This little trip down memory lane aired with the series finale of Friday Night Lights last night:
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Sometimes it seems like all good television out there falls into one of two categories: "cancelled too early" or "ran out of steam". I feel like I am constantly tagging "but don't watch past season _" onto a recommendation, or mentally deciding where my personal canon has to cut off. And of course all that is because in American television, it is not about "good" or "bad" so much as it's about "successful" or "unsuccessful". (Look at the Emmys!) If a good show is unsuccessful, it gets cancelled. If a good show is successful, it runs on as long as it can reasonably be profited from. I always think about the X-Files here, and that old story about Chris Carter wanting to be done after s7 I think but maybe it was s8, and how Fox basically said this franchise will continue with our without you. But also things like Firefly, which is perfect as is but sometimes I wonder if I/we would still love it as well if it had gone on for six seasons. The thing is that we are TV fans: and sort of by definition we always want more, more, more until it hits that point of no return for us. We like our stories long and drawn out and character-driven, and we hold onto fairy tales about shows that sucked for a season or two but then magically found their footing again (actually FNL could kind of fall into this category) and shows that were dropped by one ruthless network and snatched up by another, more nuturing one, because we are bad at letting go.
I include myself wholeheartedly in that so I guess I feel weird about how... I don't know, nonchalant I am about Friday Night Lights ending forever. Maybe I just haven't wrapped my head around it yet, maybe in a couple of months I will sit down and think about how this precious gem of a show has been a part of my life for four years now and how well it has toyed with my emotions: how good it is at making me feel for characters and be miserable at the thought of no more of it but honestly I don't think so. I'm glad FNL got to end on its own terms because so few shows do get that, and so many times it seemed like this one might not get to. And it's easy to say we would watch five more seasons of it but who knows if we really would, if seasons nine and ten wouldn't get tedious and overbearing. I'm glad it got to tell a story (two stories, really), and then decide it was done. I am grateful to have received what FNL has given me. I don't need more.
I also want to say thank you because this is a show I genuinely would not have watched if not for my livejournal friends: my sister and I used to make fun of the over dramatic Jason/Lyla/Tim promos as we sat through Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip together (irony at its best). I never would have given it a chance if I hadn't been told that I should. I think it was like that for most of us. Sometimes I wonder who those original pioneers were, the people who didn't initiall scoff at the whole football thing and sat down and watched the pilot the first time it aired and then cared enough to tell the rest of us how things were.
- I loved the way the Coach/Tami storyline unfolded, every scene involved was perfect.
- Matt and Julie! I don't know! I know I didn't want that but in a lot of ways I liked the way it fit into the episode, the way the awkward humor of Matt's slight terror/awe of Coach harkened back to the old days when Matt was terrified to even date Julie (and the scene with Landry: perfecttttttt). I liked the way it counterpointed the Coach/Tami story, the way they kept saying "but you guys, but you guys". The scene with Grandma made me cry more than anything.
But they are so young! LIKE. Everyone in the universe knows they'll end up together, is it really so necessary that they start the rest of their lives now? I felt like even as the Taylors repeated that to them the show tried to de-emphasize it, like the scene in the bar where they were having a round of beers with Tim and Tyra. LIKE IT WAS CUTE BUT REALLY?!?! Life is not like that when you are 18/19/20!! FNL has always acted like it's totally possible for any member of the football team to be acquire booze in bars/convenience stores but as someone who went to a small-town Texas high school for a couple of months (state football champions that year, even! I missed that part though) IT IS NOT LIKE THAT. Like admittedly I was not a member of the football team but the ones I knew def got beer from their older brothers/cousins, not... the store. Also their scene in the montage in that giant-ass house where they were all grown-up and married like... I DON'T KNOW, WEIRD AS HALE. No way Matt and Julie could afford to be that grown-up. It felt more like eight years later than eight months later.
- That Becky and Tim scene UGH MY HEAAAAAAART I feel like we missed out on so much of them this season (although him being so pissed about her waitressing job a couple of episodes ago was THE GREATEST) but it is okay, they have the rest of their lives to be brother and sister I suppose.
- Because yeah: in a weird way I kind of like the implication that people like Tim and Becky and Luke will probably not ever leave Dillion, that they aren't going to get that magical college acceptance letter that will change their lives. Not everyone can be Smash or Tyra, but... that's okay? Some people need to get out, and some people are just as happy to live their lives the same way forever. I like the way this emphasized that.
- Jessssss omg I kind of lol'd when Coach was like "I know the Coach over there" as if Dallas is a small town with one high school and one coach but........ ugh, it was so sweet and so perfect nonetheless. I loved her last scene with Vince, and I loved that they didn't imply that they were still particularly in touch, I don't know. They were so great, SO FEELINGSY but also so high school. And oh my GOD speaking of Vince his scene with Coach and also the scene with Coach and his dad, my god, my god, of all the lives Coach has touched I think that Vince was maybe the one he touched most monumentally and every time Vince says "you changed my life" I CANNOT STOP THE TEARS.
- I think Katims said this but I copied the quote without copying the name so I might not be right. SOMEONE HIGH UP ON THE WRITING STAFF:We felt like the Tim and Tyra connection was alluding to where we first started with the series. I thought it would be surprising, and I really wanted to see where Tyra had been. We hadn’t gotten to revisit that character. We had tried to bring her back in the fourth season but weren’t able to because of her schedule. We thought that was a story, that connection between them, first of all alluded to the beginning and would be a surprising story to tell, and it felt right that the two of them would wind up, if not together, with the potential to be together.
