So many choices

You wait all week for a decent TV show, and then, bang!, three come along at once.

Tonight at 9pm: Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, and Dollhouse!

Thank the gods for DVRs. Now I just need to decide which one to watch first.

Some things i watched this week

There's a lot of great and some terrible TV swirling around out there this week. And I've been watching all of it.

Friday Night Lights

One of the best episodes ever. Seriously. There is still not a single show, past or present, that I would rather write for. For which I would rather write. Whatevs. Anyway, this week's episode just tore my heart out. I had tears streaming for the last half-hour, so much great stuff going on. I still want to marry the coach, even though I totally love Tammy as well.

After that unbelievably wonderful episode, I couldn't stop myself from watching the "Next Week On FNL" spoilers. Good. Effing. God. They're bringing back Jason Street? And doing a Julie tatoo storyline? Please, spare us. My two least favorite characters doing boring things unrelated to football or the coach or anything we care about as an audience. It will be a miracle if they can pull it off. But then, FNL is a pretty miraculous show, so we'll see.

Trust Me

I kinda love Eric McCormack, maybe as a human being, rather than an actor. Not that I know him or anything, but he just feels like he'd be an awesome uncle or something. And Thomas Cavanagh has a certain scampy charm, so I figured I'd give Trust Me a look, even though I don't want to see another workplace drama ever ever ever. The pilot episode was pretty decent. Enough that I'll watch the next ep anyway. 

I'm intrigued with the set-up (odd couple best friends become boss and employee) and I even liked the one female character, who is just like so many writers I know. (One female, in the whole office though? I know the ad world is sexist, but it's not that sexist, is it? Tangent. I have a black male friend who is an ad copywriter. He says when he steps into agencies for the first time, everyone just gapes, like they don't understand why he's not out playing basketball or something.) So yeah, I'll be watching another episode or two. But TNT has seriously got to do something about their online video player. It's pants.

Leverage

I had 10 unwatched episodes of Leverage on my DVR. I was always intrigued, but a heist show? I mean, that's even worse than a workplace drama. I find whenever I'm watching anything remotely procedural, I just kind of tune out when the characters start talking about the evidence, or the symptoms, or the crime, or whatever. When they get back into personal stuff, I snap back to attention. And that's the problem with the Leverage pilot, it's all heist, no personality. OK, not 100% true, but true enough that I tuned out a good 80% of the time. I now have 9 unwatched episodes on my DVR, and I'm not sure if that will ever turn into 8.

Battlestar Galactica

Everyone loooved the Battlestar before last, but I thought this week's was better. But that's like saying, this Red Velvet cupcake is better than that Double Chocolate. I mean, who cares which one is better? I want to eat them both.

Wife Swap and Supernanny

Yeah, I know it's traitorous to watch reality TV. And I never ever do. But Friday night there was something about these two shows the glued me to the TV, hard. I was just stuck. On Wife Swap there were these two poor little kids who were so obviously just-- stupid-- there's no other way to say it. They were several stops short of Dagenham (as Will Self would say, obliquely, unless you've lived in London) and their parents were home-schooling them. Except they weren't really. They were just letting the kids take care of their own education. They could barely write. They could barely speak a full sentence. It was awful. I couldn't look away. 

And then on Supernanny, the nanny had to work with a family of 10 kids and an alcoholic dad, who was also clearly gay, but no one mentioned that. The clueless mother still wanted two more children, even though everyone around her was, like, nooooooo! Poor Supernanny just wanted to give her a good slap, but I guess that would have been unprofessional. Anyway, it's good every once in a while to watch these shows and remember that real life is so totally effed up, nothing I could write could be half as interesting.

Dollhouse

Of course, I have not been watching Dollhouse, but I've been reading the interviews and watching the commercials and waiting and waiting. I'm more excited than when Studio 60 was about to air. And we all know how that turned out...

Watcha watching?

Friday Night Lights starts this week. Friday, January 16, 9pm, NBC. Watch it, or else.

