So It Goes

Reflecting "Real Life" on "The Office" and "Friday Night Lights"

I FINALLY got around to watching the series finale of "Friday Night Lights, Steve Carrell's farewell on "The Office", both of which are on my short list of best-ever TV comedy and drama shows. [Note: Earlier, I thought this was the season finale of "The Office," but an alert reader corrected me.]

For those of you only now seeing "Friday Night Lights" on broadcast TV and wondering how I've seen the whole season, I get Direct TV, where the program aired first and finished in February. (So, why, you wonder, have I only just gotten around to it? Just busy.) I won't spoil it for you, but I'll say that it doesn't end with a 30-mile wide asteroid crashing into the the city of Dillon, Texas.

In a way, one almost hopes for that sort of an ending. As I've written here in the past, "Friday Night Lights" is a show that got too little attention from the American viewing public, which, the ratings will show, seems more interested in schlockey so-called "reality shows" and cliche detective and doctor dramas. Part of me thinks that destroying the entire town and all its compelling characters in a single stroke, while a tad heavy handed, would symbolically tell all those who missed this great show that they can't have it, don't deserve it. Also, as with the ending of "The Sopranos" (yes, they did kill Tony), the producers could pretty much say, 'we're proud of what we did, and we're not going to mess it up with a disappointing movie version' (I'm thinking of you, "Sex and the City").

We've known for a few months that Steve Carrell was leaving "The Office." So the only suprise this season was how the producers were going to ease him out without destroying the show. Not an easy trick considering he is probably one of the funniest people in America and because so much of the show revolves around everyone reacting to his loveable icky self. It's a bit like taking a nucleus out of a cell and replacing it (if that's what they're trying to do with Will Farrell) with a new and different one.

My guess is that "The Office" will survive this transformation, if only because it is one of the best ensemble shows of all time. Those of us who have watched it loyally (if not obsessively, as I think my family and I may), know all the subtle back stories of every character and still care a great deal about where they end up. And the writing has always been extraordinarily creative, always surprising and experimenting without distorting the characters and the story arc so that they become parodies of themselves. "The Office" hasn't jumped the shark. Not yet at least.

Both "Friday Night Lights" and "The Office" are great because they're as close to "real" as we get not only on TV but in most of our entertainment in the United States.They are much more real than the most popular shows where, say, a dozen people are put through a punishing obstacle course on a remote tropical island and put in the position to be nasty with one another; or where B-list celebrities fight with another for the attention and respect of a famous egomaniac or stumble over themselves to become America's favorite ballroom dancers, or any of the other "reality" shows that, when you think about it, not all about what happens in real life.

To be sure, I can't imagine there are any offices in America that operate quite like the Scranton, Penn., branch of Dunder Mifflin Sabre, at least not any that could remain profitable.

But those of us who have spent a lot of our lives in offices know that the personalities that make up "The Office" are only slightly exaggerated versions of the sorts of people we have worked with. Maybe not all of them at once in one place, but we recognize all of them, don't we? They are filled with the same insecurities, tedium, jealousies, annoying habits, neuroses, nastiness, secret crushes, sweetness and loyalties we encounter every day when we walk into our own offices. The show is really a fictional experiment that tries to show what happens when we subject this very typical collection of personalities to strange, unexpected and sometimes dangerous circumstances. That -- along with great writing and acting -- is what makes it so funny and what makes it such an accurate mirror on our own real worlds.

Like "The Office," some of the situations in "Friday Night Lights" are a bit more exaggerated or accelerated than we know from real life. We have to allow for some dramatic effect and, after all, they can't show everything they should about a couple of dozen characters in less than an hour each week.

