Episode: “Last Days of Summer” – Season Premiere (Season 2)
Premiere Date: Friday, October 5th, 2007
Rating: 4 out of 4 stars
Quick Synopsis: Things have changed for just about everybody.
Long Synopsis: Tami goes into labor and Eric is on his way back from his coaching job at TMU. Landry is thinking about trying out for the football team. Tyra is being followed. A new coach has been hired for the high school football team. Matt is having problems with Julie, as she is sweet on an older fellow lifeguard at the town pool. Smash is his boisterous self. Lyla has found religion. Tim has reverted back to the drunken jerk. Street is still an assistant coach at the high school.
Review: Friday Night Lights is one of the best shows on TV right now. More people should be watching this terrific show than did for most of the first season. If you think it is just another high school drama or about football, you would be sadly mistaken.
While it is another show with 20-somethings pretending to be high schoolers, it is so much more. Every character is so nuanced and fragile and real. The actors that portray them are all topnotch. They draw you in and keep you riveted to the screen.
One of the best things about the show is the relationship of Eric and Tami Taylor, played by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. Their interaction, their home life, their marriage are all portrayed in such a great light, as they are a team. You will find very few portrayals of healthy relationships on TV these days. This one feels so authentic and is completely engaging. Everything is not smooth sailing, this is a TV drama after all, but the way their characters deal with them is great to watch. Both of these actors deserved to have been, at least, nominated for an Emmy, for their work on the first season of the show.
As for the football, Friday Night Lights is as much about football as Grey’s Anatomy is about surgery. Small town high school football is just the backdrop for some truly engrossing stories to be told. And, the writers tell some very interesting stories. You won’t find a show full of clichés. When they do pop up, they are handled in such away that they don’t really come off as cliché.
Take the Landry character for instance, he being the outcast that has a big crush on one of the prettiest girls in school. It’s been done, right? Not like this it hasn’t. His character and his budding friendship with Tyra, the pretty girl, is so much fun to watch. You won’t believe where the writers have decided to take it. I have to say; I didn’t quite see it going this far. Where this storyline goes in the season two premiere, is the only thing that bothered me a bit in this episode. But, after a amazing first season, I will give the writers the benefit of the doubt that they have something good in store for us.
The TVaholic will be watching each Friday night, hopefully, for some time to come. Will you?
What did you think of the season two premiere of Friday Night Lights?
