In the last couple of days, I’ve watched the final three episodes of the current Friday Night Lights season and each one blew my mind.  Friday Night Lights is, in my opinion, the best show on television.  Even though the third season has ended (for those with DirecTV or who watch the show via the internet), you can nonetheless start watching the third season right now on NBC, where they’re airing it from the beginning.  I would recommend doing that.

Trust me, you do not need to know anything about football or to be a fan of the game to fall in love with this show.  I know enough to follow the plays, but I otherwise have absolutely ZERO interest in the sport.  Yet, every single episode of this show has me on the edge of my seat, knuckles white, as I watch the team play.  That being said, it’s not about football.  Friday Night Lights is (as are all good shows) about people.

This show has some of the best, most richly developed, most fascinating characters of any show that’s currently on television.

Though it’s really an ensemble cast, Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) is the center of the show.  He is typically excellent.

Coach and his wife, Tami (played by the wonderful Connie Britton, whom I have loved since she was on Spin City ages ago) together create more than twice the amount of awesomeness that Coach alone has.  They are greater than the sum of their parts! Seriously, though, this is the most real couple on television.  The way they argue, negotiate, and support each other is incredible to watch. I love them and, if I’m being embarrassingly honest, am inspired by them.

Their daughter, Julie (Aimee Teegarden), has the tendency to annoy, but only in the way that all fifteen year old girls have the tendency to annoy.  Come on, you know you did, too.

Matt Saracen.  Oh, Matt Saracen.  Watching the changes his character (played by Zach Gilford), a Bob-Dylan-listening artist and QB, has undergone over the years has been great.  He’s one of those characters I love and want the best for as if he were my own relative.

Landry (Jesse Plemmons), the super-Christian math and science dork, belies his nerdly exterior with his hidden coolness.  The name of the Christian Heavy Metal band he’s in, if this will convince you, is CRUCIFICTORIOUS. Oh yeah.

And then of course there is my boyfriend Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) – he who wears the cowboy boots and comes to practice hungover and disappears to Mexico for a week when his best friend needs help.  His accent is so impeccable, by the way, you would never know this actor is from the faraway land of Canadia!

Oh, Tim Riggins.

But back to why this show is so great:

The writing never fails to connect with me emotionally: I go from laughter to tears to anticipation to joy and then usually to tears again in practically every episode.  More than that, this is the only show I can think of that manages to depict life in the South without even a hint of condescension. (Just compare it to True Blood, for example.) There’s no weird pseudo-southern-gothic exoticization of freakiness, no hackish or clumsy accents, no careful distancing of the audience from the lives they’re observing as if small-town southerners are animals in a zoo.  It’s not only extremely adept Realism; it’s also emotionally compelling.  The audience winds up doing more than just watching the characters and stories unfold — rather, we begin to feel as if we’re participating in their lives.

Friday Night Lights is always surprising me.  They don’t often tell the easy, predictable stories.  Just when you think they’re going to give you one thing, they snatch it away — or vice versa, in fact. The jaded television viewer may be surprised at the moments of success or satisfaction the stories allow, just when they’re least expected.  Because it’s a high school show, the cast changes by degrees with every season, old favorite characters being sent off in simultaneously gut-wrenching and heart-warming ways, new characters sneaking in and slowly developing into people we care about just as much a those who’ve moved on.

I can’t wait to see how the changes suggested in the Season 3 finale will develop in Season 4 (hoping, hoping, hoping there will be a Season 4), but I think for now I’ll be satisfied to watch Season 3 again as it airs on NBC.  Like I said, you should, too.  If it does well enough on NBC, maybe they can manage to bring it back again next year. If not, I will blame you. I will hunt you down, people, and BLAME YOU. Let’s not have this happen, shall we?

If you’ve never seen the show, you can watch it all of it for free (FREE!) on hulu.com.  Why, as a matter of fact, here’s the pilot episode to get you started. Please admire and enjoy the almost painfully gorgeous cinematography.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!

Whew, it’s been a while since I posted over here!  I thought I would quickly tell you which DVDs I’ve been enjoying lately.  First of all, on a brilliant recommendation from Swistle, I was able to buy the complete series of Arrested Development on DVD for a mere 20-some dollars.  What a steal!  This was a really great show that, like so many other great shows on Fox, ended before its time.  Now it (and the adorable Michael Bluth / Jaseon Bateman) lives on in my DVD collection.

