If you’re not watching ‘Friday Night Lights’ here’s one reason why you should start: The Taylor family

Sometimes there are these shows whose fans go around talking them up to all their friends, desperately trying to create a buzz worthy of the level of affection they have for these programs. For the past few years, I’ve been doing that with Mad Men, pressing my DVD sets into people’s hands saying, “You might find it slow at first, but hang in there. It’s really worth it.””

Lately, I’ve found myself doing this with Friday Night Lights, which is currently airing its fourth season. And whenever friends say, “But I don’t really want to watch a show about high school football,” I’m continually finding myself telling them that it’s only a bit about football but mostly about life in a small, largely economically depressed Texas town and focuses on this great, flawed couple who you’ll just love. I’m talkin’, of course, about the Taylors.

Yes, football and Coach Eric Taylor’s woes in trying to create a football team out of thin air at the financially strapped East Dillon High School has garnered the lion’s share of the attention and chatter about this season of Friday Night Lights, but his marriage to Tami, who’s the principal at the cross-town, more affluent West Dillon High School, is really what makes this show work. Almost all the dramas which unfold with the students and Dillon residents seem to orbit around this couple as they navigate not only their high-profile (albeit low-paying) public sector jobs — which frequently put them squarely in the cross-hairs of every talk radio critic, football booster and PTO group — but raise their teenage daughter Julie and their toddler daughter Grace, and go about living their distinctly middle class life.

Eric’s a tough-talking, big-hearted, inspirational coach to his players, for whom he often does everything in his power to help, whether it be giving a player’s drug addicted mother some cash or laying out his own money to help the team raise funds — money Eric doesn’t really have to give — for new uniforms in order to bolster players’ pride in their team. He’s often silent and brooding, doesn’t really go for the long speeches or lots of outward expressions of emotion, but he unflinchingly loves and supports his wife.

Meanwhile Tami’s a no-nonsense, sweet-talkin’ Southern gal who, despite her warm drawl, can bracingly cut to the chase during a discussion and who can get very vocal when she sees students heading in what she sees as the wrong direction. She also won’t be pushed around by the folks she calls the “good old boys” in town. For example, when the football coaches at West Dillon (where her husband led the team to the state championship) asked her to toss the coin at their first home game — on the same night as East Dillon’s home opener — they gave her explicit directions on what she should do. She slyly grinned and did the opposite of what they’d asked.

This season has provided some thorny challenges to this couple, now that they’re working at rival schools. Additionally, Eric has become so preoccupied with the difficulties facing his football team that he really hasn’t grasped how hard it’s been for Tami, who was harassed and threatened after she made a star football player, who lied about where he lived, attend East Dillon High instead of West Dillon, essentially handing him over to Eric. Tami had her car vandalized, was aggressively booed by the students at a pep rally and has been eviscerated on local talk shows. But Eric has seemed oblivious to all that while he’s been dealing with having his front yard littered with white surrender flags and has himself been lampooned on the radio for his coaching choices.

How will this season play out for the Taylors as they both fear losing their jobs and their daughter faces a big decision about college, well, we’ll have to see how their marriage fares on this must-see show that you really should be watching.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jun 11, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT