Friday Night Lights Series Review w/ Guest Author Danny Vara

It's not a common occurrence that a show like Friday Night Lights comes along. It is perhaps my favorite show to ever grace my small screen. In my on going quest to provide readers with fans critical opinions of the show, I invited Danny Vara (@heydannyv on twitter) to answer some all encompassing questions about the show. There are spoilers a plenty here, so save this for April after the DVDs come out or once it finishes airing on NBC.

How would you rank the 5 seasons of Friday Night Lights?

1,5,3,4,2

I watched about half of season one a few months ago and I forgot just how much was packed into that season. It was the season we were introduced to these really well-written characters that felt real to the audience. The season we discovered just how hot the women had to be if Connie Britton was only the third hottest.

I remember David Barron wrote about the show and was going to point out on a week-by-week basis all of its inaccuracies regarding Texas high school football. That was the one and only time I’ve ever left an angry comment on the Chron. I highly recommend you read what Barron wrote after the first season was done and my comment which is the first one underneath his writing. Pretty funny looking back on it now. And for the record, I and all my sportsflashers at 610 back when 610 was relevant never read “wire copy.” I think that practice stopped in the 50’s. Anyway hard to believe that was four years ago. Four years ago if you had told me that in 2011 I’d be an intellectual property paralegal whose only airtime involved a food show and I was weeks away from getting married with the Friday Night Lights theme song playing a prominent part I would have told you you were crazy. Now I say, Texas Forever.

Did you think Friday Night Lights made the correct decision by bringing in new cast members after graduating their first group? Were they successful in this transition?

The show absolutely had to bring in a new group and I think they pulled off the East Dillon angle about as well as can be expected. The new group had some bumps in the road, but Michael B. Jordan as Vince Howard was the tent pole that lifted up the newbies. Without him the show would not have been nearly as successful these final two seasons.

What’s one story line you wish the show would have focused more on?

I wish we would have found out what happened to the McCoys. They were such an integral part of season three and somewhat in season four yet they were given the murder plot treatment and dropped off the face of the earth. Tied in with that, could have been some sort of explanation as to why Dillon fell off the map football-wise this season. This show, without explanation, dropped things as it saw fit and that’s fine, but the McCoys was a tough arc to see without real resolution.

Aside from the Landry murder plot, what’s one story line you wished the show would have spent less on or left out altogether?

I know Cory and Barry mentioned some murder angle in season two, but I can’t recall that because I bulk erased much of season two out of my mind years ago. The one storyline that was unnecessary and went nowhere was in a word: Epic. First, Epic’s name. I mean, Epic?! Really?! Oookay, I’ll play along. Another troubled kid for Tami to help out. Okay, I’ll still play along because I guess something is going to happen. But nothing ever happened. Epic was hungry. Epic was a liar. Epic was good with babies with physical deformities. Epic didn’t like other teachers. I think the last season of a show with a cast as large as this didn’t need the insertion of this character at all. What? We needed to be reminded Tami was a caring, thoughtful school counselor. Ummm, pretty much the entire series you hit us over the head with that, but we cared about those characters as much as we cared about Tami. No one cared about Epic from the first scene to the last time Tami uttered her name to the principal to check on her. Epic storyline, hardly.

Did you have any pet peeves when it came to the show?

My series long pet peeve is very minor, but how many last-second, double-reverse-statue of liberty-fumblerooski-flea flicker-dance to “Single Ladies” (wait, different show)-halfback pass to QB from 60 yards out can a team win with? According to the Dillon and East Dillon record books that number is 42. I will say I thought the final football scene in season five was perfectly directed.

My season pet peeve for the last two seasons is the same Barry had. It’s the same pet peeve I had with Lost or any other show where the possibility existed of a surprise appearance from an old face. Get their names out of the opening f’n credits! I assume it’s a Screen Actors Guild thing or something, but it kills those surprises.

One more thing…we could have used more or just some of Jess’ dad in season five after such a pivotal role in season four. And was there really no way we could get some more of Smash’s mom? She was such a great character and I hated that we never got to see her even briefly catch up with coach. For a brief second in the series finale at the end I thought they were showing us Raiders training camp and Smash, but it was just Jess coaching. At some point a heart-to-heart between Smash and Vince would’ve been welcome.

Who was your favorite character not named Eric or Tami Taylor?

This is a great question because there are so many characters that such a wide range of the audience can identify with from Saracen to Buddy to Riggins to Street to Tyra. I tried to make a case for Tyra, but it’s impossible not to choose Matthew Saracen. I don’t even know where to start. His relationship with his grandmother? Mom? Dad? Julie? Coach Taylor? Or the relationship that gave us great conversation after great conversation. Obviously I’m talking about his relationship with Lance, I mean Landry. I’m glad we had one more conversation between those two in the series finale and it summed everything up well when Landry pondered how four years ago they were trying to figure out how to talk to Julie Taylor and now Matt was asking for her hand in marriage. The guy was forced to grow up quickly at home and on the field and he did it with such genuine emotion and conviction that I’m willing to forgive his fling with his grandmother’s nurse. He also gave us the single best acting performance in the show’s history in season four’s “The Son.” When I look back at the handful (and by handful I mean at least 40) times this show made me tear up Saracen seemed to be in most of the scenes. How can you not go QB1 with this question?