But "Friday Night Lights" has dealt directly and candidly with the most difficult realities we find in many American lives: the struggle to succeed and do right, in spite of the pull of negative forces and flagging economic opportunities; fractured families; catastrophic illness; petty but sometimes profoundly damaging political battles; racial conflict; the sometimes strained dynamics of parent-child and husband-wife relationships; how our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq reverberate in the lives of ordinary Americans; the exhilaration of glory and how hard it is to hold onto over the long run; the power of love and, ultimately, how each of us needs a father or mother figure in our lives, no matter our age. It's hard to understand why that hasn't attracted a larger and more loyal audience, but we can argue all day about the relative attraction of escapism versus realism.

As the parent of three teenage girls, I have to say, for example, that Tami and Eric Taylor's interactions with their teenage daughter Julie were as real as it gets. Not that my kids are doing any of the crazy stuff she did (or quite as whiney). But my wife and I could truly relate with the give and take that comes with that relationship. Both the writing and the acting that went into some of those scenes (and all the rest) was stripped right out of real life.

So I'll miss "Friday Night Lights" and Michael Scott. But the people in both of those shows will continue on, not only on the TV screen, as will be the case with "The Office," but also in the real world.

Jeff

P.S. For my money, episode of "The Office" this year when Michael proposed to Holly was one of the two best episodes ever, next to Jim and Pam's wedding. See it if you haven't already.

"Friday Night Lights" Still Shining, But Too Few See It

NOW THAT NBC is clearing out a patch of prime time by moving Jay Leno  to a later time slot, maybe it can make room for a show that truly deserves more attention.

I'm talking (once again) about "Friday Night Lights", the drama about a small Texas town and the trials of the people within it. Now in its fourth season, it's by far one of the best shows around (don't rely on my judgment; hardly any serious TV critic disagrees). But, for some strange reason, very few people seem to know about it, let alone seen it.

That's in part because, beginning with the first season, NBC never found time or day to run the show. It started off opposite "Dancing With the Stars," which, for reasons I will never understand, is one of the most popular shows on television. Then, I seem to recall, they experimented with it on a Sunday, and later settled -- believe or not -- on Friday nights, where I understand it generated a little more of a following.

Season Four, though, which began in the fall, ran on Direct TV, the satellite network. Fortunately for me, I'm a Direct TV subscriber, so I'm at least -- I don't know -- seven or eight episodes into the season. But for all those who don't have Direct TV, they will have to wait until NBC decides to air the show, which, I read somewhere, may not be until late this spring. There may also be a way to watch this season on Hulu, or one of those online TV channels, I'm not sure. But if you haven't seen it before this year, I recommend renting DVDs of the earlier seasons, just to catch the story arc. 

It's a shame, not only because I have no one to talk with about the new episodes (other than my wife, who is also hooked on the show), but also because "Friday Night Lights" reflects so much on real life. I shows the authentic strains, sorrows, anxieties - and, every once in awhile -- exhilaration people feel as they try to make a living, repair a relationship, overcome a terrible hardship, cobble together a functioning organization, win the big game or find away to get of this struggling town.

Ostensibly, the show, created by Peter Berg and based on a non-fiction book by Buzz Bissinger, revolves around the culture of high school football, which is, to be sure, treated as religion in some parts of Texas and beyond (or so I'm told).

But football is really not what it's about. Rather the show revolves around a football coach and his wife, principal of the high school, who face the challenges that nearly everyone does in America: trying to find a way to communicate with family; coping with exceptional political battles in their workplaces; and ministering to players and students, whose own parents seem to have left them with little to survive.

There is something about the situations -- often perilous and sometimes trivial (but that's how life is, isn't it?) -- that will ring true to most of us, and they touch on many of the social issues of our time: economic downturn, a nation at war, race, homosexuality, death in the family, the care of an ailing relative, catastrophic illness, alcoholism, teenage sex, parents who care too little and set a bad example, and parents who care too much and set a bad example. Okay, that makes the show sound like a real downer; it's not always, though these characters probably have more than anyone's fair share of trouble (artistic license).

