Ask one of the best bloggers in the East Tennessee blog-a-teria what the best show on TV might be. R. Neal will tell you, and he’s right. I like Neal’s politics and I love his taste in TV.
If we’re talking non-cable, two shows stand tall amongst the dreck: Friday Night Lights, and now returning for its 6th season, ‘The Shield’.
Both shows employ documentary techniques and both delineate and describe a universe as real as any so-called non-fiction Dateline piece.
Friday Night Lights is ostensibly about football. The truth is, you don’t even have to know what the difference between first down or an onside kick to enjoy this show. I’m scared the reason the show is faring poorly in the ratings is that people think it’s a sports show. The show is about high school (a subject TV gets right again and again and again). It’s about small-town life and sex and race and prejudice and booster-ism and family and first love and hucksters and pride and fear and faith, and that’s just the beginning. It never after-school-specials any of these issues and you don’t leave each episode happy that the issue of the week is all wrapped up and resolved. In short, like any good novel, the show creates a world that we recognize and understand, and sometimes, that ain’t pretty.
Kyle Chandler, the actor who plays the head coach of the football team is an understated dream of an actor. The rest of the cast is not far behind. Do yourself a favor - watch this show tonight. Check out some of the complete episodes on the website. You won’t be disappointed.
The sixth season of ‘The Shield‘ opened last night on FX. If you ever wanted to read Moby Dick because you heard it was the classic American novel and you just couldn’t get through it, or wanted to see ‘Les Mis’ with a different spin, set in the claustophobic world of an LA police precinct, this is the show you need to catch.
Michael Chiklis and Forest Whitaker are teaming up for what is probably the best footwork you’ll see south of Dancing with the Stars. Vic, the Chiklis character, is an incredibly robust, totally corrupt cop. Whitaker is the IAD guy who has become obsessed with the pursuit of this corrupt ‘whale’. The show is dark, sometimes funny, and features easily the best ensemble cast on ‘regular’ TV (on cable, ya gotta go with ‘The Sopranos’).
So much of TV is darvocet and just plain asinine (including the stupid American Idol that I can’t quit watching). Friday Night Lights and The Shield provide the antidote. Sometimes the cure isn’t pleasant, but you gotta want more in life than Sanjaya and Simon Cowell.
5 Comments
April 4, 2007 at 11:47 am
Because of my Whitaker man crush, I was kinda worried about his character. His corruption seemed to come out of nowhere. Then I realized he’s simply presented as Vic’s mirror image, some one so committed to his task that he doesn’t care how to get the job done. Perhaps it’s just the way Whitaker is playing him, but I’m starting to find him a bit disturbing. I’d have liked to see him present himself as this boy scout, yet underneath be a dirty scheming cop.
I suppose I’m also a little hacked that Vic never gets his while other good guys fall dead in service of his ends. Guess that’s one thing that keeps us watching, eh?
April 4, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Friday Night Lights needs to be moved to Thursday nights. This show is a winner. And if NBC cancels this show, I will lose all faith in network television.
To the television executives in charge: You are sitting on gold. Don’t screw this up. This is the next ER, Hill Street Blues and West Wing rolled into one. Program this thing right and y’all will be promoted to King of the Network.
Screw this up and you should be made to scrub floors the rest of your life.
April 5, 2007 at 8:12 am
The Shield was amazing this week….I like how Mackey corrupts everyone who comes into his sphere on influence.
Seeing Kavanaugh plant evidence to frame Mackey for Lem’s murder was great.
I cannot wait to see how this plays out.
April 9, 2007 at 9:27 am
Why don’t people like Vic’s methods? He gets the j0b done. He risks his life and his career to protect innocents. Circumstance has put him in a position where he needs to make more money than a cops wage pays to support his family. He does so at the expense of criminal elements, catches more crooks then his fellow cops, and always looks out for innocents. So what if some hoods and dealers occasionally get spanked.
April 9, 2007 at 9:50 am
well Jolene, he DID kill one of his squad, and another one of his squad killed ANOTHER member of his squad, all to cover up Vic’s methods…so, I’m thinking he kinda went over the line there.
Still love the show!
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