heartbroken already

I'm observing Lent right now.  A time of deep reflection and sacrifice.  An "extra prayer" if you will (as my political activist priest describes it).  So I gave up television for 40 days.

With the exception of one tv show that I am allowing myself to watch online.  Why?  Because it would be a sin to let this show get cancelled:  Friday Night Lights.

<a href="http://www.bestweekever.tv/lightson"><img src="http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/02/savefnl_ktlo.jpg" alt="Sign BWE.tv's Petition to Save Friday Night Lights!  Keep the Lights On!" width="400" height="135" border="0" /></a>

If you're wondering why that song "The Final Countdown" has popped up during sporting events, commercials for video games and elsewhere, well, that means you weren't in on the joke.  And you weren't in on the joke because you weren't watching my other favorite now-cancelled show, "Arrested Development"!!! 

But I digress.  Friday Night Lights has more universal appeal than Arrested Development.  I can't remember the last time I've been more emotionally involved in a show.  I've fallen in love with almost every one of those boys on FNL.  Matt Ceresin is the sweetheart boy I would have fallen head-over-heals in love with when I was a teenager, the first-string quarterback left alone to care for his grandmother.  Now that I'm older I would volunteer to have Jason Street's baby (the former star quarterback, now quadriplegic)!  Tim Riggins is my bad-boy-hot-sex fantasy (Dillon, Texas' resident Cassanova, who also rescues inebriated girls from tornadoes and sleezeballs).  And Landry...well, Landry is cute because his big date dilemma is "Jaws or Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan."  Even Smash, whose complete hubris is so battered by reality, I can't help but feel sorry for him.  (And for guys that need eye-candy, I have two words for you: Minka Kelly.)

And what can I say about the coach and his wife?  They are the center of the entire show and their relationship defies the annoying cliches of tv marriages. 

It's an incredibly well-written show.  Well-acted as well!  We're only in our second season and the drama that has unfolded in these characters lives has placed some heavy demands on these young actors, and they ALWAYS deliver.  The show also looks different from other tv dramas because it's filmed differently.  To put it vaguely, it doesn't look like a typical tv show. 

These characters feel so real, they are so complicated.  And they're not overly self-absorbed!  thank god!!!  I'm so sick of television dramas whose characters' only real problem is their own neuroses.  And not only that, they interact with their environment.  You get a feeling for Texas, unlike other dramas where the city could pretty much be any city in America. 

A long time ago (when it was still on the air) I told a friend that I loved "Arrested Development" and that she should try to catch sometime.  After the show was cancelled she ended up watching the dvds and cursing herself for not listening to me earlier.  A few months ago I told her about Friday Night Lights and she is now a regular watcher who has remarked, "I haven't seen a single bad episode yet."

Tivo it.  DTV-R it.  Watch it online (start from Season 1).  Buy the dvd.  Get hooked. 

I have donated a tiny bit of money to the campaign to save this show (part of the campaign involves using the proceeds to buy dvds of Friday Night Lights Season 1 and send them to military personnel overseas, in honor of Ceresin's deployed dad).  I will be sending a light bulb to NBC's Ben Silverman, telling him to "Keep the Lights On."  I have joined bestweekever's Dillon Panthers Booster Club.  I'm blogging in multiple places...

I leave you with a few wise words...

Lord, is “Friday Night Lights” good. In fact, if the season is anything like the pilot, this new drama about high school football could be great — and not just television great, but great in the way of a poem or painting... -New York Times, V. Heffernan

Friday Night Lights airs Friday nights at 9pm on NBC

Comments

[Da]

ladies and gentlemen, a magician named gob.

my all time favorite part in arrested development is when tobias is doing that line read with carl weathers. i laughed so hard at that. oh yeah, and that part where tobias auditions for a tv commercial where the store's having a fire sale.

[Christina]

ooh, good choices. "A FIRE...sale."

One of my favorite running gags on the show is when they have the home video of george michael re-enacting star wars in the garage.

[Afro]

another great moment was when their lawyer drives up to this prostitute and asks her "you aren't one of those silly men dressed as a woman are you?" and she replies "no honey, i'm all woman" and he just speeds off while she's in mid sentence. that cracked me up.