Y'All, I Sure Miss Coach Taylor

I want to tell you something. I just need to say that I sure do miss Coach Eric Taylor.

(Found this via the AV Club.)

An Ode to 'Friday Night Lights:' Goodbye Dillon, Texas

Thirty-three minutes into the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights, Jason Street, the beautiful, smart, kind, polite, going-places Dillon quarterback with the gorgeous cheerleader girlfriend became paralyzed in freak accident during Eric Taylor’s very first game as head coach. In the days leading up to the game, people none-too-subtly told Eric, who wore a perpetually worried look on his face, that the pressure was on and that if he didn’t guide the team properly, he’d be gone.



Buddy Garrity was still married, Buddy Jr. was a little kid and there was a grand to-do celebrating the opening of his car dealership.

Sophomore Matt Saracen was complaining that he’d never get the chance to set foot on the field because Jason was so good at QB-1.

Julie Taylor, who was reading Moby Dick, compared her father to Captain Ahab and the town of Dillon to the elusive Moby Dick.

Tyra Collette flirted wildly with lots of guys even though she was the hard-drinking Tim Riggins’ gal pal.

At the end of that first episode Eric, who was emotionally crushed by Jason's injury, said, “We, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall.”



Now, on the cusp of the series finale of Friday Night Lights, I can honestly say that the show ended on a high note. The Taylors have weathered all manner of family crises, including in season two when Eric was living away from home part-time and Tami was pregnant, when Eric was replaced as Dillon’s coach and handed a non-existent football program at a financially strapped school and when Tami was drummed out of her Dillon principal’s position after she dared to have a conversation with a girl who attended East Dillon about the girl’s accidental pregnancy. The original group of Dillon high schoolers has left and new students, attending East Dillon took their places on the show and have done so seamlessly.



I’ve loved the earthy Taylor marriage and how Tami rarely let Eric get away with stuff. The scenes where they planned date nights, when they demonstrated that, after all this time, they were still into one another, were wonderful. In an episode this season, after Eric had been drinking with his fellow coaches at an away game, he called Tami from his hotel room and asked, “What y’all wearin’?” hoping for phone sex.



As the Friday Night Lights book closes, we learned that Jason Street has thrived, despite the tragedy that befell him in episode one when his entire sense of who he was and what he’d do with his life was shaken to its core. Now a husband and a father, Jason evolved into a confident sports agent, complete with his own business card and that trademark, All-American smile on his face.



Matt, who always seemed older than his age as he shouldered more responsibilities than someone his age should have to, finally stopped martyring himself. He went away to school in Chicago to chase his dreams and utilize his artistic talents. His future looks bright.

Tim, whose best days seemed to have been left behind on the playing field, is now an ex-con and has no idea what he’s going to do next.



What’ll happen to Jess Merriweather, who dreams of becoming a football coach, to Vince Howard, who hopes (like the other East and West Dillon players before him) to go to college and play pro ball, to Becky Sproles, who seems lost without parental guidance but has found puppy love with Luke Cafferty, who’s learning that football scholarships aren’t abundant? We’ll have to use our collective imaginations to picture what might’ve become of their futures had Friday Night Lights gone on for more seasons.

It was a down-to-earth, smart and enjoyable ride while it lasted. Thanks y'all.

'Friday Night Lights:' The Last Season Thus Far

This final season of Friday Night Lights has not disappointed.

It’s had a little bit of everything in its first six episodes.

Family drama: College freshman Julie Taylor had an affair with a married teaching assistant then fled home after the guy’s wife confronted her and called her a slut. Becky Sproles fled to Billy and Mindy Riggins’ house after her father’s wife is nasty to her. Vince Howard’s formerly bad dude dad was released from prison and, though Vince originally didn’t want him around for fear he’d get his mother hooked on drugs again, Vince started to warm up to him.

Football drama: The East Dillon Lions football team is doing well this year thanks to Coach Eric Taylor, and some inspiration from Billy Riggins, leading Eric to be put on the cover of a national football magazine under the title “Coach Kingmaker.” Luke Cafferty is starting to worry that he won’t be able to play college football or might not even go to college, while Vince is being courted by some big name colleges. Buddy Garrity Jr. straightened himself out – after drinking, doing drugs, lying, stealing – after his dad persuaded him to join the East Dillon football team.

Teen romance drama: Jess Meriweather and Vince make for a cute couple and their relationship is tested when Jess joins the football staff. Luke keeps flirting with Becky, clearly interested.

Career intrigue: Tami Taylor, fresh from the abortion controversy that led to her leaving her post as Dillon High School principal, has had difficulties fitting in at East Dillon as she tried to breathe new life into the guidance department and reach out to troubled students. Mindy, having lost her baby weight, returned to working at the Landing Strip but was given cruddy hours.

Random teen stupidness: A high school girl got drunk and boys at the party were flopping her around in front of a video camera; a video of it was posted on YouTube. Members of the East Dillon Lions football team branded themselves as an idiotic team building move.