I feel... so fucking weird about that, I don't know. I was totally like "oh yeah okay!" last week when Tyra and Tim hooked up because it felt like just that: a hookup. Also I think it helped Tim immensely, he was a different person this week: much more old Tim than new bitter post-prison Tim and that is a note we needed to end on. But seriously WHEN THE HELL was Tim/Tyra ever that big of a deal? They broke up in 1x02, and while they inarguably continued to have some kind of pull to each other, it was resolutely emphasized that they were never really that happy, and it seemed like they both moved on to bigger and better feelings.
Ugh sometimes I wish showrunners would not open their mouths, because I actually liked their scene on his land, the way he acted like maybe the road would go their way again someday and the way she said "maybe" to be kind but meant "no, probably not". I would have preferred not to hear of their real intent.
In any case I am (so) (incredibly) content with where all these people have ended up. Good night, Dillon: I will miss you.
I think the best way to express my general frustration with kdramas is visually, by mapping out the characters of the four I have seen more than an episode of (Dream High, Oh! My Lady, My Princess, and Paradise Ranch, for the record):
Which is like, all fine and good if you are really into the douchebag gets his heart melted by plucky young thing, but my dude douchebag tolerance is pretty much negative. (Btw I counted Jin-guk as the main guy and Samdong as the other guy for Dream High but I am actually not sure that will be the way of things! Especially after this last episode?! MAYBE IDK I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS IS GOING TO PLAY OUT.)
This is the older kdrama I started watching this weekend, the subject of this post:
Heading to the Ground is a soccer drama most notable firstly for starring Jung Yunho, DBSK's resident
lady rapper, and second most notable for Jung Yunho's terrible acting. Frankly though his terribleness has only added to my enjoyment.
Anyway the greatest things about this drama, in no order:
1. GO ARA AS HAEBIN, the most adorable chick lit princess in the world. Seriously she is right out of a Meg Cabot novel: clumsy as hell but always wearing heels nonetheless, always getting herself into ~sticky situations~, a working lady trying to make her way in a man's career, a poor little rich girl trying to make her own way. SHE HAS A SHELF FOR HER SHOES but also an incredibly crappy little white car. I love her.
2. The "other girl" is Bong-goon's longtime best friend. I WILL LEGIT CRY IF THEY HOOK UP IN ANY WAY IN THE NEXT 10 EPISODES, because ughhhhhhhhh platonic friendships! They are so effing cute as are and are best used as a plot device to creat totally unfounded jealousy by being touchy and loving each other but never ever having a romantic relationship in any way.
So cuuuuuuute though, they clearly just love each other SO MUCH. There's this scene in episode 2 or 3 where he skips an insurance interview she sets up for him to do a soccer tryout, and when he apologized I thought she was going to be like "UGH WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS" but instead she is like, so happy for him!!! Because he's doing what he loves. She also keeps him in line and rescues him all the fucking time and he needs it, he is a dumbass with a bigger Ryan Atwood complex than Ryan Atwood himself.
3. Episodes 4-7, a.k.a. the period when Heading to the Ground is not a soccer drama at all but basically General Hospital. Except possibly worse. You would think 16 episodes wouldn't even necessarily be enough to tell the entire story of a rise from the bottom of the pile to the top, and that they could totally tell soccer stories the whole time. BUT NO. IN THE SPACE OF FOUR EPISODES (THREE REALLY, TWO AND TWO HALVES):
- Haebin and her car get kidnapped and Bong-goon valiantly chases her on a stolen motor scooter
- She crashes on a bridge, he supermans it up while she gets out but then FALLS INTO THE WATER
- and then into a coma
- and then when he wakes up he has amnesia
- and THEN he gets taken to a mental hospital because he kind of befriends a crazy guy while in the hospital and the people who come to pick the crazy guy in a van are like "well this guy seems nutty too guess we got a 2 for 1" (idek)
- his mortal enemy/Haebin's kind of boyfriend finds out and appoints himself Bong-goon's guardian and tries to lock him in there FOREVER
- there is a mental hospital break that gets foiled
- the mental hospital LEGIT FALLS APART and burns, and of course Bong-goon has to run in and save someone because THAT IS HOW THESE THINGS GO, btw this also causes a SECOND, much more monstrous mental hospital break
- luckily Haebin is there to take him home!
- because yeah btw his family/the team NEVER EVEN GOT TOLD ABOUT THIS ENTIRE SERIES OF EVENTS, like his surrogate mom and bb sister FINALLY GET TOLD and he and Haebin walk in all "hey guys long time no see!" literal seconds later
Anyway I am sure there are other people who would not consider all this a plus but I think this sums up my feelings v. well:
goldenmelisande: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE WRITERS
goldenmelisande: .......................HOW CAN I SEND THEM FLOWERS
4. Bong-goon is so fucking dumb, I love him.
I TOTALLY THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DOUCHE OUT WHEN HE WAS ALL "STOP CRYING", and then that. Omg Bong-goon WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS DON'T EVER CHANGE
5. The rest of the teammates are weirdly adorbs, especially the random American Bong-goon befriends oafishly WHO REFUSES TO LEARN ANY WORDS OF KOREAN EVEN THOUGH HE LIVES IN KOREA/PLAYS ON A SOCCER TEAM MADE UP OF KOREANS
BUT ALSO THE YURI STAN (LOL I CAN'T):
6. BONG-GOON AND HAEBIN ARE REALLY UNREASONABLY ADORABLE
Like I feel like I should not have ~feelings~ about a show this bad, but uh. What can I say.
Anyway WHAT IS TASTE but I legit like, gobbled up the first ten episodes and now I am trying to avoid watching the last six because I know once I finish them I will be ~devoid of joy~ :,( WHAT IS MY LIFE, WHY AM I LIKE THIS.