what's going to happen: You need to come with some bigger, splashier stories. And enough with the slow-building plotlines. We want action! And then resolution. Every hour.'' The sad irony is that making the show more mainstream has not resulted in more viewers, even when taking on repeats because of the strike. Last Friday's original FNL episode attracted only 5.6 million viewers, getting sacked by an old episode of House.

I do want to make something perfectly clear. Friday Night Lights has not turned into a bad show. I still dig the characters, and find the relationship between Coach Taylor and wife Tami to be the most satisfying on television. But it has gone from a great drama to merely a good one. Here's hoping the Dillon Panthers have one more good comeback in them.

NEXT PAGE: A DVD sparks Dalton's obsession with old-school videogames. Plus: reader mail!