I can promise you, even more meaty, moving drama is ahead in the final seven episodes as I've already seen them. I’m gonna miss this show mightily, the Taylors especially.

Attention Readers: Watch 'Friday Night Lights'!

I came late to my Friday Night Lights fangirl-dom. Wait, let me clarify. I’ve liked the original, nonfiction Buzz Bissinger book since the early 1990s and enjoyed the film, starring Billy Bob Thornton. But as for the NBC TV version of this tale of Texas high school football, I was tardy in getting to that game.

However once I started watching the TV drama, I was smitten.

In my new pop culture column, I explain to folks who aren’t football fans that Friday Night Lights is more like another NBC show, Parenthood, only it focuses on a different demographic group, it’s in Texas (not in California) and it has some football.

This season especially, the focus is intensely on adults doing their darnedest to raise/advise/assist hormonal teens who aren’t quite grown-ups yet, while at the same time, those adults are having to face the realities of the limitations of their influence and power over these oftentimes troubled teens.

NBC is streaming the season’s first few episodes online so it’s not too late to jump on board for one last Friday Night Lights ride.

(FYI – You’ll notice that my column is now appearing on the web site Modern Mom. Modern Mom bought Mommy Tracked and brought me over from the site.)

FNL: The Final Season Promos

Unfortunately, I’m not among the lucky ones who has DirecTV, therefore I won’t be watching when the fifth and final 13-episode season of Friday Night Lights starts airing on DirecTV on Wednesday, October 27. (The final season will air on NBC next year.)

But that doesn’t mean I can’ t drool over the new promos DirecTV has released for a season that a network press release has hinted will be a very challenging one for Eric and Tami Taylor, as a couple, saying specifically that Tami’s attempts to help improve the East Dillon High School system “will force her to make a decision that places a strain on the Taylor’s usually steadfast marriage.”

More of a strain than when Eric moved to Austin to coach at TMU while a pregnant Tami and Julie stayed behind in Dillon? More than last season where Tami lost her job as a result of a witch hunt and Eric had to create a football team from nothing? I'm more than a little curious.

'Friday Night Lights'' Season Finale -- Sweet and Neat

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Friday Night Lights season finale.*

Considering that this was one of the strongest seasons that this underrated show has had – kicking some serious butt on the Vince Howard storyline with his tale of a teen trying to overcome poverty, drugs and gang violence, and daring to go “there” with a story about teenage pregnancy – I admit that I was somewhat disappointed that the season finale wrapped up some of the stories a bit too neatly for my taste.

Having the underdog East Dillon Lions beat the playoff-bound West Dillon Panthers . . . I’m sorry, as much as I love seeing Joe and J.D. McCoy’s smug noses rubbed in defeat -- especially after the lousy punks vandalized the East Dillon Lions’ field -- that victory wasn’t realistic, though I was happy to see Landry make that field goal. Given that the bulk of this season been marinated in difficult, messy reality, this Lions victory seemed improbable.

As for Tami Taylor, I was cheering when I saw Principal Tami walk out of the school board’s meeting without reading that bogus apology that the board had written for her, leaving those who wanted to scapegoat her for a young woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, all in a tizzy. “Listen, y’all . . . I’ve always put the welfare of the students ahead of everything else, every action that I made was with that intent and it always will be,” Tami said before she left the meeting, calls for her firing heard in the background.

But to have Tami leave her West Dillon principal’s post, after being told she was being placed on “administrative leave,” to take a step down and run the guidance program at East Dillon (she was a guidance counselor before she became principal), seemed, what's the word . . . off. (Plus it makes the folks who run West Dillon High, as well as the school board, seem pretty stupid, dumping two successful members of the Taylor family from the West Dillon faculty in two consecutive years.)

The rosy ending to Tami’s multi-episode arc – with the warm, homey final scene, the folksy music, Tami’s smile, Eric putting up Christmas lights while the girls played with decorations on the front lawn – made me think that the writers simply had a hankering to leave viewers with visions of a happy and contented Taylor family, with Eric’s team having beaten West Dillon and Tami keeping her dignity and having a job that she’s good at.

The story wasn’t so rosy for the Riggins brothers. “You are my brother and you are all I have,” Tim said. “You have a family now. You are a father. And you need to be one.” Watching Tim Riggins take the fall for Billy the moron was so upsetting. Billy should have known better. Tim already has a ton of obstacles in front of him if he wants to succeed in life, but now having to serve time for chopping up stolen cars, that’s certainly not going to help his cause any. Now this was a story that ended on a realistic note, as was the scene with Jess dumping Landry and Matt and Julie finally breaking it off.

Overall, the “Thanksgiving” episode was a moving the-good-guys-can-still-sometimes-win conclusion capping an outstanding season. I absolutely cannot wait for the fifth and final season to begin.

Image credit: NBC.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Eclipse' Rises, Turning on the Lights on FNL and Tales from a 'Breaking Bad' Virgin

Eclipse: Better Than the First Two Twilight Flicks

I went to see Eclipse on opening weekend and am happy to report – even though it might diminish my credibility with some literary/film school/independent flick types – that I enjoyed it, thought it was much better than New Moon and more light-hearted in places, not taking itself TOO seriously.

