Spin City: The Complete Season 1 (1996) Review

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(More customer reviews)Us spin city fans have been waiting many years for this to finally come out on dvd. We long ago wore out the DVD's of Mike's favorite episodes, and while they were of course awesome, I didn't think they would ever put out the entire seasons on DVD. It's about time, what a long and leisurely process it has been, when plenty of other less worthy shows immediately go to DVD when they end.

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At last, the complete first season!Spin City is a smart, sophisticated ABC sitcom about the behind-the-scenes workings of City Hall in the biggest city in America. Workaholic Mike Flaherty (Michael J. Fox) is the Deputy Mayor of New York City, serving as Mayor Randall Winston s (Barry Bostwick, Rocky Horror Picture Show) key strategist and much-needed handler. Mike runs the city with the help of his oddball staff: an anxiousand insecure press secretary (Richard Kind, Mad About You); a sexist, boorish chief of staff (Alan Ruck, Ferris Bueller's Day Off); an impeccably groomed gay activist running minority affairs (Michael Boatman, Arli$$); a sharp and efficient, man-crazy accountant (Connie Britton, Friday Night Lights); and an idealistic young speechwriter (Alexander Chaplin). Like Mike, they are all professionally capable but personally challenged. Bonus Features:* The Spin: The cast and creators look back at how the show began and remember its first season. Includes all-new interviews with Michael J. Fox, Barry Bostwick, Richard Kind, Alan Ruck, Michael Boatman, Connie Britton, and Alexander Chaplin and show creators Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence and more.* Prime-Time Partners: Highlights of The Paley Center for Media Seminar presented in October 1996.In October 1996, Michael J. Fox and Gary David Goldberg gave a seminar for members of the Museum of Television & Radio (now know as the Paley Center for Media). * Commentaries by Cast, Creators and Crew

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Friday Night Lights: The Third Season Review