I’ve also been loving the BBC/Discovery series Planet Earth.  I had seen a little bit of it here and there when it was airing on television, but now I am netflixing it — it would be great to own, as well.

The images of landscapes, waterscapes, and wildlife are simply stunning, and the “Mountains” episode, which I watched last night, helped fulfill the snow and winter jones I’ve been having (as a result of living in the only part of the country that’s still hot and steamy while the rest of it is covered in snow, snow, beautiful snow).

Unnnngh, see what I mean?  I fantasize about standing right on top of that mountain in the nude, just freezing my ass off.  Dear dog that would be wonderful.

And now that I’ve put that dubious image in your mind, can I mention that Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which I originally posted about here, is out on DVD?  I just received my copy today as a gift from my friend Golightly (THANK YOU!), and I have big plans to watch it tonight.

I’m especially excited to immerse myself in the special features, which include “Commentary: The Musical.”  Now that has GOT to be awesome, I think you’ll agree.

The Season 2 finale of Mad Men certainly delivered: it was an episode full of great conversations and confrontations, some of them very long awaited.  Here are a few of my favorites (slightly spoilery):

Francine (played by the lovely Anne Dudek, who gets many props from me based on last season’s finale of House alone) and Betty visited the local beauty parlor.  Aside from the gratuitous design eye candy this allowed, there was also funny and pointed dialogue about the impending Cuban missile attacks.

FRANCINE: Betty, you look wan!  You want a Miltown?

In the Sterling Cooper boardroom, the big confrontation between Duck and Don was ready to go down.  We’d been waiting for this the whole time Don was away.  What would he do about Duck’s shady machinations?

DUCK: La la la, I think I am in charge of this room right now.

DON: Not so fast, fucker. What would CHAUNCEY have to say about all this?!

Suffice it to say the scene was awesome.  I have been forty-seven shades of pissed at Duck ever since this episode, and it was nice to see him finally getting his comeuppance.

We’ve also been waiting for some kind of confrontation between Pete and Peggy for, oh ages now — definitely since the part of Season 1 where it became clear Peggs was pregs and not just fat — and this episode was more than satisfactory in that regard.

Please to note how Pete sits down on the couch, all sidling up to Peggy:

Peggy is clearly not having any of it.  She is perched on the edge of that cushion, ready to make a break for it should Pete begin his usual smarm tactics.

I’m not sure Pete was really all that smarmy in this scene, though. Sad, lonely, desperate, deluded — maybe.  Annoying — of course.

The frustration and chagrin on his face as Peggy leaves the room was just as satisfying a comeuppance as Duck’s.

Finally: Don and Betty:

What the hell.  I don’t even know if I want them to make it.  At the end of last season, I did.  (I mean, if Don couldn’t be with Rachel Menken, that is.) Now, I just don’t know anymore.  Looks like they don’t, either.

And now no more Mad Men until Season 3. WEEP.

Please enjoy these stills from last week’s episode of Pushing Daisies, directed by Lawrence Trilling (whose name you may recognize from the credits sequences of such shows as Alias, Scrubs, and Felicity).

It was another great episode, but I just couldn’t help noting all of these symmetrical tableaux — even the close-up shots of the bowl of berries and the bible flask are symmetrical, if you ignore the hands reaching into the shots.  As always, this show has a consistent and bold look.

Last week’s episode of Mad Men was chock full of awkward moments!  Without further commentary, let’s just appreciate a few of them:

And , as usual, there were plenty of scenes that were just plain pretty.  Because I can never resist Mad Men’s sets, props, and wardrobe, here are a few pretty things from last week:

Betty’s contemplation of this portrait of her mother, coming just after we were shown the crass, gauche, unattractive stepmother, was quietly telling.

And here’s Don getting undressed (OH YES INDEED):

Did you know his gray flannel jacket had a secret red lining?  I never noticed that before.  What a lovely surprise.

Finally, I spent quite a while admiring the cups in use at this baby shower for Harry Crane, held in the Sterling Cooper offices:

Are they paper cups? Plastic? Glass?  I do not even know, but I can tell you that I WANT SOME.  I bet Joan knows where to get them.  Damn it all, why are Joan and I not friends in real life?

