The image that sums up "Fright Night Lights" for me was when the scene changed and we saw a panning shot moving down a rural road, taken from a car that was driving by a car dealership. I immediately thought it was a commercial. But instead it was just another scene. And as the camera drove by the dealership it showed hundreds of people walking into it for its grand opening celebration, which doubled as a pep rally for the football team.
It's usually no compliment to compare a TV show to a commercial, but my point is that it was unexpected. Where else on TV do you see a panning shot that's from a perspective of a car? Where on TV do you see rural settings? Where did they get all these extras? And it feels so genuine that the football team holds a pep rally at a car dealership opening -- nothing flashy, no car wash with cheerleaders in bikinis.
I expected a lot from this show. I was a huge fan of Buzz BIssinger's book, his account of his year following a football-obsessed Odessa, Texas high school in the late 1980s. I also liked the film by Peter Berg, who also created the television show. And except for a few gripes, the first episode did not disappoint.
The lighting is low and the interiors look as you'd expect the interiors in a poor, rural Texas town to look. Berg isn't showy about the handheld camera, but uses just enough to create a kind of cinema verite effect that you hardly ever see on television. The cinematography makes this show feel more genuine than just about other film-like TV shows, including "Lost" (which isn't supposed to look that real, since there's supposed to be an element of fantasy).
The coach, played by Kyle Chandler, has much more subtlety than your typical in-your-face fictional high school football coach. He's a calming presence, off-setting the fervor of the town football fans. You sense that he feels pressure, that he feels an incredible burden to win, even without him talking about it.
The football scenes, were, of course, spectacular. I was disappointed that they had to create such an implausible comeback story for their first game -- the starting quarterback gets injured and the backup leads them to victory on the last play. But I guess that's what'll bring the viewers back next week.
One problem is that when a show looks so naturalistic, the forced moments pop out at you even more than they would in, say, a screwball David E. Kelley drama. For instance, the coach's daughter is reading "Moby Dick" and gives this incredibly belabored speech to her dad about how the book parallels the town, in that they're all chasing this big whale, the state championship.
You'd think they could get along fine with one town skeptic, but there's another -- the friend of the backup quarterback, who reluctantly drives the backup to practice every day. Then there's the coach, who already has some perspective on the whole craziness. If there's too much commentary, there's a risk of becoming preachy.
The show is a very loose adaptation of the book, and I have issues with some of the character choices. In the book, the running back Boobie Miles is this tragic figure, the showboat with incredible talent who gets injured beyond repair and then quits the team (and now gives lectures to kids on the dangers of putting too much faith in the possibility of a pro football career, or so I hear). Therefore, his equivalent in the show, Smash, isn't nearly as compelling. The show shifts the tragedy to the star quarterback, who injures himself in the first game, putting an incredible burden on the backup QB, who was, before the injury, no more than an errand boy. That's a much more obvious way to go than injuring the running back, but perhaps it raises the stakes. I wonder why the show got rid of the guys from the book who played the less showy positions, like Ivory Christian, who wanted to be a minister (the religiousness shows up in Smash), and Brian Chavez, who was a smart guy (he went to Harvard) but a killer on the field.
Despite this nitpicking, I'm still excited for next week. I'll clearly be watching way too much TV this fall. Check back for my comments on other shows.
Comments