OMENS: Friday Night Lights "Pilot" (2006)

TV show again. This one's been in my instant queue for a long time though, so I always knew that I'd use this OMENS thing as a way to get started on it.

Friday Night Lights "Pilot" (2006)
Creator: Peter Berg
Starring: Kyle Chandler, Minka Kelly, Taylor Kitsch, Connie Britton, Adrianne Palicki, Zach Gilford, Scott Porter, Aimee Teegarden, Gaius Charles, Brad Leland

Friday Night Lights is a TV show inspired by the nonfiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream. There was a movie made prior to the show by director Peter Berg which I actually haven't seen. Peter Berg is also credited with being the show's creator and in terms of this first episode, Berg writes and directs. I was pleasantly surprised to see Berg's name on the project because even though I'm only familiar with two of his projects, I believed he was capable of creating something I could enjoy. (For those wondering, the two projects I knew of were Hancock and The Rundown. The former having a great first half with a lackluster second half and the latter being a surprisingly underrated action film.) And even though I'm not much of a sports watcher, I do enjoy quite a few sports films even if it seems most have the same dramatic structure to them.

The pilot episode of Friday Night Lights introduces us to a few characters in a small Texas town called Dillon where high school football is a religion. There's a new coach hoping to take the Dillon Panthers to the championship, and his hopes rest on his star quarterback. Over the course of the first half of the episode, the idea of just how important this team's success is to the town is made pretty solid in our minds. The outcomes of each individual game have so much weight. Being a Southern California resident who went to a magnet high school for science and mathematics, this is an important point to get across since it's what makes the game matter more. I get to know the characters, their dreams and aspirations, and now I just don't know how I'd take it to see them lose.

Of course, Friday Night Lights is about more than football. Because of its setting, the show becomes a snapshot of life in middle America, though I can't vouch for its authenticity. There are possible racial tensions, dreams of escaping the small town life, relationship worries from the level of high school sweethearts to a full-blown married couple, and the already stated emphasis on supporting high school sporting events. The characters don't come across as caricatures or stereotypes. I'm interested in most if not all of them by the time the pilot episode ends.

The only negative point I have is the use of the handheld camera. At first, I was really enjoying it because it added a realism layer to the show with an almost documentary like quality to it. Sometimes, however, it can be a bit dizzying. Even still, it's not enough to keep me away. I expect to pretty much keep watching this show until completion. After all, the ending of the very first episode had me in tears.

Netflix Rating: Loved it


What is OMENS?