While the film built to the standard sports-film finale of the big game, the show has more peaks and valleys, allowing the players to develop over time and showing the ways that football consumes the lives of everyone in the town. It addresses a world that is as far removed from Hollywood as possible, and does so with dignity and respect, showing small-town values like family and especially religion in a nonjudgmental, realistic light.
For all its quality drama, FNL is having a tough time in the ratings, although NBC has shown confidence in it by ordering scripts for a full 22-episode season and giving it a try-out this coming Monday, October 30, in the 10 p.m. slot usually reserved for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes drama about a sketch-comedy show was easily the most hyped new program of the season, and one of NBC's biggest blunders, it looks like, given the dismal ratings and the high cost of production. And Studio 60 has its flaws, not the least of which is its complete inability to make any of the sketches on its show-within-the-show even remotely funny, but it's still finding its rhythm, and Sorkin remains adept at writing clever, rapid-fire dialogue. Unfortunately, the show seems to get more self-important the lower the ratings go, so it may end up going out in a blaze of bitterness. For now, though, it's still worth the effort, as is Tina Fey's similar 30 Rock (NBC, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.), a funnier and more limber take on the same concept, which somehow manages to be more genuine even with over-the-top characters like Alec Baldwin's oblivious network exec and Tracy Morgan's insane movie star. The swap of Jane Krakowski for Rachel Dratch in a key part has also turned out to be a smart move for the show.
After a lot of backstage turmoil before it even premiered, ABC's Brothers & Sisters (Sundays, 10 p.m.) has stabilized into a solid, layered (if occasionally overly soapy) family drama, and one of the handful of new shows to get picked up for a full season (along with NBC's one ratings bright spot, the clunky but compelling Heroes). It bears the distinction of featuring subtle, even-handed characterizations of both an out gay man and a conservative female talk-show host, and making them believable as loving siblings. The show that I first picked as the best new offering this season, CBS's Smith, has the dubious distinction of being the first one cancelled, a not entirely surprising outcome that is nevertheless disappointing. The slick, dark drama about thieves was probably too morally ambiguous for CBS, and its unpredictable structure stood out among rote procedurals. It might have done better on cable, but the sad thing is that we'll never really know. I only hope that we'll at least get to see the rest of the new season's quality shows live up to their potential.