I Like to Watch

Three cheers for ordinary people! "Friday Night Lights" shines on brilliantly in its third season, while the fifth season of "Grey's Anatomy" proves its staying power.

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: TV, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, I Like to Watch

Nov. 16, 2008 |  I'm bored with secret agents and split personalities and pie makers who can talk to dead people. These days, our TVs are filled with kooky mad scientists and outrageous, scheming billionaires and gun-running motorcycle thugs and flamethrowing superheroes and villainous magazine editors and clairvoyant detectives on every channel, but I couldn't care less.

You know what I like? Ordinary people. I like divorced dads who take their sullen teenagers camping and old couples who tackle their health problems together and small-town principals who give insecure teenage boys pep talks and medical residents who stay up late reading their mothers' old diaries and injured former quarterbacks who are desperately searching for a way to pay for their kids' daycare.

Ordinary people and their ordinary problems are interesting. The best TV writers in the business know this. Their genuine fascination with regular people allows them to create real connections between viewers and the characters on the screen. Instead of marking time from one plot point to the next, these writers view every scene as an opportunity to dig up colorful little details and funny moments and conflicting emotions that can bring the heart and soul of their characters to life.

Family matters

Doesn't sound like the same TV you're watching, huh? Well, then, you'd better get ready for a spectacular third season of " Friday Night Lights" (9 p.m. Wednesdays), currently halfway through its 13-episode arc on DirecTV, thanks to an odd deal between the satellite company and NBC. For those who don't have DirecTV -- and that's probably most of you -- the third season will premiere on NBC this January, so don't miss it.

I'm sure you recall how everyone was falling all over themselves to praise this show during its debut season. But then, in its second season, the show stumbled on soapy, unrealistic story lines, thereby turning away a huge crowd of viewers who had resolved to start watching. I can't tell you the number of readers who wrote to tell me, "Oh well, I guess I don't have to catch up with this show after all."

I have some bad news: You really do have to catch up now, because compared to the countless channels of fantastical, empty tripe on your TV screens at the moment, "Friday Night Lights" is a show with an uncanny knack for reflecting real Americans and their challenges. And isn't that what we need, during these crazy, mixed-up times of hardship and hope? I have to believe that the mood has shifted, and suddenly people won't want to watch TV dramas about trillionaires and faux celebrities and bitchy housewives scheming and backstabbing and bickering endlessly. I have to think that the authenticity and humor in each and every scene of "Friday Night Lights" will shine through and win over a bunch of new, loyal fans.

Now, it's true, it took me about three episodes to get back into the swing of things this season. The coach's wife, Tami (Connie Britton), is the principal of the school now, and Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) injured his knee and is having trouble finding a college where he might play football. Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) is struggling with his grandmother's dementia (although, strangely enough, she seems sharper than ever) and ends up accepting help from his estranged mother, while Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) is grappling with her feelings for Landry (Jesse Plemons).

I don't want to give too much away, of course, because the vast majority of you will have to wait until January to watch. But let me just say that football booster Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland) has always been one of my favorite characters on this show, because he's such a recognizable type: He's got that chuckling, back-slapping Southern-dad enthusiasm that's so lovable but also so completely short-sighted and bumbling and out of touch. Like a big, clumsy bear, he happily rallies the troops but then resorts to intimidating or throwing his weight around when things don't go his way. He often acts out selfishly and then pays so dearly for his big mistakes, you just want to cry for him. Buddy foolishly had an affair that ended his marriage, only to watch helplessly as his wife found another man and moved to Northern California, taking the two youngest kids with her. Their oldest daughter, Lyla (Minka Kelly), stayed behind, but Buddy's life is still pretty empty, leaving him even more time to meddle with the local high school football team.

On last week's episode, Buddy welcomes his estranged teenage son and daughter off the plane. His son immediately reveals that he plays soccer now and he thinks football is stupid, while his daughter grimaces when her father hugs her, and grumbles, "Dad, Dad, you're all sweaty!" Next stop: an ill-fated camping trip where Buddy cheerfully unpacks a bunch of grass-fed, hormone-free Angus steaks for the grill, extolling their virtues with relish, only to have his daughter announce that she's vegan now. Buddy keeps trying, offering to say a little prayer for the cow before they eat. Her daughter tells him, flatly, that her stepfather taught her that "meat is murder." Buddy looks crushed, but hesitantly explains that that's one man's opinion. "It's a fact!" his daughter counters, at which point Buddy realizes he no longer has the pull with these kids that he's always had. Unable to handle this huge disappointment, he hurls the steaks into the woods and storms off, leaving poor, protective Lyla furious at her two younger siblings. Later, when Lyla picks Buddy up, walking in the dark along the highway, and he tells her he's lost his kids, she responds, "You still got me." The whole sequence is so heartbreaking and true to life, it's almost too much to bear.

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