gaius charles

(S01E18) "Extended Families" was a good name for this episode. More than most episodes, this one was balanced out pretty evenly between the whole Friday Night Lights family. Saracen got a little short changed in the deal, but considering all the other good stuff, that's ok.

Let's start with Tim Riggins. Normally I would refer to him simply as Riggins. Or occasionally Tim, if Billy is involved in the conversation. Today, because Bo's repeated use of his full name made me laugh, I'll use the whole thing. That whole story just came out of nowhere, and I'm a little iffy on it actually. On the one hand, it seems a little late in the game to be setting up yet another love interest for Tim Riggins, and that sure looks like what they are doing. Although, if they want to carry it right on over into season two, I'm good with that. On the other hand, I do really like the casting of Brooke Langton (Melrose Place, The Net, pictured).

(S01E13) Outstanding. This installment of FNL was just jam packed with story and there was enough of it for everyone to get a little piece. More than any other episode, this one balanced everything out so the entire cast got to play. And with one exception, which we'll get to later, all of the stories were very good.

First up, Smash. I was initially unsure about this story, but now that it has played out, I like what they did with it. This is a much different Smash than we originally met in the pilot and Gaius Charles deserves a lot of credit for doing a great job. As good as he was though, the standout of this episode was Liz Mikel, who plays Corina Williams. All of her scenes were great. I loved her explanation for going to Coach Taylor, "I didn't want to think that you were dumb enough to do something so stupid on your own." Of course, the Smash revelation caused some big problems for Eric as well.

(S01E07) First and foremost, thank you to NBC for giving this show a full season order. This was almost a hectic episode. Where other episodes have pushed some of the characters to the side to focus on certain stories, everybody got some time tonight. While it did jam a whole lot of story into one episode, I don't think that is what held the episode back. It just seemed like there were a lot of little things that didn't really ring true this week. The best part of it was that we finally got some development for some of the characters that have been hanging around the fringes of the show.

(S01E05) They sure picked a good episode to have the big Monday night showcase of the series. So many things going on this week. Rather than try and go through it all in chronological order, let's do it by character/storyline. First off, Tyra and Connor. That was a little disturbing. It did serve to show us how much Tyra wants to get away from Dillon and everything it represents to her, but dang, how old is that guy? You figure to be in that job he must have graduated college and worked his way up for a few years. So, he's 25? Picking up high school girls. Creepy, man, creepy. Tyra's no angel, but she doesn't need that.

Julie didn't get a lot to do, but for the little bit that they did use her, it was effective. She's an interesting kid. Was she reading Doonesbury? The scene where she mentioned that she had been looking up coaching gigs for Eric was funny. But did they have to take a shot at Seattle? Why couldn't it be Portland? And I dig everything about Julie and Saracen together. They have very good chemistry and bring a much needed balance to the high school romance angle. Julie also got the best line of the night with, "Dude, you need to chill out. I'm not ESPN." Saracen is delightfully nervous.