Rosie O’Donnell to Save NBC’s Friday Night Lights?
Terry Trippany on Jul 18 2007 at 12:45 pm | Filed under: Feature Article, That's Hollywood!
Being “ratings-challenged” seems to be the least of the problems for NBC’s failing football drama Friday Night Lights. Executive producer Jason Katims now believes that stunt casting may be the solution by offering a part to Rosie O’Donnell as a female soccer coach who is really angry about all of the school’s resources going to football!
“Usually we don’t do any stunt casting, but we have a character coming up — six or seven episodes into the new season mdash; of a female soccer coach who is really angry about all of the school’s resources going to football. It’s a really funny character and I think she’d be perfect for it.
“There’s a scene where she comes in to see Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and slams a dead soccer ball on his desk and basically says, ‘You’re the guy who gets everything!’” Katims continues. “It’s a really fun scene, and it’s the one time I’m thinking of stunt casting.”
Katims, who will formally approach O’Donnell in the coming weeks, says he’s willing to tailor the part to fit her wants/needs. “It would be one episode, but the way we write things, we stay very open to abrupt things,” he says. (src. TV Guide)
Katims seems to be under the mistaken impression that people who turned into The View did so in support of Rosie O’Donnell’s popularity and perhaps her personal views. Quite the contrary happened however. People turned into The View to watch a train wreck in action. They wanted to see if O’Donnell could out dumb herself; an effort she delivered on may times. In the case of FNL her part will be scripted, so outside of the “abrupt things” that Katims is eluding to I am not so sure that there will be any substantial ratings boost by putting on an actor that is despised by at least 50% of the country.
In addition I coach both soccer and hockey, and neither sport gets the funding that is spent on football. But I do not go on a tirade about the lack of funding. Why? Because I understand that they are not as popular as the nation’s very American and very well attended sport of football. What an asinine story line of a script.
But you have to give the execs at FNL props for finding an appropriate theme for O’Donnell. It combines all the elements necessary to produce a classic liberal Hollywood failure; a lesbian soccer coach, blaming something truly American for the failures of something else, a feminist attack on a male sport, and the baggage of Rosie O’Donnell’s views on America, the Bush administration, 9/11 conspiracy theories and attacks on Christians.
Perfect drama for a perfectly failing NBC primetime offering.
NBC, Friday Night Lights, Jason Katims, Rosie O’Donnell, NBC primetime
Not that I was ever a View fan but I never even bothered to have a quick look once the thing walked on stage. That would be a hugh waste of time. I have never watch the FNL’s nor do I intend to. Talk about a turn off even if you might be just looking. I’ll go out and count the pebbles on my walk way first.