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(More customer reviews)Warning! Spoilers galore! Do NOT read this review if you have not seen all of Season 3!
Season Three of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS represents one of the most interesting attempts ever to keep a great, but lightly watched series alive. After Season One the series was renewed primarily based on the huge critical acclaim the show received along with its intensely dedicated, though small (though I would like to think growing) fan base. I honestly thought that after Season One it was going to sweep the Emmys, garnering a host of awards that would propel it to the next tier in public consciousness, much like what happened to another series that debuted in the fall of 2006, 30 ROCK. For some unfathomable reason it did not receive a single major Emmy nomination. It did go on, however, to win what have come to be the three most reliable indicators of quality TV. It won a Peabody award, something that most Emmy winners never receive. It won Salon's annual Buffy award, given to the best show neglected by the Emmys (named after the greatest TV series never to receive Emmy attention). And it was named one of the ten best shows on TV by the American Film Institute. Fans of the show watched in horror as clearly inferior shows like BOSTON LEGAL, GREY'S ANATOMY, HOUSE M.D., and HEROES got recognition that continued to escape.
Still, fans hoped that Season Two would see an increased audience share. NBC hoped that moving it to Friday night (the night that most people assumed it was airing) would help. It didn't and its ratings slipped further. Normally a show with the kind of ratings FNL had would simply have been cancelled. Much to NBC's credit, they decided to take new steps to save the series. They arranged with DirecTV to have that network air the thirteen episodes of Season Three in the fall of 2008 (when many of us were lucky enough to see it), with NBC showing it in the winter and spring of 2009. According to some rumors, DirecTV was happy with the results and is interested in continuing with another season of the show. I've seen no reports on how NBC is thinking (though the head of programming for NBC Universal did, in response to a question about FNL's chances for a Season Four, said that there would continue to be a place on the NBC schedule for quality shows with a smaller audience share). In a recent interview FNL creator and executive producer Peter Berg said that the decision to continue could be as much their decision as the networks. Suffice it to say that at this point it isn't at all clear that there will be a Season Four and possibly just because Berg and show runner Jason Katims may decide not to continue.
The reason for Season Four being in doubt is very easy to see. There is a major creative question about where to take the series in a fourth season. Many of the key characters on the show for the past three seasons have graduated. At the very least, Tyra, Riggins, Lyla, and Matt are out of high school. There is debate about whether or not Landry is a senior or junior. Spoiler alert! At the end of Season Three it appears that those four are going to four different schools, Tyra to University of Texas (where Landry could certainly go if he is a senior), Riggins to the fictitious San Antonio State, and Lyla to Vanderbilt, while Matt's college plans are murky. Coach Taylor's plans were not in granite, though he was clearly confronted with a very different situation if the show continues. Apart from Julie (and possibly Landry, if he is indeed a junior), there are no established high school characters continuing on the show and no high school football players. There are three major possibilities. One is to start from scratch with Coach Taylor at the heart of things and introduce a host of new characters. A second is to introduce new high school players for Coach Taylor while continuing to follow the characters we've come to love over the past three years. This would be especially easy in Tyra's case (and possibly in Landry's if he is a senior) since she is attending UT and the show is actually filmed in Austin. The third possibility is to have Coach Taylor take a coaching job at, say, San Antonio State, where Riggins already is, and perhaps find a way to get Matt, Landry, Tyra, and Lyla all to go there for whatever reason they can think up. A fourth possibility would be for the show to say goodbye to Riggins, Tyra, Matt, Lyla, and possibly Landry in a series of episodes like they did in Season Three with Smash and Jason. One thing is clear: if they have a Season Four, it will be utterly unlike the first three seasons of the show.
Season Three of FNL just might be my favorite so far. I loved Season One, continued to enjoy the show even with some iffy moments (along with several glorious ones) in Season Two, but I was just blown away by Season Three. There were not merely no weak episodes in Season Three, but few weak moments. The way I expressed my love for FNL to a friend is that while BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is my favorite show on TV and probably has 20 episodes that I think are better than the best episode of FNL, BSG also probably has 20 episodes worse than the weakest episode of FNL. FNL is just an absurdly consistent show. It may not have BSG's highpoints, but neither does it have its lowpoints. [There are, btw, several interesting connections between BSG and FNL. The creator of FNL, Peter Berg, directed the pilot of BSG creator Ron Moore's new series VIRTUALITY, while FNL producer and frequent director Jeffrey Reiner directed the movie CAPRICA, which also serves as the pilot for the BSG prequel by the same name. There are also some stylistic similarities. Both are shot with hand held cameras, with the cameras playing to the actors rather than the actors to the cameras. Both feature rich and enormously talented casts. And then there are the convoluted connections. BSG executive producer David Eick worked on HERCULES, which was created by Rob Tappert. FNL producer John Cameron not only went to high school with Tappert and did some work on HERCULES and XENA, but Tappert married a Cylon, none other than D'Anna Biers aka Lucy Lawless.]
Season Three is the senior year of many of the major characters. The football arc centers on these players' last hurrah, the attempt to go to state one last time, and getting prepared to move on. Matt's situation is complicated by the presence of an enormously talented freshman quarterback who is clearly more gifted than he is. Riggins takes on new responsibilities and begins to grow up both on and off the field. And the team manages to overachieve and do things it clearly should not be capable of. The final game the seniors play is easily the football highlight of the series. The last scene is clearly the most poetic.
Off the field the major stories involve the rekindling of Matt and Julie's romance, which becomes one of the most realistic and sweetest relationships one can imagine. Matt struggles not only with his changing role on the football team, but his grandmother's decaying mental state, which indirectly leads to reestablishing a relationship with his mother. Tyra's story is especially interesting in Season Three. If in Season One she only gradually started to do battle with her own low self-expectations and in Season Two she fought hard to be more than the person everyone expected her to be, in Season Three he has to overcome additional obstacles to finding a more fulfilling life. She has to overcome a new guidance counselor who doesn't believe in her like Tami Taylor did, the temptation of an older and dangerous rodeo star boyfriend, and her own low self-esteem. The show's penultimate episode, in which she struggles to write her college application letter, contains one of the very finest moments in the entire series, as she finally finds the words to express what going to college truly represents, namely, "The possibility that things are going to change." And you have to love a show that has as one of the most triumphant moments a girl ecstatic in getting her college acceptance letter.
For the Taylors, life is quite different, as Tami takes on her new position as Dillon High School's new principal. Eric not only has to make difficult decisions regarding his quarterback but has to battle with that quarterback's father, who is overbearing to the point of being abusive (the mother, by the way, is nicely played by Janine Turner, who fans of NORTHERN EXPOSURE will remember affectionately as Maggie O'Connell). Buddy Garrity struggles with a series of bad decisions while Lyla is in a full-blown relationship with Tim Riggins. Meanwhile, Tim's brother Billy and Tyra's sister Mindy get engaged, which leads to the purchase of quite possibly the most hysterically ugly wedding dress in the history of network television.
One thing that is sometimes overlooked is how brilliantly executed the show is. People ignorant of film technique complain about the photography. It is all done with hand held cameras. The actors memorize their scripts and then are allowed to more or less ad lib along the direction of the script. No scenes are blocked, so that the actors are performing their actions in spontaneous fashion. They use a three camera arrangement so that even if they do only one take of a scene, they can edit the final version from different angles (look carefully at the scene in the episode "The Giving Tree" where Matt reluctantly goes to the patio where Coach Taylor is cleaning the grill and pay attention to where the cameras are during their conversation; this degree of technique runs throughout the series).
I hope there is a Season Four. Although I can't quite imagine how the series would continue, I'm fascinated to see how they would do so. For three years this has been a show that has done almost no...Read more›

