Season 1 of Friday Night Lights was good television. Realistic. Dramatic. Inspiring. Entertaining. And still "television" because it didn't completely trust its viewership to be smart enough to understand the more poetic elements, of which there were plenty. Tough being smart and entertaining, both, but season 1 did as good a job as possible, given the network framework. Which is why Season 2's shitting itself was so utterly dissappointing. Like breaking up with Tyra only to get stuck with Tyra's mom, who, to extend the metaphor, spends the entire season shitting herself–– as does every character. Every character began to stutter to announce ambivalence. Drama was replaced, in each and every episode, by melodrama, which is like replacing Prince Hal and Falstaff with the cast of Twilight. Complexity was replaced with easy resolution. Tension was replaced with characters slapping, punching, wrestling and running from and into each other. Sometimes they played football.
If someone walked in on me watching Season 2, I would explain, in unmitigated shame, "This isn't what it looks like." Even though it was exactly what it looked like. Were these like even the same writers that did this to me? So after two seasons of FNL, here's my plea to all television shows: if you're gonna be a crazy-melodramatic bitch, do it on the first date and spare us both from hope and the inevitable. D+
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