FNL Week - Lisa Schroeder

Today Lisa Schroeder, author of Chasing Brooklyn (January, 2010), Far From You and I Heart You, You Haunt Me has kindly dropped by to tell us the reasons she adores FNL.

Dear Readers of the Persnickety Snark Blog,

I’m here guest blogging to share with you why I love Friday Night Lights so much. If I can even put it into words.

I’m going to take a step back for a minute, though, and tell you what I think makes a good story.

A good story has heart. That is, a good story connects with you deep inside, so when you are finished, you are changed, for the better.

Think Charlotte’s Web. The story pulls us in and the relationship that develops between a scared pig and a generous, kind spider speaks to our hearts. We FEEL their love. We FEEL Charlotte’s compassion. We FEEL Wilbur’s gratitude for his dear friend, and his sadness when she is gone. It’s a fantastic story about friendship and family

And basically, Friday Night Lights, a fantastic story about friendships and family, is my TV version of Charlotte’s Web.

Yes, I’m serious. Don’t laugh.

See, the characters in Friday Night Lights are real, with struggles we can relate to. The struggle to fit in, the struggle to want something desperately and have it always be just out of reach, the struggle to love and be loved, and more. All of these things are in this show. The fact that a little bit of each show takes place on a football field in Texas? Doesn’t even matter. That’s just the setting. And so I promise, you don’t have to like football to appreciate the show. What makes this show stand out are the characters and the relationships between them. We relate to them. We want to spend time with them. We struggle with them. And yes, we love them.

If you have DirecTV, Season 4 starts next week. I don’t have DirecTV, so I have to wait until January when it comes to NBC. If you’ve never seen an episode, Netflix subscribers can watch episodes from season 1 and season 2 instantly, on your computer. Try watching the first episode of season 1, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. As Coach Taylor would say, “Get ‘er done.”

Because seriously, how often do we get to watch a TV show with real, honest-to-goodness heart? Not often enough, that’s for sure!

Yours truly,

Lisa Schroeder

Thanks so much to Lisa for getting to the heart of what makes FNL so meaningful, affecting and so good. You can find Lisa's website and blog here.