FULL HEART, EYES A LITTLE CLOUDY FOR SOME REASON, MUST BE THE DUST: I said below that Lost has the best peaks of any hour-long show on network television, and it's true, even though it's also a bit of a cheat. There are half-hour shows with higher highs, basic cable shows that have their partisans, possibly even premium cable shows (though it's a bit light there right now). But when I stuck the "network" modifier in there, I was thinking in particular of Friday Night Lights, the world's first independent-channel prerun before it opens wide on NBC after the new year.
I haven't been writing about FNL because there are probably only six or seven of you out there watching it, but I have to say this: It is very rare for a show to make good use of almost the entirety of a large ensemble cast, and rarer still for every member of that ensemble to hit every note perfectly. This week, while the writers and cast are throwing themselves at no less than five separate plots, each textured with doubt and remorse, they manage to mine little bits of gold from even the characters who aren't at the center this week (Julie's shaky attempts to rebuild her relationship with Matt; Tim's good-time charm) without anything seeming rushed. They even managed to observe what should be a cardinal rule of television: if you need an actor to carry a ton of emotional baggage without chewing any scenery (please pardon the mixed metaphor) while speaking with a southern accent, get someone from Deadwood. It was absolutely a perfect 50 commercial-free minutes of television, watched by what is probably the five-digit population of the middle of the Venn diagram of DirecTV subscribers and FNL adherents.
There may be no cultural question more confounding than why large numbers of people have never watched this show.
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