I’m not a football fan. I’m only minimally acquainted with Texas. I don’t hail from a small town, I’m not preoccupied with questions of modern manliness, honor and valor. And I don’t have a kid in high school. Nonetheless, I’m a devotee of “Friday Night Lights.”
I may not be the target audience, but I’ve been won over by the new NBC adaptation of the book and movie, premiering at 7 p.m. Tuesday on KUSA-Channel 9.
Go, Panthers.
The sweetest, most soulful hour on the schedule, “Friday Night Lights” is what is sentimentally known as a “quality show.” That shouldn’t keep it from becoming a commercially viable hit.
“Lights” is a meditation on subjects dear to the heartland, told with a deft touch, fastidiously choreographed football sequences and sophisticated camerawork. With its big heart and noble characters, it’s a story about America, racism, classism and finding meaning in life.
Then there’s the loving, arguing couple played by Kyle Chand ler and Connie Britton.
Chandler is engrossing as newly appointed Coach Taylor, the man on whom Dillon High School – not to mention local businessmen, the mayor and the entire (fictional) town – is counting. They’re depending on him to win at football; that is, they’re counting on him to validate their very existence. Without football, the school and the town are as empty as the west Texas landscape.
When Chandler and Britton are onscreen, they sizzle. Britton, who originated the role of the coach’s wife, Tami Taylor, in the 2004 feature film of the same name, is riveting, her reddish-blond hair cascading from her widow’s peak.
The camera favors a tight focus on eyes and faces, whether capturing gleeful pompom girls, prayerful congregants, or instances of tense race relations at the local diner. Shot on location in Austin, the series brings the specificity of the area to the fore in the same way that “Lost” (shot in Hawaii) does. Executive producer Brian Grazer attributes the “filmic sensibility” to Peter Berg’s vision.
Director-writer Berg, who also co-wrote and directed the 2004 film based on the book by H.G. Bissinger, has made an effort to talk to coaches, parents, players and spectators at Lone Star State high school games. He is intent on capturing the fervor surrounding the state’s football culture. By keeping the cameras moving and allowing the actors to partially improvise, he has achieved an authenticity rare in television. (Even critics in Texas who are serious football fans are raving.)
Berg maintains that “we don’t want to hang the show on football,” and the gridiron scenes are being doled out carefully. At its most basic, he said, “This is a character-driven show.”
“Lights” isn’t just poignant. The producers aren’t afraid to address matters of race, the hyper-importance of sports to grown adults (sometimes in lieu of anything else), the power and price of unswerving loyalty, and the small-mindedness of certain parts of small-town America.
Bloody “Dexter”
Michael C. Hall should get out more. Out of the morgue, for starters. On his new cable drama, “Dexter,” debuting at 8 p.m. Sunday on Showtime, he plays a truly dark, damaged sociopath who loves killing. In the pilot, we see how young Dexter went from killing animals to killing people. We see how his cop father helped him develop rules that would allow him to feel good about killing criminals who escape official justice. Now we see Dexter working days as a Miami forensics expert, working nights on his own deadly missions, obsessing day and night about blood.
Why we would want to see anything beyond the pilot is a mystery.
The series, which makes up in gore what it lacks in humor, is not nearly as entertaining as Hall’s previous hit, “Six Feet Under.” “Dexter” feels like a dare, and one we’d rather not take.
“China Revealed”
The world’s next superpower is the subject of a “Discovery Atlas” documentary at 7 p.m. Sunday on Discovery. From centuries-old rice paddies to Communist Party politics, from kung-fu masters at a remote monastery to stunning entrepreneurial growth and preparations for the 2008 Olympics, the two-hour film uses case studies to illustrate contemporary life.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