My pop culture column over on Mommy Tracked this week also points out that, despite the fact that the movie (like the book series) has all these super-strong werewolves and vampires protecting the fragile human Bella Swan from violence and possible death -- at times even being held her involuntarily hostage in order to keep her “safe” -- Bella’s no slouch when it comes to protecting those she loves either, that’s when she’s not pining or pondering becoming a teenage bride.

Friday Night Lights: The Lights in Carroll Park



Being a teenager is damned hard, at least in Dillon, Texas, at least for the likes of Becky, who’s 16 and pregnant, and for Vince, who can’t find a job because he’s been arrested and has been trying as hard as he can not to fall in with the gang and the violence that threatens to envelope him.


While Vince, whose mother's drug problems make her AWOL as a parent, had Coach Taylor there to help him get a job – at Ray’s BBQ where Virgil offered to hire him as long as he kept himself out of trouble, 16-year-old Becky, herself the child of a teenage mother who's largely absent while tending bar, had no one to advise her after she got knocked up from a one-night-stand with Luke Cafferty. Though Luke has spoken with her and offered help, she’s leaning toward an abortion, though she’s still on the fence and in serious need of guidance. And seeking out Tim Riggins’ counsel – the same guy who’s working at an illegal chop shop after hours – doesn’t seem like the best move.

Meanwhile, while Eric Taylor was looking for Tinker to find out why he’s missed practice, Eric witnessed the aftermath of a shooting of a 12-year-old in Carroll Park, which made him realize that for some of his players who live in the area just getting to football practice unscathed, never mind escaping the reach of violence that plagues that area, is a constant challenge. Ever the optimist, Eric wanted to try to do something about it, but he went about it in his typically awkward Eric kind of way. No politician he.

Eric needed Buddy’s help – again -- just like he needed him to help rustle up the support of the East Dillon football alums for a Homecoming event earlier this season. With Buddy’s assistance, Eric met with a community organizer, who had credibility with some of the youth in the area, and they arranged not only to get the lights turned on in the troubled park, but to bring the community together with a pick-up football game between neighborhood players and the East Dillon Lions.

The best moment of the episode: Eric playing wry with Tami when he informed her that he was disgusted by the notion that, by the mere fact that Glenn had kissed Tami, Eric was one degree away from kissing Glenn. (When Glenn apologized to Eric, who knew nothing of the drunken kiss, loved, just loved Eric’s surprised, restrained rage look.)

Finally Saw Breaking Bad’s Freshman Season


The web site to which I contribute blog items about TV – CliqueClack TV – has this regular feature called, “The Virgin Diaries.” The writers who contribute to the site pick a show that has already aired that they, personally, have never seen before, watch it and chronicle their reactions. Fans who’ve already watched those seasons of the show get to re-live it through fresh eyes, remembering what it was like to learn a certain fact or see a new character for the first time.

My first “Virgin Diary” entry was posted today about AMC’s Breaking Bad starring Bryan Cranston. I just finished the first season – it was only seven episodes long -- over the weekend and wrote about how the star, Bryan Cranston surprised me by absolutely making me forget that he ever knew anyone named Malcolm or ever once donned roller skates and did a routine to the song Funkytown.

Image credit: AMC.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Rescue Me's' Dysfunctional Premiere, FNL's Toilet Bowl & the Army Wives Turned into Working Moms

Rescue Me's Dysfunctional Premiere

The headline for my review of the season six opener of Rescue Me over on CliqueClack TV is: “Rescue Me’s premiere elevated family dysfunction to new heights.” That about sums it up.

As I watched the episode unfold, I absolutely could not believe the antics of the Gavin family. From Uncle Teddy showing up at the bar where he’d shot his nephew four weeks prior as though it was no big deal, Eddy exploiting Tommy’s shooting as a great business/PR move (asking Tommy to lie down in between the chalk outline of his body from where he’d been bleeding on the bar room floor), Janet intentionally poking Tommy in the spot of his gunshot wound, the wild ride Mickey gave Tommy from the hospital, to the boozing Colleen Gavin, I came to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with the Gavin gene pool.

FNL’s Toilet Bowl



Loved the threads touched upon in the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights, "Toilet Bowl:" Julie feared disappointing her mother and failing to live up to her expectations when it came to college. (Julie was less than enthused about her visit to Boston with Tami, who acted as though she'd been added to the Boston College public relations payroll.)

Landry and Jess moved forward with their adorable, awkward budding romance, although it seems as though Vince is still carrying around a piece of Jess’ heart in his back pocket. Luke started turning into a Nurse Jackie/Dr. House drug addict, going through pain medication at such a rapid clip that he had to resort to getting the name of a less than honest doctor in order to score another prescription because the pain in his hip from that ranch accident is still intense.