The performances are absolutely convincing and complex. Eric Taylor, played by Kyle Chandler (above)is the coach: brilliant, yet misunderstood and manipulated; hard driving on and sometimes profane the practice field and inspiring and loving to his players, as they turn to him to help them out of one painful jam after another.

His wife, Tammy Taylor (Connie Britton, also above), struggles to keep control of a boisterous high school. She wins the respect of her staff and students but can't always connect with a sullen daughter (Aimee Teegarden) who is finding her own way through the emotional battlefield that teens face. Her boyfriend (Zach Gilford) is a taciturn artist, who fell into the starting quarterback position, with all its pressures for perfection, and feels trapped by his devotion for an aging grandmother, for whom he is the only caretaker.

There are many other characters, but few as nuanced and suprising as Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), the star fullback of the team, who projects a shiftless, outlaw-like personality to much of the outside world, but, in spite of some failings, is turning into an almost moral, ethical touchstone to the rest of the characters. You feel bad for him, stuck, so it seems, with few options, but you also get the sense that this is one guy who will make it out of here alive.

In short, it's a lot more real than the so-called "reality shows," which I think deserve to be referred to as "contrived reality shows" -- reality as defined by some bizarre conventions of show biz. It really is one of those shows that everyone ought to be talking about around the water cooler at work -- except that too few have actually seen enough of it.

Too bad.

Jeff

What the Nation Needs Now: A Model of Civil Discourse

I WISH MANY PEOPLE would spend four or five minutes watching this video of an exchange between U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Alice Hoagland, from Los Gatos, Calif., whose son Mark Bingham was killed in the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Penn., on September 11, 2001.

Their conversation took place on Wednesday, November 18, just minutes after Holder explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee why he decided to hold a federal civilian court criminal trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others alleged to have been the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks.

What's really striking about the Holder-Hoagland exchange is its civility. There's no question that Hoagland disagrees profoundly with Holder's decision, and she told the Attorney General that she takes "great exception to your decision to give short shrift to military commissions."

One can imagine the emotion she associates with this issue. But, unlike so much of the disagreement over this very complex issue (and so many others these days), Hoagland did not rely on histrionics to make her point, nor did she accuse Holder of bad motives. She made a stately, reasoned, thoughtful, firm and passionate case to the Attorney General. And Holder made his case with the same measure of respect and reason. The very end of their exchange said it all to me, though I think you have to watch the video to get the full effect. It sounds rather uneventful here in writing:

Holder: “There are reasons why bringing this case in an Article III court [civil court, as opposed to military commission], when it comes to the admissibility of certain evidence, is really the right way to go, and it really maximizes our chances of getting a successful outcome.”

Hoagland: "Then we'll defer judgment."

Wow. So sober and restrained it's spectacular.

Reasonable minds are, naturally, disagreeing over this very difficult decision. I confess to being a bit unsure about it, though I think the Attorney General is doing the right thing. (See this piece in today’s Washington Post, by two former Bush Administration Justice Department officials, explaining why Holder’s decision is, on balance, a good one.) But I can’t imagine seeing such a sober, respectful debate on an emotional issue like this on the usual TV debate shows, or even, too often, within the confines of a Congressional hearing room. Indeed, many of the members of the committee Holder had just faced seemed bent on discrediting the decision and the reputation of the Obama Administration as a reasonable steward of the work of the federal government.

Just minutes after I heard the Holder-Hoagland exchange on C-SPAN radio yesterday, Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on C-SPAN and criticized Holder and called his decision “political” – saying that he suspects this is just part of the Obama Administration’s effort to appear to distance itself from the decisions of the Bush Administration, which was unpopular abroad.

“I do think this [decision] is sort of driven by a political campaign in which President Bush’s ideas of military commissions were so criticized," Sessions said on C-SPAN, "so this first big case they just determined to bring it in federal court.”

In fairness, Senator Sessions was otherwise reasonable, relying on his experience as a former prosecutor and on some compelling facts to make his case.

