Friday Night Lights
Friday Night Lights: Spanx for Nothing
The day that “Friday Night Lights: the football show” becomes “Tuesday Night Gym: the volleyball show” is the day that I will no longer watch television. Unfortunately, after this week’s FNL episode, I am one week closer to that fate.
Friday Night Lights has never been about the football. I found this out the hard way about 20 episodes into the first season. Football scenes are few and far between on an average episode, as the directors choose to focus more on characters and storylines and less on third down strategy and blitz pick-ups.
For the most part, I am okay with this. I would certainly like to see the actors mail in their football scenes on a more regular basis (“Smash breaks a weak attempt at an arm tackle by an extra who never learned football! He could go all the way because that’s the way the cliché works!”), but in the meantime, I have learned to enjoy the dialogue and the feelings.
The introduction of volleyball into the FNL mix was, as I’m sure you can guess, excruciating.
Rather than watching football practice or football games or football dialogue, we had to sit through a volleyball practice, a volleyball game, and volleyball dialogue that neither made sense nor convinced me to care. I’m sorry, but seeing Tyra turn her life around by getting involved in a team sport does not qualify as interesting. In fact, let me just go ahead and finish this plotline for you: Volleyball team wins state. Tyra gets college scholarship. Women cry and hug. There; now can we move on?
If I had chosen a sport for an FNL storyline, volleyball would have been way down the list. In fact, here is that list in its entirety:
- Women’s soccer. Especially after introducing the crazy coach several episodes ago, I thought women’s soccer was going to be the way to go.
- Field hockey. A mix of soccer, polo, and girls smacking things with sticks has no downside.
- Tennis. Doubles with Lyla and Tyra would have been fascinating.
- Cheerleading (note: not an actual sport). Saracen’s old flame could have had herself a bit more of the spotlight.
- Volleyball. The tight shorts don’t have the same effect on a show where all the women dress like they’re auditioning for Flavor of Love.
- Women’s basketball. Why watch women play basketball when I can watch men do the same thing, only better?
And yet, volleyball won out.
The only good part about this story is that Tim Riggins is somehow involved. I’m not sure how or why he is assisting the volleyball team, but having him on hand to throw volleyballs at Tammy and make fun of the way the girls play is fine by me.
But Riggins can only do so much. His comic relief is outweighed by the awkward volleyball action scenes, Tyra’s odd fundamentals, and Tammy’s uncomfortable coaching style. The whole ordeal made me remember why I never attended any of my school’s volleyball games, and yet in the irony of ironies, here I was in my mid-20s watching one on TV.
Join us next week when the producers try to kill me with an all-girls sleepover. Ugh.
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