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'Lights' Shines On Fridays

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By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 3, 2007

TAMPA - TAMPA - If a murder cover-up, a religious conversion, a couple of seductions and enough emotional meltdowns to keep Dr. Phil busy for years aren't enough to hook you, there's that annual race for the Texas high school football championship.

"Friday Night Lights" comes back for its second season on Friday night, ending some confusion because last season it ran on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

One of the most compelling dramas on television is getting a second chance to find an audience. Despite heaps of critical acclaim and a Peabody award for being the best drama on TV, "Friday Night Lights" suffered in the ratings last season.

Apparently, female viewers avoided it, thinking perhaps that it was a male-oriented action drama. The high school setting also may have given some the impression that this was another teen soap opera like "One Tree Hill."

And the show's documentary-film style takes some adjustment for those used to those slickly produced traditional hour-long dramas. There's little artificial lighting, and the cinéma vérité-style camera work results in a gritty, grainy effect.

Adapted by Peter Berg from his film adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's book, "Friday Night Lights" is set in a place where football is like a religion and the Friday night game is a ritual.

But it is NOT just about football. It is about questioning the ethics of winning at all costs and about discovering what is really important in life.

It's also about coming of age and being a parent. And it's about working-class people getting by in a small town, a demographic not well-represented on television.

This is not Wisteria Lane, and there are no sex-crazed doctors or smug lawyers in sight.

Stories About Real Life

Co-producer Jason Katims says the town and its obsession are just backdrops for stories about "marriage, relationships and parents trying to figure out how to raise their kids; and their teenagers figuring out sexuality and issues, about race and class and all those things."

That's the lifeblood of the show, he told TV critics during an interview session in July.

If you haven't dropped by "Friday Night Lights," then welcome to Dillon, Texas, a rural, dusty blue-collar town that takes pride in fielding fiercely competitive high school teams.

The town's identity already was wrapped around the Dillon Panthers before they won the state title in the first-season finale. Now the pressure is on to keep the title.

On the season debut Friday, the team will be coming off a summer of basking in the glory of victory and sweating in apprehension because a new hard-nosed, in-your-face coach (Chris Mulkey) will be in charge.

Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler), who took them to the championships, has left town for a job coaching quarterbacks at the fictional Texas Methodist University in Austin. Soon, he will face new ethical challenges in the ruthless world of college football.

Taylor and his family are the emotional core of the series, and all is not well in their home.

Back in Dillon, Taylor's pregnant wife, Tami (Connie Britton), gives birth and then struggles emotionally to care for the newborn alone while teenage daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarten) grows distant.

Julie is possibly breaking up with high school sweetheart Matt (Zach Gilford) and flirting with an older, possibly dangerous young man.

Other residents of Dillon face turmoil. Former quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter), who was headed toward a Notre Dame scholarship before suffering a spinal injury, can't adjust to life in a wheelchair. Before the season is over, he may head to Mexico for risky experimental surgery.

The replacement quarterback sensation Matt, who is losing Julie, will find a new romance outside of school. With his father in Iraq and his mother long gone, he lives with a grandmother whose dementia gets worse this season.

The team's hunky party animal, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), is having trouble adjusting to the new coach, and his personal demons are taking over. He appears headed to a religious experience with born-again Christian Lyla (Minka Kelly).

The former fast girl Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki) is tormented by a stalker and turns to the shy Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons) for help. This leads to one of the darker story lines this season.

'Strong, Feisty Women'

All this may sound more like a melodrama, but "Friday Night Lights" avoids being a soap opera by mixing seemingly disparate genres and narrative modes and merging realism with idealism.

Chandler says people have to stick with the show to understand it.

"I think there's something for everyone in this show," he said. "And it's got a quality, and I think it's important for people to realize it's not a show about football. The things that happen in Coach Taylor's marriage and his relationship with his wife and daughter are things that we can all relate to. I like that while he might make mistakes, he wants to do what is right."

Britton says she likes her character because "there's something about Southern women — and I grew up in the South — that has always kind of exemplified strong, feisty women with a sense of humor."

"Friday Night Lights" also stands out because none of the characters is stereotyped and no one is wholly bad or good. They are all flawed, like real people, and yet each is capable of good.

Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813 259-7654 or wbelcher@tampatrib.com.

ON TELEVISION

Friday Night Lights

WHAT: Second season premiere

WHEN: 9 p.m. Friday

WHERE: NBC

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