But, in my own book, one of the principles of civil discourse is refraining from drawing any conclusions about motives without any evidence.

That’s why I felt, by the way, that much of the criticism against the G.W. Bush Administration’s actions and decisions was uncivil, even as I disagreed pretty profoundly with many of those actions and decisions. Some critics ascribed sinister motives to Bush and his team. Unless I learn of evidence to the contrary, I believe they acted based on what they thought was good for the country, even if they made what I think were terribly flawed decisions.

One of the other impediments to civil discourse is intellectual dishonesty, which is readily on display in many a public forum in the United States, I'm afraid. So, too, is plain old nastiness and anger, which don't accomplish much more than whipping up people into an irrational state. That's not the way to grapple seriously with serious issues.

What’s so heartening about the Holder-Hoagland exchange is that, even for a fleeting four or five minutes, we see the kind of thoughtful and respectful debate that I wish would be the norm in many of the other overly heated forums of our national discourse.

I guess that's why we should savor the thoughtful and respectful exchange between Eric Holder and Alice Hoagland, especially when we're feeling cynical about our ability as a nation to solve difficult problems effectively and amicably. But, as any TV news producer can tell you, thoughtful and respectful are not the elements that make “good TV” -- though there are some notable exceptions, thank goodness. They fear that many American viewers will just tune out and turn in something else that can get their blood pumping. I'd like to think Americans are better than that.

Jeff

Update, Nov. 24: Case in point: last night, Larry King had the two eminent health care policy experts, Ann Coulter and Al Sharpton, on his show, debating the pending reform bill. In contrast to Coulter -- who advocated dropping the Khalid Sheik Mohammad trial and early childhood education to save enough money to pay for the "European-style health care plan" -- Sharpton was the reasoned, centrist statesman. But this is hardly what anyone can call civil, thoughtful policy debate.

The Sopranos: Just Hanging On

IN 1987, ON ASSIGNMENT FROM AN ITALIAN-AMERICAN MONTHLY newspaper, I had the chance to interview then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani in his Lower Manhattan offices. Giuliani's tenure there was distinguished in many ways by his aggressive efforts to prosecute organized crime. He also drew criticism from Italian Americans for using the term "Mafia" to describe the Italian mobs, which his own community felt unfairly stereotyped them.

In that interview, Giuliani predicted that predominantly Italian-American crime mobs would eventually fade away in a generation or two, though they might be replaced by organized crime groups of other, newer immigrant communities. I don't have my notes from then, so I can't quote him directly. But he said that as Italian-Americans moved farther  from the immigrant experience and subscribed more to the importance of higher education and the professions (something that, many Italian Americans, even in 1987, would say was only just becoming the norm), the crime mobs would slowly be starved of the new blood they would need to sustain themselves from one generation to the next.

I have been thinking about Giuliani's prediction about the Mafia for much of the time I've been watching The Sopranos, and David Chase, the creator of the show, seemed to be agreeing with the former U.S. Attorney, New York Mayor, current candidate for President and longtime observer of organized crime.

Not that the Soprano family business is going under anytime soon. If anything, the show ended happily, at least for Tony, Paulie, Patsy and the other captains and their foot soldiers, who keep their New Jersey rackets running.

Tony's still alive. His chief opponent, Phil, who was not only trying to take over his livelihood but his life, too, is, in more ways than one, decapitated from running the operation on the New York side of the river. And Phil's second, Butch, made peace with Tony, so they appeared by the end of the show to be willing to live and work side by side peacefully with one another -- for now.

Not all of Tony's problems are gone. He's likely to face an indictment. He lost his closest inside allies and likely heirs apparent -- Silvio and Bobby. And he's stuck now with Paulie, who, despite his intense loyalty could drive a person crazy with all his mishegoss. Tony's facing purgatory going to work every day with this guy.