Oh, and yay! for Anna Paquin winning the Golden Globe for True Blood. I know awards are wank, but God I love, love, love that show.

It's all about the football

If you missed the comments on my previous post (because it took me, like, a week to moderate them - oops, sorry), go have a look. Then come back here for more Friday Night Lights talk.

Okay, first, an anecdote. I bought the FNL DVDs as soon as I finished watching the shows online. Yeah, I just wanted to see them again right away (in DVD quality). Also, my big plan was to make my husband watch them, so he would experience the FNL joy. I keep trying to get him to sit down to watch the first episode, and finally, last night he says to me "I don't care about FNL." Granted, he was feeling a bit grumpy from too much weekend partying, but, still, I was hurt. How could he not care about something so wonderful? Oh yeah, cuz he hasn't seen it yet. I will make him love it, I swear.

Anyway, if you haven't yet watched FNL:

a) Why the hell not?

b) Do not read past this point. You'll hate yourself for it. You will.

*FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS SPOILERS BELOW*

Here's a secret for those of you who know and obviously love the show. I don't think FNL is perfect. Nope. There were some little glitches in the second season. And I'm not even talking about the hotly detested Landry murder plotline. That was just a symptom of a larger disease.

You see, for a while there, FNL forgot what it was.

A football procedural.

Which means, when something happens in Dillon, Texas, we want to know how it reflects on the team. If it doesn't cause a ripple in the Panthers' world, then go tell it to someone else, I don't care.

Now, I'm not saying I want to see 46 minutes of football each week. That's obviously not what the show is about.

I want to know when Smash pops a racist c*** in the mouth and gets suspended from games. I want to know when Coach Taylor takes a job at UMT and abandons the Panthers. I want to know when Riggins can't get the girl he wants, causing him to drown his sorrows in beer and miss practice. When Landry murdered that guy, don't you think we should have seen how he sweated it on the field? How he almost quit the team, or couldn't handle the pressure, or blocked the stuffing out of an opponent twice his size all because of the stress he felt? If that had happened, I think we all would have been more accepting of that storyline (maybe?). It would have been even more interesting to see how Landry handled being a benchwarmer, while his best friend was QB1. A small story, but an effective one.

On the other hand, I really don't care that the ex-quarterback is having a baby. He's the ex- quarterback. He's not on the team, he's not a coach, he's not friends with any of the other team members anymore. Sure, a Jason Street spinoff might work. But what does he have to do with football? And why is Mrs Taylor coaching volleyball? And do we really care about Lyla and her new boyfriend (other than in the ways it disturbs Riggins?). Those scenes are a little boring, because, what does it have to do with football? Plus, why does Julie Taylor seem so self-centered and whiny? Because she doesn't give a crap about football. Think about it. What was the best Julie moment? When she QB'd the Powder Puffs. Right? So, let's get back to the football, FNL.

And Coach Taylor? Why are his stories always intriguing, no matter what they're about? Because anything that affects the coach is fair game. He is the heart of the Panthers. He is football.

When you're coming up with your FNL specs, think about this. Do all your stories relate to football in some way? If not, I say, axe them, or figure out the connection, otherwise you might leave your readers wondering why your stories matter.

After all, as much as Friday Night Lights isn't a show about football, it's really all about the football.

OMFG. Best. Show. Ever. Ever.

My husband went away for a week recently. While he was gone, I fell in love. I haven't told him yet, but my new love is smart, funny, sexy, and I just can't get enough of it. Yes, it.

I fell in love with Friday Night Lights.

When it first aired I thought "A show about football? Nyeh." But writers' group buddies David and Amanda both urged me to watch. And I thank them here and now. I owe them one, really, I do.

Now I'm gonna pay that favor forward. If you haven't seen it, do yourself the biggest damn solid ever and check it out. Every episode is on nbc.com for free, and there's no new TV on the box right now, so you really have no excuse not to.

By 2009 (God, I can't believe we have to wait until 2009!) I hope to have spread the word far and wide enough that FNL's viewing figures have doubled – at least. We owe it to TV to keep this show on the air.