The two biggest stories of the week: Tim Riggins found his own field of dreams and, after realizing he’s in no position, financially to buy it, figured it'd be worth it to join Billy in an ill-advised, illegal after hours chop shop operation at Riggins Rigs in order to raise the cash to become a property owner. Bad. Move.

And finally, the lowly East Dillon Lions netted their first victory. Huzzah for the Lions.

Have I said lately that I’m particularly enjoying this fourth season of FNL? Seriously.

Army Wives Turned into Working Moms

My pop culture and politics column over on Mommy Tracked this week traced the evolution of the wives on Lifetime’s Army Wives from season one, when only Joan and Roxy had jobs outside the home, to the current season, where all of them are employed, with the exception of Claudia Joy who’s going back to school to complete the law degree she abandoned when she married Michael.

I think Claudia Joy’s transformation from being the helpful, party-throwing, consummate volunteer wife to working alongside her law professor on a case against Fort Marshall has been the most dramatic, followed by EMT Denise and “rookie” cop Pamela Moran, who’s freshly divorced and once again pursuing her career.

Friday Night Lights: In the Bag

I’ve never been a huge fan of Friday Night Lights’ Julie Taylor. I usually find her kind of annoying and whiny. Nonetheless, I felt badly for her in the past episode, “In the Bag,” in the aftermath of her boyfriend of three years, Matt, taking off without a word, except to his family. Never told Julie he was leaving or even said, "Goodbye." Julie was left flailing and floundering and wound up signing up for all manner of school club in an attempt to take her mind off of the fact that she’d been dumped. But it was no use, especially when her heartbreak went painfully on public display where the only solace she found was in her mother's arms.

Loved watching Tinker help Luke and the Cafferty family build the fence to keep the cows safe from thieves so Luke wouldn’t have to stay up until the wee hours of the night working on the fence because his dad couldn’t afford to pay anyone else to help out. (It seems like Luke's parents are among the rare football parents who aren't all insanely crazy about high school football, the anti-McCoys if you will. Joe McCoy was the one who fought Luke's transfer to East Dillon, after all, not Luke's parents.) But the twist at the end, when Luke’s hips got crushed in between the metal fence door by the cows, that just can’t be good. Man has that kid had a bad year.

And while I really didn’t like Vince Howard’s character at first because all we got to see of him was his swagger and arrogance, I’ve been warming up to him as of late. In what should’ve been a proud moment, when he was named QB post, he was instead humiliated in the Lions locker room as the police searched his locker for a gun, causing his teammates and his coach to look upon him with suspicion. Ultimately, he did have a gun and, as a show of faith, he handed it over to Coach Taylor to prove that he’s really trying to do the right thing and seize his new opportunities Eric’s offered him. Eric now believes in Vince and Vince in Eric.

As for Tami Taylor and the goofy, drunk Glen kissing her . . . wait ‘til Coach Eric finds out about this. Wonder if he'll be as cool and collected as he was when Vince brought a gun to the Taylor house? Throw in the cute Jess-Landry flirtation and this season has been getting better and more emotionally revealing with each episode.

Are you finding yourself liking this season as much as I am?

Notes on Pop Culture: FNL's Julie Takes Off, Those Maddening World Cup Vuvuzelas & 'thirtysomething' Season 3 Makes Great Viewing

FNL's Julie Takes Off


Tami Taylor was brought to tears in the latest Friday Night Lights episode, “Stay,” but not because of the nasty campaign to make her life as the principal of West Dillon High School miserable – a campaign spearheaded by the dark-hearted Joe McCoy. She shed tears because her daughter Julie took off overnight (against her parents’ explicit wishes) to see a multi-day music festival with the still grieving, still lost Matt, who had started overtly questioning why he had passed up his chance to attend a presitgious school in Chicago to stay in Dillon. By the episode’s end, Matt, apparently decided that staying was a mistake and he was smiling as he was driving away, leaving his Panther past behind him.

While Tami would’ve normally lit into Julie for blatantly disrespecting her authority and blowing off her repeated phone calls – no scenes of Tami texting Julie though, isn’t that what them there teens do now, text all the time? – when Julie burst into tears upon entering the Taylor house, saying she thought Matt was leaving for good, Tami’s heart just melted, despite Tami’s earlier vow to “beat her ass” for taking off.

Loved the series of scenes with the East Dillon Lions coaches talking to the media – including Coach Stan’s ridiculous “guarantee” of a Lions victory -- and Eric Taylor angrily walking out of a TV interview when the reporter asked him about his “history” of quitting. Hey, at least the Lions only lost to a powerhouse team in a televised game by seven. Not too shabby. If they’d won, it would’ve seemed a bit too unbelievable, too fairy tale-ish.

The story with Tim Riggins and Lyla, well, I already knew that Minka Kelly wasn’t going to be full-time this season, so the fact that she didn’t stay in Dillon like Matt had, at least initially, didn’t come as a big surprise. What I did find surprisingly, though, how heartbroken Tim looked when he told Lyla that all he wanted was her, and for Riggins’ Rigs to succeed with her as their business manager. Cue Lyla’s exit.