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FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS:THIRD SEASON - DVD Movie

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Friday Night Lights: The Second Season Review

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(More customer reviews)Update: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS has been saved!!! I promised to keep posting updates on FNL and I finally have an exciting one. Multiple sources are now reporting that FNL will be renewed for a 3rd Season! According to Mike Ausiello, a deal with DirectTV is in place, but not signed. To their credit, NBC, although they knew they would no longer broadcast the series exclusively, went out and sought a partner to keep the series alive. It isn't clear yet how the deal will work, but most likely DirectTV will pay NBC for the rights to broadcast new episodes first and then NBC will rebroadcast them a few days later. I personally hope that DirectTV will show it earlier in the week and NBC on Friday evening. It just seems appropriate. So, if this story is true, FNL truly has been saved. I'll come back later an reedite my review as a whole, excising completely the memory that we very nearly lost this brilliant show.
I write this only a few minutes after the final episode of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS was broadcast on NBC. This past week Ben Silverman, who took over as the head of NBC this past summer, threw ice water in the faces of all those who hoped that this extraordinary series might have a future on NBC. For years NBC has been my favorite network, just as FOX, which has killed shows at the drop of a hat, was my least favorite. The irony is that the former head of NBC, who was responsible for keeping such critically acclaimed shows (but ratings challenged) like FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, THE OFFICE, and 30 ROCK is now one of the powers that be at FOX, while my formerly favorite network is threatening to pull the plug on this absolutely brilliant series.
Here is the situation as we know it: although 22 episodes were contracted for the 2007-2008 season, only the 15 episodes that were completed before the strike will be broadcast and no new episodes will be made this spring. Tonight's episode is the end of Season Two for certain. And given Ben Silverman's gruesome statements (in essence he was asked repeatedly and pointedly about FNL, but each time deflected the question instead talking about how great 30 ROCK is -- other NBC insiders say FNL is dead at NBC).
Before I write about Season Two it is fair to ask, is there any hope for FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS? According to Mike Ausiello at TV Guide, many people inside the industry still believe in FNL. There is a chance that it could resurface on another network. Surely the CW could use a teen-oriented show this extraordinary. It would instantly become the best show on the CW by a gigantic margin. Heck, it would immediately become the best show on Showtime or HBO if they were to pick it up.
In the meantime, what can we do? One thing we all can do is buy these DVDs! Right now multiple sources are reporting that the DVDs will be released in April 2008. That is not very far into the future. If you haven't bought Season One, do so immediately. Right now it costs only $18.99 on Amazon. That is dirt cheap for one of the very best shows on TV! The other thing you can do is hit the FNL boards and see what kind of fan organized Save FNL efforts are taking place. If a show like JERICHO, which is 20% as good as FNL, can be saved, surely a show as splendid as this one can as well.
Last year I told everyone I knew that this was the best show on network TV. A couple of shows on cable -- BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and THE WIRE -- were as good or better, but nothing else on ABC, NBC, CBS, or FOX could top it (though LOST at its best could come close). This year I feel that it was one of the two best shows, along with the utterly extraordinary PUSHING DAISIES. To be honest, Season Two is not quite as good as Season One. There were a couple of missteps, but they were not fatal (well, one of them within the context of the show was literally fatal, since it concerned an instance of accidental murder) to the show. Most of the things that made the show so brilliant in Season One either continued at the outset of Season Two or returned within a few episodes of the start.
In brief, the situation at the start of Season Two was this: Coach Taylor has left Dillon High School to become an assistant coach at TMU (Texas Methodist University) in Austin. His wife Tami has given birth to Little Gracie as she is called. The state champ Dillon Panthers are not flourishing under their new head coach. Finally, the utterly unpredictable romance between Landry (who has adopted as his personal philosophy the principle of WWRD, or "What would Riggins do?") seems to be evolving in unexpected ways when her stalker/attempted rapist from Season Two reappears while she is waiting for Landry outside a convenience store. Landry grabs a pipe and smashes his head in, killing him instantly. This plotline is in the opinion of most the weakest aspect of Season Two. The other is the way that Coach Taylor's job at TMU keeps him away from home for the first few episodes. But Buddy Garrity brokers a deal to fire the current coach and bring the increasingly discontent Taylor back to Dillon. And so on. The truth is that Season Two has a host of small story arcs, most of them brilliant, a couple of them amiss. But all in all this is a stunning season.