If you trust my taste enough to just go watch, just go watch. If not, keep reading and I will convince you by listing...

A few reasons I crave Friday Night Lights

Coach Taylor
I'm going to do my best not to gush, but gushing is what men like Coach Taylor were made for. Never mind that he's kind of an ideal husband, father, and coach. Never mind that he's eye-poppingly well-played by Kyle Chandler. Never mind that he looks so good in blue (and green, and burgundy, and...). 

The thing that really gets me right here about Coach Taylor is how wonderfully true the character is, to himself and his ideals. No matter what madness is happening around him, he's tough, he's steady, he's moral -- but he's not perfect. He gets jealous when he shouldn't get jealous, he loses his temper and knocks people (even students) around now and again, he makes bad decisions, and he says the wrong thing sometimes. But he always makes it right in the end, and that's why I keep on loving him. I know I'm supposed to want to marry Coach Taylor, but really, I'd just love to write for this guy.

Spy-cam
When you watch FNL, everything feels real. It's the opposite of the surreality of an Ugly Betty or a Pushing Daisies (both of which, incidentally, I love, but not nearly as much as I love FNL). Of course, the reality has a lot to do with the writing and the acting and the directing and the filming on location in Texas. But it owes its warmth and truth to the shaky spy-cam shooting. It makes you feel like you're listening in on a conversation you shouldn't be hearing, which, if you have a voyeuristic bone in your body, just makes you want to know more and more.

No super-heroes, spaceships, or mysterious smoke-monsters
Don't get me wrong. I love Lost. And Battlestar. And Bufy. I even liked Heroes there for a while. But not every show needs to be based in some alternate reality where people can store all of the CIA's greatest secrets in their brain. The world doesn't always need to be ending. Lives don't always have to be in jeopardy. Sometimes, it's nice just to watch a show about people, doing their normal people stuff, in their normal people lives, in some small town somewhere in Texas.

Nerds, jocks, and nerd-jocks
Guess what, jocks and cheerleaders are people, too. They're insecure, kinda sweet, and they love their mommas, just like geeks do. These jocks are just like real people, only with more active sex lives. I also adore Landry, FNL's resident geek. He's not some insecure speccy kid with a big brain and a wedgie. Even if no one else knows it, he knows he's really a cool guy and he doesn't give a crap what the 'cool' kids think of him. That's what the geeks who I went to school with were like. That's what I was like. Yay for dispensing with the stupid high-school stereotypes and drawing real, complex characters instead.

Football procedural
I don't like your average procedural. Crime-solving bores me after a while. But I love procedurals based around non-murder things. Like West Wing, a political procedural, or Buffy the Vampire procedural. FNL is a football procedural, pure and simple. Which is what makes it more powerful than, say, My So-Called Life. Instead of just being self-absorbed and kind of annoying (hey, I loved Angela, but she wasn't always that easy to take), everyone on this show either loves or hates football so much that even if they're not literally saving the world each week, that's what it seems like to them.

Snuffy Walden and Explosions in the Sky
A lot of the FNL soundtrack is by an Austin band called Explosions in the Sky. I've never really loved post-rock, but post-rock as atmospheric soundtrack to a brilliant TV show? It just works.

Much of the non-Explosions music is by composer Snuffy Walden. As if it's not cool enough that his name is Snuffy, his credits read like the watch list of my life. West Wing, Studio 60, Thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, Sports Night, Huff, and, okay, about a zillion things I've never seen before (but maybe I should). When I hear the theme music to FNL (which sounds like Explosions but is really Snuffy), my heart pounds, I get chills. Chills, baby.

Okay, so, I could go on for days, but I'll have mercy, and stop. Just stop dithering and go watch the show. You can hold me personally responsible if you don't like it. But you will. So when you do, please tell a whole whack of people about it so it doesn't get replaced by something crap.

Next time on FNL gush-fest... I'll opine about FNL's (minute) failings and reveal my simple recipe for getting it back on track.