Friday Night Lights Season 2

[Jay Riall]

Just done watching Series 1. Observations - God, the Landry/Matt conversations that end in 'You're retarded' are soo awesome. I enjoyed it when that geeky little ugly knobhead got beaten up by Reyes for dissing the football team. That little mentaloid kid that lives next door to Riggins is either really awesome or really annoying I can't decide which.

[tdarko]

Just finished ep 2, some thoughts:

This was an ep where when it ended I thought to myself how great the show was.

-I know the Landry/Tyra storyline was veering off the path of what the show is but he is just a flat-out great actor and he pulls off some of the best scenes every week.

-I don't think I was the only one hoping that Lyla would try to help her dad out of the mud by herself. Lyla + mud= [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

-I don't find Julie hot like some do in this thread, she is cute to me not hot. I would rank the women of FNL as follows:

Lyla


Tyra
Mrs. Coach (she is tough to place on this list b/c she is a different kind of hot)
Riggins' neighbor
Saracen's new in-house maid
Julie

[IlPug]

i see a saracen/nurse affair coming on.

[Dids]

They did a really good job of making Landry look really unattractive. That dude does not benefit from a closeup.

The Coach/punk college player stuff is just too preachy and cliche. I think you can make that point without coming off like you've been given notes from Roger Goodell.

Matt/Julie's relationship is being well done.

This ep was an improvement, but I'm still worried.

[DemonOfTheFall]

I have some grave concerns for the way this season is panning out. Here are some random thoughts that popped into my mind.


SPOILERS AHEAD - YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED




• Disjointed – where is the tightness in the storytelling? Why do these two episodes seem like a montage of scenes rather than an intricately woven parable?


• Parody of greatness of last season. Tami/Julie behave and react in ways they never would have last season. Where were the clues in Tami’s personality that she’d the type of person to lose it in front of a stranger? I understand the writers want to emphasise she’s struggling without the Coach but having her and Julie act unrealistically to show it is lazy writing. Either find a way to work it organically into their characters or don’t show them breaking down at all. Julie breaking up with Saracen without much cause/explanation other than ‘feeling trapped’ is ridiculously lazy writing not worthy of Friday Night Lights.


• Primary focus taken away from more compelling, stable characters – Coach Taylor, Street, Saracen – What do the scenes with Coach Taylor and Antoine have to do with the thematic drive of FNL? Why bother showing those scenes if we’ll get no follow up/no history – nothing that reveals them as anything other than a waste of our viewing time.


• Absurd storylines eg. Tyra/ Landry. This is a ghastly plot direction. When a show’s main appeal is that it refuses to stage cheap plot gimmicks, doing something like this is the equivalent of giving a big finger up to all the people who praised this show last season. Thrusting two peripheral characters suddenly into the spotlight is so grossly misconceived I wonder if the writers from last season were replaced with monkeys who’d just wandered out of their first soap screenwriting class.


• Characters are plot vehicles rather than driving the plot. Once again, I have little to no reason to care about anything Tyra/Landry go through now because it’s all cheapened by the ‘incident’. Breaking up Matt/Julie just as another young female is introduced into Matt’s life is monumentally manipulative and poor writing. Another example: Last season, Street would never have even considered going to Mexico without us seeing an extended episode of deliberation with Herc and his family. This season, it’s just another line in an episode full of things happening to people we vaguely know.


• Camerawork is less intimate – The unconventional filming style, cameras shoved into people’s faces at extremely tough personal moments; it all contributed to a depth and empathy that is noticeably absent.


• Dialogue feels contrived - Everything feels like it’s written to advance a particular plot rather than be an understandable corollary of a character reacting to a situation or a person around them. It removes me from the scene and again it feels cheap and manipulative.


• Confusion about major themes? Too much exposition and mundane storytelling. I want to see dignity, courage and loss; I want to see internal conflict. I do not want to see teenage soapiness nor drunken belligerence. I certainly don’t want to see arrogance or conceit. It seems like the emphasis on what made the characters likeable is a bit skewed. Last season, every character was carefully and compassionately portrayed. Ever action, even those unseemly ones, felt like a real, justifiable reaction. This season it feels like the writers are arbiters of whimsy, stringing characters along in any attempt to drive the plot.


