Suzanne's TV Reviews

I caught the Friday Night Lights marathon on Bravo over the Christmas/New Year's holiday. Frankly, I have never seen a show like this, a show that takes the basic story about a small Texas town with a high school football team, and spins stories about humanity, hopes and dreams of the young and old, and contemporary social issues. It never preaches or sentimentalizes the issues or the characters, it never takes the "easy way out" with the characters or stories. You get a love triangle featuring the crippled star quarterback, his best friend, and his devoted cheerleader girlfriend and you find yourself sympathizing with every side. You watch the new quarterback care for his legal guardian, his grandmother who suffers from the early stages of Alzheimers, tell his father to go back to Iraq because he knows how much his father loves being a soldier. And you watch a loving and supportive family raising a daughter who finds herself falling in love with the new quarterback--with hilarious and tender results.
None of the emotion is manipulative, none of the acting feels false. The handheld camerawork heightens the documentary-like realism and emotional impact that helps Friday Night Lights transcend good television to a work of art.