Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Friday night's all right for lightin'
SPORTY! Friday Night Lights, ITV1, 8.00pm Labels: Friday Night Lights, ITV4, TV
We still can't quite get over the fact that 8pm seems like an odd time to be airing your US imports, you know. Almost like you're not really sure where else to put it, so you just whack it in the odd slot. The slot after all the soaps have finished (unless you count The Bill as a soap, but we still like to refer to it as a "serial drama" because we're pretentious like that) but before all the big peaktime shows hit the airwaves. The time when you're fighting against property programmes and lifestyle shows and gameshows and reality shows and whatnot, and no one really knows what's going on any more. It's a right headfuck, we can tell you.
On the odd occasions that we've remembered it's on in the first place, which to be perfectly honest is not very often, we've rather liked Friday Night Lights. It does a nice line in having a high-school focus while dealing with adult issues without doing so patronisingly, which is pretty tricky to pull off. Plus, y'know: buff jocks and pretty cheerleaders, which we will probably have a strange fascination with for the rest of our days.
So we come to the end of the season, and the Panthers prepare to play the state championship. Obviously they've been building up to this for weeks and weeks, and there's a lot riding on it. And in fairness, this sort of thing gets done rather a lot on TV, but it's done notably well here. Also, it's interesting to point out that despite uninspiring ratings in the US, this managed a second-season renewal, which was more than Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip managed, so it must have been doing something right. Go Panthers!
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Footballers' lives
SPORT! Friday Night Lights, ITV4, 8.00pm Labels: Friday Night Lights, ITV4, TV
We find ourselves in the rather unfortunate position of actually writing about an American show that we've not seen the merest second of, so we can't be as informative (ha!) and useful (ha ha!) as we often are in situations such as these. So we take full responsibility if this turns out to be rubbish, because largely we're recommending this on the grounds of lots of people who watch it telling us it's really good.
Whether it travels well will be interesting: it's about American football, which obviously puts us tweed-wearing Brits at a disadvantage from the word go, but more specifically it's about a town's obsession with their local sport, and the way it takes over people's lives, and that's probably something we know a thing or two about after all. Unless you were lucky enough to find an underground bunker to live in during the World Cup last year, anyway.
Anyway, the team in question is a high school football team, so hopefully there'll be lots of burly jocks to ogle even if the storylines aren't up to much (and the odd locker room scene would be nice, if anyone's offering). Plus it might even be educational - we can learn a few things about American football to bring us closer to our transatlantic cousins. Or worst case scenario, to give us a headstart when we finally get our hands on the US version of Footballers' Wives.
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