But perhaps his greatest dream, whether he realizes it or not, has come true. For most of the life of the series, and certainly for the last couple of seasons, Tony has seemed determined to keep his children from getting into the family business. And one of the great unknowns (at least to me), even leading up to the very last episode, was whether he would succeed in this quest.

Meadow, turning over to the dark side? Well, I always felt it could happen, and there's no saying that, once she becomes a lawyer, she may not actually take that step. She told Tony in the final episode about her desire to become an immigration lawyer, in large part because of how Italian-Americans were mistreated. "If I hadn't seen you dragged away all those times by the FBI, then I'd probably be a boring suburban doctor," she told him. Either she's become painfully naive, like her mother, about the real business of the family, or she has been charmed by it in some way.

Still, for now, she seems to be stepping away from Tony's path, and Tony seems relieved and proud of her choice, as well as of her romance with fellow lawyer Patrick Parisi, Patsy's son, who, too, has chosen a different path than his father. (Throughout this season, we learn of a number of mobster children who have gone to into law, medicine or other professions, making their parents proud, and Tony and Carmella a little jealous.)

Of course, the prospects that AJ might embrace the family business were always greater than they were for Meadow, as he couldn't get through school, a bad sign, according to Professor Giuliani. Even  until the very end of the show, we really didn't know which way he was heading. He seemed repulsed by violence and never really showed any interest in joining his father, and he seemed as if he would be more of a liability to Tony than an asset: resented by the others as annointed only by birth and never trusted because of suspected mental instability.

The job he ended up with -- movie producer on the make -- might fit him and pull him out of his funk, and it may prove to be successful for him. And, who knows, it might also be enough to keep him far away from having to drop off stuffed envelopes of money at the back room of the Bing.

Tony's mob -- or crew, as it might be called now -- will survive, but it doesn't sound like it will thrive and grow. Like Junior Soprano, who is living in a dank state institution because, we learn in the final episode (in a brilliantly acted scene between him and Tony), Junior doesn't even realize that he has a hidden private stash of money somewhere, there seems to be no new source of nourishment for the Soprano crime enterprise either.

The crew will surely outlive Junior, whose mind and body are failing rapidly. But the crew, too, is aging, putting on weight, sagging at the biceps and even losing some of the vim it once had to muscle the others out of the way. (Christafuh would have been the only one from the younger generation to keep it aloft for awhile longer, but, even if he hadn't died, it's not clear he had the stuff to lead.) Another fight like the one they had with Phil Leotardo's crew -- or, worse yet, some younger, tougher Russian gang -- or with the federal prosecutor and that could be it for the Sopranos.

But, for now, they're just hanging on.

Jeff

Where are You, America?

HERE ARE SOME NEWSPAPER CRITIC REVIEWS of the new show "Friday Night Lights." (Click here for the full rundown.) 

• "A fiercely controlled and inventive work of art." -- New York Times
• "Extraordinary in just about every conceivable way." -- Washington Post
• "[A] rewardingly seasoned new drama series that's practically indistinguishable from the acclaimed feature film, except that it's better." -- Newsday
• "More than simply being outstanding, 'Friday Night Lights' is an important series because of the way it takes family-friendly television seriously." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• "'Friday Night Lights' ultimately feels like one of those family programs middle America and conservatives pine for that too few of them actually bother to watch -- a portrait of decent, God-fearing folks wringing joy from America's game as an escape from their hardscrabble lives." -- Variety
• "'Lights' has a rare ability to portray life in small-town America without being condescending or sentimental." -- USA Today
• "Both cinematically broad and heartbreakingly specific, a melding for once of the best that movies and television have to offer." -- Philadelphia Daily News

You get the idea.

And guess what? Apparently, nobody in TV Land listens to these critics. It was the worst series premiere of the season.

