By Dean Robbins
Small-town football takes a hit in ‘Friday Night Lights’
Critics have gone wild over “Friday Night Lights,” a series about high school football in small-town Texas. Audiences haven’t gone wild, but it’s time to start, people. NBC has begun airing the fourth season at an unconventional time, just as 2009-10 is winding down for other dramas. That should give us more of a chance to concentrate on steely Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his East Dillon Lions, who face big problems on their small patch of torn-up ground between the goalposts.
This week (Friday, 7 p.m.), the Lions’ players have defected after Coach called a forfeit in the previous game. They refuse to show up for practice, and the empty Texas sky looks mighty melancholy. In the meantime, Coach’s wife (Connie Britton), the principal at rival West Dillon, blows the whistle on a star player who’s attending school illegally.
Coach convinces the players to hear him out at a special Saturday night practice. He starts a bonfire in a trashcan and gives an inspirational speech worthy of Vince Lombardi: “Who will finish this fight with me? Who wants to finish this fight? Who wants to finish this fight?”
I felt stupid for yelling “Me!” before any of the characters did.
‘One Nation, Overweight’
Tuesday, 9 p.m. (CNBC)
CNBC looks at the United States’ obesity problem from a business standpoint. Two-thirds of us are overweight, and that costs the nation $147 billion a year. In the meantime, we’re investing in $60 billion worth of weight-loss products that aren’t doing much good.
Only in America would we think the solution to the problem is to lie on the couch watching a TV show about it. Pizza and chips, anybody? CV