• Absence of ‘Explosions in the Sky’ and scenes of Texan sky– Seriously, the soft, strumming guitars and low shots showing the wide open sky contributed so much to making the show feel like a portrait of a real environment. What we see now is just another TV show, a nicely framed and well shot TV show, but just a TV show. It could be shot in any town and we wouldn’t know the difference.


All in all, most of these are whines and mostly exaggerations, but I’ve seen far too many shows ruined and I sense that this one is heading in that familiar direction.

[Pudge714]

Demon,
Those aren't spoilers at all.
She's pregnant, not getting any sleep having, missing her husband and just walked a bunch in 105 degree weather.

They made it very clear Julie is doing whatever possible to not become her mom. Marry HS QB and stay in Dillon. This was also pretty clearly happening based on the first two episodes so it wasn't that random. A better criticism would be that this plot was more or less explored with Tyra last season.

Street hasn't gone to Mexico yet.

The scene with Coach and Antoine were really good. They might lead somewhere in the future, but if they don't it was still a good entertaining albeit small arc, which showed Coach Taylor dealing with his new job etc.

[keepitreal]

really enjoyed your thougths demon and agree here and there but at the same time...the other side:

-disjointed-its inevitable with the main? character in another part of the state...the season hasnt really started and isnt much the focus so once this happens it should be easier to join stories.

-parody of greatness-what pudge said (although i do think mrs coach has seemed a little off of what i would expect of someone in her situation) and julie is a friggin hs girl. if you are trying to tell me her excuse for breaking up with matt didnt feel right, i'd say thats about as perfect a break up as you could create to capture hs girls.

-stable characters-i agree i want more street. but i think what we're seeing with coach will pay off. and it was mentioned earlier but saracen is acting like he is the 3rd string QB on the worst team in texas...but we're still seeing a lot of him.

-absurd storyline-yea, its absurd.

-plot vehicles-yes a lot of the plot is diluted and seriously lacking. the first two episodes have reminded me of the start of season two of heroes in that (like you said) everything is so spread out we dont get enough of anything in an hour. and as a result, rather than depth, we get the crap we're getting.

-camerawork-do u fold AA pre cuz you're a nit =). i cant comment because i barely noticed a difference (i also havent seen an ep of season one in forever).

-dialogue-ties back to the non interlocking web of stories that doesnt seem to be working. less time for each character=no chance to deliver the right lines cuz we only see people for a moment (street to mrs coach i was like WTF).

-themes-all that you crave isnt likely to come in the first two episodes. we're just starting these season two arcs and i bet all you crave comes in time as a result of the sloppiness we're witnessing.

-absence of texas sky-interesting point...probably a chance to fit in an extra 30-60 seconds of the dialogue you hate. always looking for extra time...which is why so many intros/themes are so short nowadays with even more advertising.


a lot of your separate points are actually so heavily related and all can (will?) be fixed if the season starts and becomes enough of a focus to better connect these characters.

all that being said, not much from riggins' bro (except handing the ring to tim), waverly (who i think some FNL writer/director said "they broke up"), the little kid and his hot mom, etc, etc.

i think you were a little harsh and quick to hate (if you still feel this way by episode 6 or i'll be just as pissed as you are now).

[Wynton]

[ QUOTE ]
i see a saracen/nurse affair coming on.

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems so obvious that I'm not sure I like it, even though I think that nurse is pretty hot.

[Wynton]

I appreciate the thought behind your criticisms, but I really disagree with everything except the forced Landry plot, which I believe everyone objects to.

[Nez477]

[ QUOTE ]
I appreciate the thought behind your criticisms, but I really disagree with everything except the forced Landry plot, which I believe everyone objects to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here

Ep 2 restored my faith, ep 1 had scared me some, but you want more reason for Mrs. Coach to break down at the hospital??? I mean, she's all alone with a newborn baby, I think that's reason enough.

And, as was stated, these are high school kids. They break up with each other all the time for lame-ass reasons.