Shut the World Cup Vuvuzelas Up, Pretty Please

I watched the US-UK World Cup game on TV Saturday and became insanely irritated by those god awful horns, called vuvuzelas. Broadcasters are complaining that the sound of the noise-makers is drowning out the commentators, and players are peeved, saying that the incessant honking noise is distracting. The hatred many have expressed for those horns has World Cup organizers contemplating banning them. I absolutely cannot imagine what it must be like to try and watch the games in person and have to listen to that sound for 90 minutes straight. Maybe, for future game viewing, I should just watch games with the sound off.

Speaking of the World Cup, The Guardian has a very funny clip, reenacting the “big” moments in the US-UK game . . . in Legos, complete with the sounds of the vuvuzelas in the background.

thirtysomething Season 3 DVD was Great Viewing

The third season of thirtysomething – which aired between 1989/90 – was released in DVD format recently and, after plowing through the episodes during the season widely remembered as the one “when Nancy got cancer,” I discovered that this season was even more emotionally raw and relatable than its previous two, critically acclaimed seasons. Other than the Nancy cancer story, Gary and Susannah had a baby and Hope was pregnant with baby number two as she and Michael started to drift apart. Hope even kissed a bearded guy who worked at a D.C.-based an environmental organization who worked on a failed campaign with Hope to try to shut down an incinerator project in her neighborhood. It’s also the season where the Machiavellian Miles Drentell dramatically locked horns with Michael and Eliot. My review of the season three DVD set is here.

I cannot wait until the fourth and final season is released as I never saw it when it originally aired as I was busy finishing my senior year of college. The ShoutFactory hasn’t yet announced its release date but it has been releasing the first three seasons about six months apart from one another.

Did you have a favorite episode of thirtysomething?

Notes on Pop Culture: FNL, Alias, Top Characters of Past 20 Years & SATC 2

FNL: Coach Taylor Boosts Morale



Last week, Coach Eric Taylor attempted to address some of the dire financial needs of his ragtag, upstart (0-2) East Dillon football high school team by organizing fundraisers and writing a personal check to cover the initial installment on the team’s new uniforms. On this week’s installment of Friday Night Lights, “A Sort of Homecoming,” Coach Taylor was trying to bolster the morale end of things, trying to rally the community behind his team, rendering him looking awfully, earnestly ham-fisted at times.

Who knew that ex-Panther booster Buddy Garrity would be his saving grace in luring former East Dillon players who’d won the State Championship in 1983, to appear at a pep rally/homecoming Eric organized? Or that Jess Merriweather would be the person who'd convince her former football star father to reluctantly offer up his restaurant for the rally? (Can't wait for more backstory on that family.) I loved watching how this all came together -- as well as the speech about a “pride” of lions -- knowing that nothing, it seems, is coming as easily for Eric as it had back in West Dillon.

The other two threads that interested me during FNL's new episode this week: Matt Saracen realized that perhaps he made a mistake in passing up a golden opportunity in Chicago in order to stay in Dillon with his high school girlfriend Julie, who's mulling college opportunities on both coasts, and Tami Taylor continued to endure all manner of harassment (character assassination on the radio, vandalism to her car) for simply enforcing the school rules by sending football star Luke Cafferty to the proper school.

As this season has unfolded, I’ve been wondering if Eric really understands the magnitude of the malice that's been directed his wife or whether she’s keeping a lot of it from him, as he’s been so completely absorbed with his job that he doesn’t see what’s happening with his own family . . . other than whether Tami would be willing to cook dinner for former East Dillon football champs.

A Retooled Alias?

I was a major fan of Alias. Became quite fond of J.J. Abrams, Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber while watching this smart and thoroughly entertaining (in the first three seasons anyway) espionage drama which was at its greatest when Garner’s Sydney Bristow was working as a double-agent for the CIA while serving the evil international crime syndicate, SD-6, run by the nefarious Arvin Sloane. (The show launched not only Garner’s career, but Terry O’Quinn’s -- aka Lost's John Locke -- and Bradley Cooper’s, he of Hangover fame.)

When I got word that people have been buzzing about what they’re calling a “reboot” of Alias – an E! report called labeled it an “initial talk” about a newly revised Alias series, sans the Rambaldi element – I was skeptical. Abrams is already working on a new NBC show, Undercovers, that’s slated to begin next fall about a married couple who met while working as spies and are re-activated into the espionage game, adding a dash of excitement to their marriage, now that they're boring, staid caterers. Wouldn’t a new version of Alias be too similar? Would any of the old characters be involved? Could you really call it Alias without them?

EW Top 100 Characters List

If you were to sit down and make a list of the top 100 fictional characters from the past 20 years, who’d be on it? The editors and writers at Entertainment Weekly took up this challenge and put together a rather eclectic list. Why certain characters rank higher than others, and why certain ones were selected over others – like Tim Riggins making the list as representative of FNL and NOT the Taylor family? – remains a mystery to me. Kind of like the Lost finale. The EW top 10 of the past 20 years:

1. Homer Simpson

2. Harry Potter

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

4. Tony Soprano

5. The Joker (Heath Ledger’s version)

6. Rachel Green from Friends

7. Edward Scissorhands

8. Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs

9. Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City

10. SpongeBob Squarepants

FYI: Some of my favorites made the list: Sydney Bristow (42), Jack Bauer from 24 (44), John Locke from Lost (63), Lorelai Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls (65), Don Draper from Mad Men (74) and Gregory House from House (84).

