How the writers’ strike screwed Friday Night Lights fans

Sebastian’s back Guest-clacking for us again….

In my recent post about the return of Friday Night Lights to NBC this coming Friday, I mentioned that the show has been off the air for almost a year now, with the last episode broadcast on February 8^th, 2008. The main reason for this was the strike of the Writers Guild of America. It cut the originally ordered 22 episode second season short to a mere 15. With it, a couple of the main storylines of season two were cut short, in some parts leaving us with a close to unbearable imbalance in plot development. I for one say that damn strike screwed us out of what could have been another excellent season.

(Spoiler warning: after the jump I will talk about season two and what happened between seasons two and three.)

Of course, the main problem with season two was — and is — the Landry/Tyra murder case. In a somewhat desperate attempt to get the beauty queen and the “scholar athlete” together, the writers came up with an attempted rape on Tyra in a diner parking-lot. This later continued in her car, getting stalked by the same attacker, who followed her everywhere in his car. He ends up trying to rape her again, this time with Landry interrupting it and in the end, killing the wannabe rapist with a hit over the head with a pipe — from behind, mind you.

Over the next couple of episodes we witness Landry’s father, a cop, destroying evidence of Landry and Tyra getting rid of the body, and in the end Landry himself confessed to murdering the guy to the police -– who then help him getting off without a trial.

When I first saw all this on TV I was extremely angry. I hated it. To be honest, I kind of felt insulted by the creators of the series. Instead of giving us a story that makes Tyra understand what she has in Landry, they bring them together in what feels like a horrible “Knight in Shining Bloody Armor” story. They get together because of guilt, because of being partners in crime. Nothing felt right about this, especially not both of them ending up in bed together. It reeked of desperation, and Landry’s father committing a crime in the process of helping his son felt even more off.

The whole story was like a chain reaction of the most idiotic things the people involved could have done. And worst of all, once the case was closed and the two lovebirds were together, the writers’ strike hit and the show left the airwaves in it’s Friday night “death-slot,” with the almost certain prospect of getting canceled. I can hardly describe how angry I was about this back in ’08 after possibly the last episode aired.

But don’t fret, because I have good news. In the first couple of minutes of the third season, the writers pull a fast 180 on us. First and foremost, they pretend as if this huge chunk of season two didn’t happen. Do I hear you say cop-out? Indeed.

The first five minutes of Episode 3×01 consist of nothing more than recaps, retellings and explanations of what happened in those seven episodes that were never filmed. Nowhere do we hear anything about the murder case, and we especially don’t even get an honorable mention of the fact that Landry had a friggin’ girlfriend he broke up with for Tyra. They only show us that they kissed –- and a couple of minutes later we find out that they already broke up, with Tyra basically treating Landry like she always had. She takes all she can get from him while keeping him at arm’s length.

The funny thing is that this actually works for me. Simply pretending that the murder didn’t happen, and absolutely forgetting that cute blonde heavy metal brainiac girlfriend, was the best thing the writers could do. And since I watched the whole show again from season one to prepare for season three, I can tell you that now I don’t even mind the murder storyline anymore. I simply accepted the fact that in dire situations people tend to do stupid things. There’ll be a lot of Tyra and Landry in season three to make up for what we didn’t get because of the writers’ strike. That much I can tell you already. So this all works out nicely when season three starts.

What we won’t get to find out is what happened to Lyla and Riggins. We were left with Lyla choosing her church guy, which caused me to experience severe flashbacks to Gilmore Girls, because Matt Czuchry (the church guy) played about the exact same role of the new “other guy” on GG too, and I never liked him there either (where’s my “Go Dean” T-Shirt?)

Season three starts with the show simply showing us that Lyla broke up with Chris (the church guy), that she lives with her father now, and that Riggins frequently visits for sleepovers. Ah the love … and aren’t we all glad the booze-loving jock gets the intelligent former cheerleader? Yeah I hear you complain already but trust me, in true Friday Night Lights tradition, this is all done so superbly we lap it up and love seeing it.

The final nail in the season two coffin is that the Panthers — or better coach Taylor — absolutely relied on Smash Williams to carry the team to state, that Smash hurt his knee in a playoff game the Panthers subsequently lost, that they didn’t make it to state, and that Smash is now left with nothing. No scholarship because of his outburst toward the hecklers in the cinema, and no possibility to get another chance elsewhere because of his busted knee.

That’s basically the setup for season three for our old cast. On top of that we get a fifteen-year-old Wunderkind Quarterback coming in to threaten Matt Saracen’s position as QB1. Additionally, Tami Taylor got the promotion from school counselor to principal and with it all sorts of funny situations, her now being her husband’s boss as well as being responsible for the school’s (and therefore the football team’s) finances. And of course that means Buddy Garrity now meddling with both the Taylors’ affairs.

This and other things make for a great start into Friday Night Lights‘ third season. It starts airing this Friday, Jan 16^th in its cozy Friday night death-slot on NBC.

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jan 13, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT