11 December 2009
belated FNL gushings
Only 3 TV shows have ever made me cry. I don’t really have any comparative figures from others to let me know if that makes me a sentimental fool or stone hearted b**ch. The first was Buffy just after her mother died, the second was the (admittedly overly sentimental, slightly unnecessarily) epic ending to Six Feet Under and the third was a particularly emotional episode in Season 4 of Friday Night Lights last week.
Part of me wishes these 3 were a collection of incredibly highbrow televisual fodder, and that they weren’t all US shows, but all this aside the reason why these had all effected me the way they did was because of the connection I built up with the characters, which stands testamount to the amazing writing of all 3. Yet we’ve all heard of Buffy and Six Feet Under and I’m guessing most of you from the UK will have seen on one of the other, but not so much with the Friday Night Lights though right?
Since the slash film podcasts lead to me falling for the show 2 years I’ve been trying to share my FNL love with others, but mostly my advances have been spurned. “I don’t know, it looks a bit too much teen drama to me”…. “I don’t really like American football or sports”…. “I don’t like One Tree Hill and all that”. Its a shame as people who do watch the show know that it is a world away from any of these assumptions and issues. This Guardian article from waaaaayyyy back in 2007 does more justice than I can on elaborating the shows merits further (bar the line that it doesn’t live up to The Wire’s standards to which I reply “pppssscccppptt”).
But oddly in the past few weeks people have been beginning to come out of the FNL twitter closet much to my celebration, including respected people such as @serafinowicz and @glinner (can’t find glinners tweet, but believe me it did happen). This makes me happy to know that although ITV4 didn’t give the show much of a chance over here (to be fair I understand Texas ‘teen’ American football drama is a bit of a hard sell) that finally it might actually be earning at least a stronger UK cult following that it deserves.
So here is to the ever adorable Tim Riggins and Friday Night Lights, and if you haven’t yet watched it, then do, its really not what you think it is and I’m sure the box set is floating around cyber space for 10 quid or something by now.
(and don’t worry FNL I’ve clean forgotten about the whole second season stupid murder story line, I’m just happy he’s back to his Christian speed metal).