Sex and the City 2

I went to see Sex and the City 2 on Friday and dedicated this week’s Pop Culture column to it over on Mommy Tracked. While I’m not going to tell you that it’s absolutely fabulous – I called it an “over-the-top, junk-food-binge of a film,” a bad-good movie you can enjoy with friends and share a laugh – I was steamed by the language some reviewers used when writing about the characters and the women in the film, everything from “shrews” to “harridans.”

Image credit: ABC/Alias.tv.

'Friday Night Lights:' Coach Taylor Lies to His Wife

One of the things I really admire about Coach Eric Taylor’s character on Friday Night Lights is the fact that he’s been a really good, down-to-earth husband. Certainly he's not been perfect, and Tami Taylor’s certainly not a perfect wife, but Eric’s been a supportive husband and father throughout the series, a role model of sorts, albeit one who doesn't like to talk much.

However the latest episode, “In the Skin of a Lion” hints at larger problems that may challenge the Taylors’ marriage this season with Eric coaching the East Dillon High School football team, and Tami serving as principal at the West Dillon High School, both of whom have targets on their backs, Tami more so than Eric at this point.

In a recent episode, Tami was put smack-dab in the middle of local politics when she learned that Eric kind-of-knew-but-didn’t-really-want-any-details about a mailbox the West Dillon Panthers had been using for years as a sham address for players who lived in other school districts but who’d claim they lived in West Dillon territory in order to play Panther football. The address was for a mailbox in front of an empty lot in West Dillon. The Panters had been using it for a star player, Luke Cafferty who lived in East Dillon territory.

At first, Tami asked Eric whether he knew about this when he was the West Dillon coach, as she was the one who had to pull Luke Cafferty off the Panthers because one of Eric's friends -- the one who erected the mailbox in the first place -- told Eric that Luke was supposed to be on his football team. When confronted by his wife, Eric argued and tried to turn it around on Tami as though she were the one making trouble. Although she sagely and gaemly played politics with the West Dillion football boosters, who threatened to tarnish Eric's previous state championship, the entire situation left her feeling vulnerable, particularly when she was booed by the student body.

During the latest episode, it was Eric who found himself in a jam. Sure, that big fire he lit in the center of the football field and into which Eric had encouraged his players to pitch their jerseys proved inspirational to fledgling team, symbolic of their fresh start. But there was one small catch. It left them without uniforms. And without more financial support from the cash-strapped high school – which barely has enough cash for academics – Eric had to turn to other means.

He staged that fundraiser where he had the players push a car through town and collect money from residents. While I thought it was sweet that Eric gave Tim Riggins some cash to spread around to the crowd to give to the players so they’d feel supported by their community, I wondered if Tami knew about it.

Then the bill for the new jerseys came due. And Eric had to write a hefty check, a personal check, from his and Tami’s account in oreder to get the gear in time for their game. When Tami asked Eric about it, he lied and said the check was for $45 for dry cleaning. Near the end of the episode, he came home after one too many beers and told Tami the truth, that he’d written a $3,000 check and hoped to raise the money and replace it. "We don’t have $3,000 in our checking account!” Tami shouted.

I expect that this dust-up – combined with a Panther football booster boasting that Joe McCoy will “figure out a way to get that bitch out of there” (meaning Tami as principal) – won’t be the last big tests for the Taylor marriage this season.

'Friday Night Lights:' What Happened After the Forfeit

Have I said how much I love Friday Night Lights?

The second episode of the fourth season, “After the Fall,” was a beautiful bookend to the premiere, where Coach Taylor’s brand new, ragtag, no-resources East Dillon Lions football team had to be rebuilt yet again, less than a month after he’d cobbled it together in the first place, all because he’d made the gutsy move to forfeit their first game when they were down 45-0 at the half and the team was physically in shambles.

Eric Taylor spent the bulk of this episode going around town and apologizing to everybody for making a call he knew in his heart was the right one and trying to coax the team members to show up to the field. After facing off against a defiant, delightfully awkward Landry in the cafeteria and a stone faced Vince on the basketball court, Eric was surprised to later find Vince in his office and appealed to Vince to help pull the rest of the team back together and meet with the coaches for a special Saturday night practice. All the players actually showed up -- imagine the drama we would've seen had they NOT -- and they all purged the demons from the first game in a fire in the middle of the football field, encouraged by Coach Taylor to start anew by pitching their ripped football jerseys into the flames, an idea spawned by a strange guy Eric ran into at a gas station, but one which left the team without jerseys. But that's another story for another episode.

