TV Review: Friday Night Lights Season 1 Finale - "State"

Who would have guessed, at the start of the season, that one of my favorite shows would be a newcomer about a town obsessed with football? I would have been the first one to tell you that was not going to happen. I was wrong. Simply put, Friday Night Lights is one of the best shows on television. It delivers on so many levels, offering up action, drama, comedy, and heart with impressive production, fantastic acting, and wonderful writing. The first season has just concluded, and now we have to wait and see if it will be fortunate enough to get picked up for a second, something that I sincerely hope that it does.

In 1988 the Odessa-Permian Panthers high school football went on an impressive run to the staste finals. The teams trip and the towns obsession with the sport is chronicled in the 1991 book, Friday Night Lights. In 2004 Peter Berg directed the big screen adaptation of the book, creating a first rate inspirational sports film, starring Billy Bob Thornton. Two years later, Peter Berg continues to feed his interest in the story, creating a fictional team and characters to inhabit a very similar football obsessessed world, but expanding the universe well past the confines of the football stadium. Thus, the Friday Night Lights television series was created, and with it a terribly addictive, engrossing, and very real feeling show. To lead the cast they brought in Kyle Chandler, who also starred on Early Edition, as the team's coach, alongside a couple of actors playing similar roles to the ones they played in the film, Connie Britton and Brad Leland.

This series brings the personal visual style that Berg used in the film to a more expansive television landscape. We go inside the lives, loves, problems of the kids and the parents involved. You cannot help but feel for them as they find their way through life, the good and the bad.

The season finale finds the Dylan Panthers in the state championship game, it is a high point for everyone involved. The season has been filled with potholes, trainwrecks, and serious interpersonal issues which all conspired to keep them from reaching for their dreams. Despite the hardships, the team pulled together with the support of their coach and are on the cusp of realizing all that they have worked so hard for. The game comes at a time when many of their personal issues have to be pushed aside to focus on the game, while other issues are just coming to a head.

If you have been watching the show, you have no doubt seen the drastic developments that the main characters have gone through. Remember back to the start of the season, in the first episode their star quarterback, Jason Street, is involved in a horrendous tackle that left him paralyzed. Rather than shuffle his character out, we have watched him go through his rehab, find new purpose in life in wheelchair rugby, as well as become engaged and have some issues crop up with that, become involved in a lawsuit against his former coach and school, and finally finding a home as the new assistant football coach. Then there is Tim Riggins, star player and high school alcoholic, a surly fellow to be sure, who finds inspiration, and perhaps some redemption in the eyes of a young boy who idolizes him. Smash Williams, star running back is a cocky young player who is on top of the world, he has some hard lessons in personal responsibility, and has found a balance to his cocky attitude in his newly developing relationships. The last of our central players is Matt Saracen, the shy, mumbling, uncertain second string QB who finds himself starting in the wake of Street's tragedy, the season has found him gain a lot of confidence in himself, he is much more than the mumbler we first meet, but he has a long way to go. That is just a sampling of all that has gone on in the past 22 episodes. There is so much more that I could go on about, but you really owe it to yourself to become involved with everyone on the show.

All four of those players become involved in the state championship that is central to this finale. Besides all that goes on in the dramatic game, many other stories are played out around the fringe. Most important of those involves Coach Taylor (Chandler), who has accepted an offer to coach a Section I college team, this news is announced unceremoniously to the team through an unfortunate line of questioning from the local news. This directly affects his daughter rather severely as she has had a growing relationship with Matt Saracen. We also learn of another factor that could impact the finality of the descision, Coach's wife is pregnant. Those are the main threads that wind their way through the drama of the big game. On top of that, there is the strange relationship developing between Landry, the geeky friend of Saracen, and Tyra, notorious party girl with a reforming image.

There is so much that goes on in this, and every episode, that I could go on and on. Suffice to say, there is so much ground left to be covered in future seasons, that I truly hope that it gets picked up. However, if it doesn't, as I have a sinking suspicion may be the case, it picked a good note to close on.

The series transcends genre, it combines elements of teen drama, teen romance, adult drama, sports, and probably a few others. It mixes everything together and outputs a show that stands apart from other arc driven, episodic drama. It has also been able to separate itself from the film and in many ways surpass what the film was able to do.

OK, rather than me ramble on, something better is available. NBC.com is currently streaming the entire season online. So, head over and start watching!