Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights was a book, then it was a movie, and now it's a prime-time drama on NBC. I didn't read the book or see the movie, but the TV show is making me want to. One thing I like about it is that there is nothing else like it on television. It's not a thriller, it contains no hint that supernatural powers govern human affairs (unless you count the notion that praying to God might help teenagers win football games), and it's not about cops, docs, lawyers, detectives, forensics experts or sketch-comedy writers. I like that it's set someplace other than New York or L.A. and that the dialogue sounds like the way real people talk. Unlike many prime-time shows, there isn't too much plot. Many shows now cram in so many scenes with so many little incidents and twists that it can be hard to keep track of everything. Friday Night Lights is by comparison slow-paced and I like the way you can take time to get to know the characters. Unfortunately, the ratings have been poor so this may end up another in the long line of good programs that didn't make it. But it did score fairly well with a demo that is considered very hard to reach, young men, which might keep it on the air long enough to attract a loyal audience. (Apparently NBC has been promoting the bejeezus out of it during its Sunday football broadcasts.)

One difference between this program and most others in prime-time today that I'm not that crazy about is its visual style. Every shot of FNL is shot handheld, and often the framings are deliberately off, with a character's head cut off at the eye or obscured by a foreground object. Like many of the techniques we talked about in class, this is probably supposed to give the scenes "energy." Handheld cinematography is typically also considered gritty, raw, immediate. It can suggest realism because of its use in many documentary films. It certainly makes the show look and feel different from, say, Grey's Anatomy. But after two episodes I'm tired of the jittery feel and disorienting effect of this technique and I wish the camera would just stand still. (I've seen lots of movies and television that use this technique and I do think it can be effective in certain contexts, I just don't like it here.)

You can watch the show at NBC's website, and even just viewing the "previously" segment at the beginning of the episode online will give you a sense of the kind of style/cinematography I'm talking about. Of course, if you want to watch it online you'll have to view a Nissan commercial first.