Pushing Daisies was my favorite new show last year and after a long hiatus it is finally back on the air!  Bryan Fuller, the creator and writer of the show, is also responsible for the wonder that was Wonderfalls (before Fox canceled it, like they do to anything good FORTHELOVEOFDOG), another favorite show of mine.

Pushing Daisies has the same sort of clever, fearless whimsy that made Wonderfalls so great, and the talented cast and amazing art direction don’t hurt too much, either.

Wonderfalls alumnus Lee Pace plays the main character, Ned, aka The Piemaker. Here he is pictured in his pie shop:

The pie shop’s red and green decor is just one example of the overall red-and-green color palette favored by Fuller and the art direction team – it’s a bold look for the show and it pleasantly reminds me of a lot of the Jean-Pierre Jeunet / Marc Caro movies.  Most excellent!

Here’s the outside of the pie shop:

The name of the shop, The Pie Hole, is just one of the show’s many puns.  The narration voiced over by Jim Dale is rife with clever wordplay every week, and that same sense of fun and playfulness shows up in a lot of the design of the show, too.

Here’s Emerson Cod, a private investigator with whom Ned works, solving mysteries with his supernatural gifts:

In the season two premiere, it was revealed that Emerson, an avid knitter, has also recently authored a pop-up detective book for children, entitled Lil Gumshoe.  (And you were wondering why I love this show?!)

Here are Emerson and Ned doing some spying with their clearly state-of-the-art spy gadgets:

This is another interesting aspect of the look of the show: while it is apparently set in modern times, there are very few traces of 21st-Century technology to be seen.  For the most part, it’s quite difficult to date the show at all based on props, set, or wardrobe.

Here we see Ned’s love-interest, Chuck, going undercover at the offices of Betty’s Bees, a cosmetic company:

The cheeky set design may admittedly be over the top, but I love the repeated hexagonal motif in the walls, flooring, architecture, and even the tufting of the chair.  Honey-like colors seal the deal.

The visual excesses pervade the show.  Here for example, is a moment where Ned is able to bring Chuck’s deceased bees back to life with the power of touch.  As Chuck dumps the contents of the hive over him, the bees come back to life in a sparkling, swirling display:

Oh, and Lee Pace is without a shirt, so there’s that, too.

Basically, Ned the Piemaker is pretty fucking dreamy.  Not only does he bake pies (I LOVE PIES), but he also does things like this:

Who would not want to come home to find this guy building a wall of books for you? A WALL OF BOOKS, I ASK YOU.

I’ve just got a quick post about last week’s episode of Mad Men — which was, as usual, fantastic.  I didn’t take the usual glut of screenshots this time, but I do have two that I wanted to share:

First, I love this picture of Joan caught napping in Sterling’s office.

For one thing, I am a big, big fan of sneaking an illicit nap in the middle of the work day.  For another thing, what better place to sneak an illicit nap than on the stylish couch in the middle of the stylish office of your sexy, stylish, ex-fling.  You go Joan!  (Also, Joan, what’s the deal — you are still in love with Sterling, aren’t you? Oh, Joan.)

And also, just for the sheer fashion-thrill of it, here’s Don Draper in a hat!

A feather in his cap!

House, M.D., one of my favorite procedurals on TV, is back! And they’ve brought my TV Boyfriend, Dr. Greg House, too.  Well, this is old news. It’s been back for a while now, and I have neglected to say anything about it because there has been simply so much TV and so little time!

New this season is a Private Investigator hired by Dr. House who has been investigating the patients as well as Wilson and Cuddy. I kind of love him, but I’m also hoping that Wilson returns to a bigger role soon. I need my House/Wilson dynamic, just as any fan of Sherlock Holmes needs the Holmes/Watson dynamic. That’s just the way this thing works!

Anyway, one recent episode featured Dr. Horrible‘s Felicia Day as the patient of the week, and she did a great job. That week we also got to see a brain on a deli meat slicer:

Seriously, I have worked in a deli and we had that exact slicer! It’s good to know that Élite medical professionals use the same old slicer that we Regular Joe Sixpacks use.

We also got to enjoy a lovely close-up of Dr. House’s face and his sparkly blue eyes as the patient took off her eye bandages at the end of the episode:

Wouldn’t you like to wake up from surgery and see this face? I think I would.