If you want a scene that demonstrates just how great this show could be at its best, there is no finer moment than the next to last episode. Saracen, who has been going through some really bad emotional times, has in an attempt to deal with his grief (his grandmother's live in nurse, with whom Matt has had an affair, has left the country) gotten profoundly drunk at a strip club with Riggins. When he is summoned to go to the hospital to get his grandmother, he is physically incapable of doing so. Coach Taylor gets them both home and then explodes in the direction of Matt, grabbing him, yelling at him, and throwing him in the shower, which he turns on him. Then Matt, sobbing, asks Coach Taylor why everyone he loves leaves him, asking if he is worthless. Taylor, completely stunned, tells him, "No, you're not worthless." It is an extraordinary scene, as Coach Taylor suddenly becomes aware of the unbearable amount of pain that Matt is experiencing.
My favorite part of Season Two might have been the ongoing, improbable, but mutually empowering relationship between school beauty/hot girl Tyra Collette and brainy Christian nice but ugly guy Landry Clarke. This is one of those relationships that makes a lot of unexpected sense. When the series started Tyra was basically one of the school sluts, a smart but underachieving girl dating teen drunkard Tim Riggins. But after Tami Taylor becomes the school counselor, she convinces Tyra that she can be more. Though her mother is an aging party girl and her sister a stripper, Tyra is motivated by Tami's confidence in her and goes to Landry for some tutoring. There is a fascinating divergence between Tyra and Riggins in the show. While Tim continues to struggle with drinking and other forms of irresponsibility, Tyra begins to do well in school and forms a healthy friendship with Landry, who idolizes her. Eventually they are thrown together by the stress of her stalker/attempted rapist, but it is still obvious that Landry is really, really good for her. But the brute fact is that Tyra is stunningly attractive while Landry is just not a good-looking guy. And she is from a bad family while Landry's dad is a sheriff. Still, you can tell that Tyra and Landry are really good for each other. One of my favorite moments of Season Two is when Landry's Dad asks Tyra, who is obviously way hotter than any woman than Landry should end up with, what she sees in him. She talks about his intelligence, his decency, his sense of humor. She helps his esteem while he provides her with a relationship better than any she has ever experienced. But two things intervene. First, Landry's Dad, concerned with the quality of Tyra's family, asks Tyra to stay out Landry's life. In one of the most heartbreaking moments of the season, Tyra tells Landry that it is absurd to think that they could be together and orders him to look in a mirror to know why. Meanwhile, she goes back to her car and begins sobbing hysterically. In the end, love conquers all. Some speculate that if the series had continued that Tyra wouldn't have stayed with Landry. But I see the central theme in her character the possibility of redemption. Just as I think she would continue to be serious about her studies, I think she would have stuck with Landry. In an earlier episode, just before Landry declared that anything between them was over, she told him she needed time, that she had never been in a real relationship before. When confronted with the possibility of losing Landry, she finally makes a commitment, even to the point of holding hands with him at school. Tyra is the great redemption story on FNL.
This show suffers from an embarrassment of riches. There are an almost endless number of tremendous storylines on the show. There is Smash Williams and the blows to his dreams. There is Buddy Garrity, who started off as a minor supporting character and grew to become one of the most appealing characters on the show. There is Lyla Garrity's discovery of Christianity (and her involvement with new boyfriend Chris, played by THE GILMORE GIRLS's Matt Czuchry) and Tim Riggins's ongoing pursuit of her. More to mention than there is room to mention.
If this show is dead, it releases a staggering amount of talent for other shows. Kyle Chandler should have won an Emmy last year for Best Actor in a Drama, just as Connie Britton should have won Best Actress. Canadian actor Taylor Kitch not only made a convincing Texan as Tim Riggins but also displayed wonderful acting talent as well as impossible good looks (my female friends all gush when they talk about Riggins, though they also want to give him a...Read more›

