Friday Night Lights confluency

I hadn’t watched Friday Night Lights in three weeks. Too many other distractions. Hell, I’m even getting my football jones on by playing the 2003 version of EA Sports College Football.


And I’m watching with some trepidation here. Every TV-based article I’ve read lately has mentioned the show’s on the bubble for another year, and I don’t want to get too involved with something that’s not going to be around for much longer.

I don’t really feel like I have much to add to the conversation here: virtually everyone who has watched TV knows what it’s like now. The good shows get yanked after one year before they have a chance to build an audience. Meanwhile, The Bachelor is still on the freaking air.

My wife has gotten into watching the Jeff Goldblum detective show, which she says has no chance of lasting another season. The plotlines on Friday Night Lights have been wrapping up lately, so I suspect the writers know something.

I’ll let it go with dignity. I don’t want to be one of the "Firefly" fans, endlessly coming up with some other rumor that the show really really is coming back, and with the same cast, even though they killed half of them in the movie.

Anyway, some notes from my recent Friday Night Lights viewing:

The 20th episode was ridiculous. Insane.

First off, the plot revolves around the fact that the high school has set up a home game for state semi-final playoff. Wha? t?

Football playoff games are played at neutral sites. Usually. State semi-final games aren’t played at home. Ever.

Then the coach decides to make a point by renting a cow pasture and turning it into a football field, "so it can just be about football."

Oh, Reeally? For people who don’t follow football, I’ll just say that this has no precedent in any kind of reality. It’s like – hell, I can’t think of anything. It just doesn’t make sense. I have to change my conception of reality just to fit in the fact that some writer out there thinks this is a good idea.

When the episode was over, I could only figure that either no one on this show has ever watched a football game in their lives, or that they've been to Texas and are now trying to piss us off.

I then immediately watched the next episode. Pretty good.

One more thing ...

• I could have sworn for a second that a skyline in one background shot looked like Lubbock. Then I noticed trees, hills and grass. Can't be it.
• A college on the show is obviously UT, but, for some reason they can't call it that. Instead, they call it "TMU." (Texas Mechanical? Texas Magical?) Meanwhile, when the poorly educated white trash girl starts thinking that she may be able to just barely get into a college, that college is named as "Texas Tech." Gee, thanks.