Shedding Light on "Friday Night"

On the heels of "Friday Night Lights"' last episode teaser--which confirms that Riggins and Saracen have gone completely Freaky Friday this season--comes this New York Times op-ed from Virgina Heffernan. Amusingly, it was sent to me this morning by two different friends, who know my documented passion for the amazing show. Here's what Heffernan purports about the show's low ratings:

The fault of “Friday Night Lights” is extrinsic: the program has steadfastly refused to become a franchise. It is not and will never be “Heroes,” “Project Runway,” “The Hills” or Harry Potter. It generates no tabloid features, cartoons, trading cards, board games, action figures or vibrating brooms. There will be no “Friday Night Lights: Origins,” and no “FNL Touchdown” for PlayStation.

While I appreciate Heffernan investigating the dearth of viewers, I think she's barking up the wrong tree. First of all, the paragraph above seems to imply that franchising consistently predates success. In most cases, smash ratings lead to the franchising of a brand rather than the other way around. If "Heroes" was pulling in average numbers--as it's started to in its infinitely lame second season--"Heroes: Origins" would never have been considered. Oh, and it's not going to happen anyway. (The strike has been blamed, but the show's dwindling-by-the-week numbers surely factored in.) If "Friday Night Lights" was making Top 20 numbers, I guarantee you that there would be Dillon Panthers sweatshirts available at your local American Eagle and a variety of poppy, alt-rock soundtracks. But it's not, so there isn't. Franchisability can be built into anything; it's more inherent in some cases, but any marketer worth their corner office should be able to properly bulid a brand. Has "Grey's Anatomy," one of the top series on television really been franchised? No. Its success comes from writing and characters (and pretty people) that struck a chord with a large portion of America at the right time. It wasn't because people were buying scrubs with Seattle Grace logos on them.

Secondly, Heffernan argues that "You can speculate about the American people and why they might reject a character-driven drama, a demographically eclectic cast or the complexity of the show’s moral vision, but “Friday Night Lights” has not even one intrinsic flaw — a grating performance, clunker dialogue, far-fetched plotting — that might cost it viewers." Well, yes, it does. Not quality-wise, no. But name the last hit show, in television history, that was sports-centered. (Other than, you know, "SportsCenter. And no, "Coach" doesn't really count.) Even though "Friday Night Lights" doesn't require football knowledge, any non-viewer would assume it does. "Friday Night Lights," simply because it takes place in the football world, even though 2 out of every 3 episodes don't even include game footage, seemingly asks for a sense of knowledge or passion about football. And most viewers don't want that prerequisite.

Also, it's not exactly escapist television. It cuts to the bone with gritty realism and issues like racism, sexual abuse, and steroids. In a way, it's for the same reasons that Iraq-themed movies did horribly at the box office. When it's the news--when it's intrisically such a part of real life--you may not want to encounter it in your television shows. This is a country that allowed "Meet the Spartans" to be the No. 1 film at the box office, so a layered, topical show about small-town Texas hardly stood a chance from the beginning.