The other big story of the episode was the revelation that a star running back for the Panthers didn’t really live in West Dillon territory and that he should be attending East Dillon and playing for Coach Taylor's Lions team. This news had to be delivered by West Dillon Principal Tami Taylor to Luke Cafferty, after which she was “jokingly” threatened with lynching by Joe McCoy, who also threatened to harm Coach Taylor's reputation, and then Tami found herself nastily jeered at a high school pep rally by the student body while Joe McCoy laughed. Being placed in the middle of this controversy, between her husband and her school, is a sticky place for Principal Taylor will almost certainly cause tension in the Taylor household.

And how very depressing is it to watch the story of Tim Riggins, or "the guy who used to be Tim Riggins,” who used to be a star, a VIP in Dillon, but who’s now just a garden variety college drop-out (attended college classes only briefly) has-been who was rendered homeless and sleeping in his truck? This is one aspect of the Texas high school football star saga that I’d always hoped this show would address, the fact that, in this fictional town (and many real towns), one’s high school football career is, all too frequently, the pinnacle of these young men's lives. Everything else is downhill and the rest of life seems like a disappointment by comparison.

What do you think of this season thus far?

'Friday Night Lights' Returned with Gutsy Premiere

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the season four premiere of Friday Night Lights.*

How amazingly gutsy.

Losing 47-0, at halftime, his team -- possessing little-to-no experience, precious few resources and no confidence -- sits in the locker room. The grossly undermanned team of less than two dozen teenage high school football players is bloody, broken, physically unable to continue. Their huge-hearted coach -- who had taken his former high school team to win the State Championship, who was humiliated in last year's season finale by being fired and re-assigned to another high school in town, one with no money and no football team – decided, on their behalf, to forfeit the game. They weren’t going to win and going ahead and playing the game would’ve just savaged those kids’ bodies. And for this crucial decision, Coach Eric Taylor, will pay a price.

This season of Friday Night Lights is taking wonderful creative risks this year by having Eric work for East Dillon and his wife Tami Taylor run the more affluent school in West Dillon. My pop culture column this week on Mommy Tracked is all about really fantastic this fourth season is shaping up to be. (I’m about halfway through watching review copies of the fourth season.)

I was a big fan of the 1990 book, Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger on which the show is based. The non-fiction book examined not just the mania that is Texas high school football, but issues of class, socio-economic differences, race and gender, as well as valuing sports more than academics in an economically depressed community. It was tough to read sometimes but much of it has stuck with me all these years later.

The TV show, inspired by the book, has always been good (with the exception of that Tyra-Landry murder business a while back), and I’ve always recommended that people watch it, even if they hate football. But this season it seems closer to the original source material than it ever has, and harder to watch on occasion, which is a very good thing. Maybe they'll finally get a well-deserved Emmy afterall . . .

This coming Friday’s episode, “After the Fall,” has Coach Taylor repenting for his decision to forfeit the game, plus, it hurls one big, giant mess into Principal Taylor’s lap, one that’s gonna cause a heap ‘o problems for her. Here’s NBC’s preview:



Image credit: NBC.

It's Coming. In Five Days. 'Friday Night Lights.'

It's been a long wait since we last saw Coach Eric Taylor get the boot from his post as the head coach of the Dillon High School football team and be exiled to the East Dillon High School football team on Friday Night Lights. And finally, we'll find out how this is going to play out when the series returns for its fourth season this Friday.

In addition to the tricky family dynamics -- with Tami Taylor running Dillon High School as its principal while her husband struggles with an underfunded program at the rival school -- the football program storyline promises to become a classic underdog saga. Judging by the two preview clips below, Coach Taylor has got a hugely long and bumpy road ahead of him. In the first clip, he surveys the facilities and finds a raccoon locked up the football lockers. In the second, he's lining the dust-bowl of a field by himself. Quite a stark contrast from his Dillion days.





Are you looking forward to Friday Night Lights returning this Friday?

'Friday Night Lights:' Promos for Season 4

Unfortunately for fans of Friday Night Lights who don’t have DIRECTV, (including yours truly), we’ll have to wait until 2010 to get our fix of our favorite Texas high school football coach, his high school principal wife and the angst-ridden students who populate the show. For those of you who do have DIRECTV, you’ll be able to see the premiere of this wonderfully nuanced drama tomorrow (that's Wednesday, y'all) at 9 p.m.

In the meantime, we can all enjoy promos for the fourth season featuring a town divided, as Tami Taylor is the principal of one high school and her husband, Eric Taylor, is the football coach at the cross-town rival high school. I can’t wait.

'Friday Night Lights' Finale: Whaddya Think?

*Warning, spoilers from the Friday Night Lights finale ahead*

EAST Dillon High? The former, dust-binned high school with the dilapidated field? The one whose future football team's roster has already been looted by its crosstown rival West Dillon Panthers boosters and compliant crooked local officials?

Kyle Chandler -- who plays Coach Eric Taylor, who used to be the West Dillon Panthers football coach who took his team to the state finals more than once -- told Vanity Fair that he thinks the Friday Night Lights season three finale sets "up a whole new slew of characters that could come into the show. The show can re-invent itself. When I read the last episode, I saw a phoenix coming out of the ashes."

