Reviewed: Friday Night Lights on DVD

Breakthrough: I only watch television shows that have a hot guy. Murph and I were discussing it this morning and I tried to defend myself, tried to come up with an example to disprove the theory (America’s Next Top Model? Nigel Barker…dammit) but to no avail. I had no idea I was this shallow.

That brings me to Friday Night Lights, which probably has one of the hottest guys on primetime TV. (Taylor Kitsch, far left.) But even so, I’ve watched all the other scenes that he’s not in and it’s still good. I didn't watch it while it was actually on last fall because typically I'm not interested in anything involving high school football (probably leftover high school nerd hostilities) but I have to say after watching the complete first season that I’ve gotten hooked. The show isn’t just about football; the story lines aren’t all necessarily connected to football (although they did do a steroids story that you could see coming a mile away—which is probably just a rite of passage for any high school sports drama.) Some of the most touching story lines are the smallest dramas--former playboy running back leaving the kegger to bring a leftover cupcake to his homebody new girlfriend, or the way one character pretends to be his grandfather singing Bing Crosby songs to get his Alzheimer afflicted grandma out of the closet.

And the hot guy is a former Abercrombie & Fitch model.

There are no big names in the cast, besides maybe Kyle Chandler who was made famous as the bomb guy on Grey’s Anatomy, but the actors are absolutely pitch perfect in their roles. I think a lot of the success of the workings of the show are due to the camera style, which is kind of faux documentary (think Bourne Identity) and the amazing small-town details that really sucker-punch someone like me.

[Wait, I just thought of one. Kid Nation! Except….Greg? No, that’s just sick.]

Often the moving story lines are broken up with “out the window” footage of the sleepy little town--the Dairy Queen and bowling alley, an empty parking lot and the farm supply store with an old fashioned roadside sign reading “Go Panthers.” It’s classic small town, what you would see driving around out there in these places time has forgot, with no one on the street (no one walks anywhere in small towns) and weeds growing up through the sidewalks. This is it, the meat at the heart of this series, and ultimately, what I think makes it worth it.

And the hot guy.

100 Stars.