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Friday Night Lights shines brighter than ever as the critically acclaimed series arrives in a 4-disc collection in 5.1 surround sound! From producers Brian Grazer (The Da Vinci Code), Peter Berg (The Kingdom) and Jason Katims and inspired by the best-selling book and hit film, Friday Night Lights provides a heartfelt look at the families, friendships, and faiths of residents in a closely knit Texan town. Featuring an incredible ensemble cast, this intense and compelling show has critics saying "there is no finer or truer drama on network TV" (Matt Roush, TV Guide).

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Friday Night Lights: The Fourth Season (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)I just finished watching the last episode of Season 4 - it has been an amazing season. While I did miss some of the show's regular characters, the addition of new characters and new story lines is simply a reflection of reality. People move in and out of our lives all the time, we meet new people, we lose track of others. As much as I adore the people in Dillon Texas and irrationally think of them as real people, I don't know if I've ever been moved so deeply as I have been this season watching new character Vince. I wanted to reach in through the screen and give him a hug and tell him that he was doing the right thing and that I was proud of him. That's how real this amazing young actor was. The story's shift to a less affluent side of town was also eye-opening and dramatic. Coach and Tammy Taylor continue to show us the most natural and real depiction of married life on television. I just can't say enough good things about this show. I'm so grateful that DirectTV and NBC continue to bring this to us. I consider the best show on the air - on any network - and still can't understand why it apparently has such a limited following, unless people are scared off thinking it's just a sports show. Friday Night Lights is not about football; it's about life, the choices we make, and our struggles to do our best. Looking forward to it finally making its way to NBC in April and will be first in line to purchase the season DVDs when they become available.

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One of the greatest TV dramas of all time continues with 13 gripping fourth season episodes of the critically acclaimed series Friday Night Lights. Small-town life in Dillon has changed irrevocably with the dramatic split of the school district. Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) finds himself fighting for the respect of the East Dillon Lions, while his wife, Tami (Connie Britton), faces her own battles as principal of the Dillon High Panthers. Across town, it’s a season for change as graduating students face life after high school, and new students deal with hostile rivalries. From executive producers Brian Grazer, Peter Berg and Jason Katims comes the show that critics rave “may have the greatest emotional range of any series ever on television" (Neal Gabler, Los Angeles Times).

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