And while Chandler is right when he says that the ending provides FNL with a wide open field of opportunity, with new players, new administrators, new parents, new stories, etc. I feel as if we skipped a step, as if I missed an episode explaining what went on between the Dillon Panthers' loss at the state final and Coach Taylor getting the boot to coach the East Dillon Lions. There was a disconnect, at least for me.

For example, it's entirely plausible that Joe McCoy would still, five months later, be barely able to conceal his simmering rage and hatred toward Coach Taylor after the coach and his wife Tami, the high school principal, contacted child protective services after witnessing Joe McCoy battering his wonderkid quarterback son J.D. in the Applebee's parking lot. What I don't buy is that all the Panthers boosters would hop on board the rich hothead's crazy train and dispose of Coach Taylor. McCoy notwithstanding, the only beef people seemed to have was that Taylor was indecisive when he was juggling quarterbacks before finally settling on J.D. But that can't be the entire reason for shipping him to East Dillon, that and losing the state final after staging a gutsy come-back against an incredibly tough opponent, can it? I would've liked to have seen the deliberation, the debate, the reasons before I'm ready to buy into this next phase of the show.

While discussing the finale with another FNL fan, he suggested that Buddy Garrity might've been in on the whole thing, although I don't think Garrity's capable of pulling off such expert subterfuge. However the fan did agree that this demotion seemed abrupt and not well explained.

Yes, next year will be an opportunity for FNL to go in a completely new direction and, as Chandler said, rise from the ashes of this season. I just wish the viewers had been witness to something more than Coach Taylor's clipped statement to a board and Tami Taylor showing up to a wedding to tell him he's going to be running a team which has already lost promising players courtesy of a district line drawn in such a nonsensical zig-zaggy fashion by Panther boosters that it would make Massachusetts and Chicago pols proud.

So, FNL fans, what do you think of this East Dillon High turn of events? Do you think it came out of nowhere?

Image credit: NBC.

Go Coach Taylor: 'Friday Night Lights' Gets Two More Seasons

The New York Post and Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello are reporting that the critically acclaimed yet ratings challenged Friday Night Lights has been approved for two more seasons.

How great is that that we FNL fans don't have to wonder, as we've had to at the conclusion of each season, whether the season finale is actually a series finale?

The show has consistently provided gritty, realistic portrayals of life in a small Texas town dominated by high school football and populated by people who need a distraction from their lives. The disintegration of Buddy Garrity's life, including his recent estrangement from daughter Lyla, and the struggles of Tyra Collette to break away from a life where she's judged by her looks and whether she's got a good man, have been outstanding. The storyline for high school senior Matt Saracen, including how his demotion from the first string QB to back up has a negative impact on whether this kid will get a college scholarship, is one of the primary reasons why this is the football show that's not really about football.

Last week's scene where Coach Eric Taylor walked in on his daughter Julie in bed with her boyfriend Matt, made my husband squirm. Later, when Julie's mom Tami Taylor had a tearful conversation with Julie about how she wished she'd waited before having sex made me grab for the tissues. Gotta love the Taylors.

Image credit: NBC via EW.

Why I'm Loving 'Friday Night Lights'

Why am I loving Friday Night Lights this season? Two words: The Taylors.

The third season of Friday Night Lights has made for good viewing these days, mostly due Tami and Eric Taylor, who struggle on a daily basis to deal with the drama that is Dillon High School.

Connie Britton's Tami is the new high school principal this season and quickly learned -- when she took on the football fans' predilection for shoveling money toward the football program instead of academics (the football boosters raised thousands of dollars for an unnecessary Jumbotron for the football stadium which Tami tried to reallocate to academics to avert teacher layoffs) -- that she'll have to chose her battles more carefully.

Kyle Chandler's Eric has had an intellectual and emotional decision to make this season as he was torn between whether he should promote a stand-out freshman quarterback with a rich, pushy father at the expense of the senior quarterback who lives with his grandmother who's slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's, or dementia or something of that nature. (I think Coach Taylor made the wrong choice in elevating J.D. McCoy by the way -- J.D.'s going to snap -- and will pay the price when his father tries to hijack the football program.)

The changing power dynamic of the Taylor marriage, now that Tami is Eric's boss, has been intriguing, a game-changer.

Most touching storyline thus far in season three: Watching Jason Street delude himself into thinking that he can renovate and flip Buddy Garrity's house in order to earn enough money to support his girlfriend and son.

UPDATE: Guess I was wrong about the Jason Street is deluded crack. This past Friday's episode had Jason succeed at flipping the Garrity house and making some cash. I adored the twist of having him run into a former teammate and his almost-agent, and how it got him to thinking about becoming a sports agent himself. If he steals his former teammate as his first client, Jason's story could have a happy ending.

Why are you loving Friday Night Lights this season?

Image credit: Bill Records/NBC via TV Guide.