As Washington Post TV columnist Lisa De Moraes wrote: "NBC's 'Friday Night Lights' performed like the '76 Buccaneers in its premiere Tuesday night [October 3]. Yes, that bad.... Even more embarrassing, NBC's football drama got crushed by the pantywaist ballroom dancers of ABC's 'Dancing With the Stars,' which copped more than 18 million viewers Tuesday night ['Friday Night Lights' got  7.17 million viewers]. NBC noted that its football drama finished first in its 8 p.m. hour among young men. But, in truth, more 18-to-34-year-old males were attracted to the combo of ABC's ballroom dancing and the CW's 'Gilmore Girls.'"

So it's really got to make you wonder what's going on out there, if people are just that tone deaf to good quality and why they're attracted to cultural garbage (which seems to distract them from the really important public policy issues of the day, but that's another blog posting).

As I mentioned last week, there can be no debate that this is good stuff. I watched the second episode last night, and this has all the markings of an award winner. It's got great story telling -- the onion of each character is already beginning to peel away slowly, and you can feel a larger story arc at work. The acting is superb,too.

And, as some of the reviews have suggested, this is truly a show that most of the family -- well, maybe teens and pre-teens -- can watch together. That's not something you see every day, and it's what many Americans have been clamouring for. 

Maybe it's a time slot glitch. Who knows? Let's not forget that it took a season or two for "Seinfeld" to catch fire, but it wasn't the same quality show in the first season that it turned out to be later on.

Hollywood has shown up this time. So where are you, America?

Jeff

My Tuesday Nights Are Booked

I HATE TO SAY, BUT I MAY BE HOOKED on a new TV series. Last night the new series "Friday Night Lights," premiered, and I have to say that they're on to something.

The series is based on a movie which was based on a non-fiction book, which profiled how a Texas town obsesses about  high school football. You'd think that the political, business and civic leaders in town had nothing more important to worry about. The whole town literally closes on Friday nights when the games on are. The pressure on players and coaches to win is intense. The players, who are not even old enough to vote, are revered as great idols of the community. In the opening episode of the series, they they are even hit on (without success) by women older than their own mothers. Everything is sanctified by a prayer.

Kyle Chandler has landed one of the best fits of his acting career as the team's coach. He is the one who must shield the team (and himself) from the overblown expectations of the community and, at the same time, make sure they live up to them enough so that he keeps his job. He exudes cool charisma on the outside, which shields worry on the inside. This may be his most complex role ever.

In the first episode (which aired last night), the town (and viewers) are jolted to reconsider just exactly where football fits in the hierarchy of human priorities. It's a brilliant way to start the season, as it will keep viewers coming back. And it raises all sorts of interesting questions.

I grew up in a town where sports, especially football and basketball, were treated with similar reverence and hysteria -- though not quite to the extent that it is portrayed in this series (and, sadly, none of the kids I grew up with looked quite as good as the actors in the series). It often disgusted me that people would take these games so seriously. On the other hand, it did bring about real excellence. Several of our teams, including our football team won the state championship my senior year (I was on the team until my senior year, wouldn't you know, but I was not, how to say, a star player), and many of our other teams won championships and were competitive as well. That's good, too.

Unlike the town on "Friday Night Lights," I think there was ultimately a sense of perspective in my town, that sports wasn't everything. But it sure was amazing to me how so many people in town followed the progress of our teams even long after their sons and daughters graduated from the high school and with a fixatation that was a little too intense.

Anyway, for better or worse, I guess my Tuesday nights are booked.

Jeff

Questions from "Entourage"

FOR FANS OF THE HBO SHOW “Entourage” (and I am one), last night’s season finale raises a number of questions that we’ll have to ponder until the next season begins:

Will Vincent Chase and the colorful Ari Gold kiss and make up and live happily ever after as client and agent? It looks almost inevitable that they will. All Vince wanted was for Ari to look him in the eye, be honest with him and tell him he screwed up Vince’s chance to play the lead in a Joey Ramone biopic. That’s what friends are for, and this is not just a business relationship but a friendship, right? And after all, there’s no way “Entourage” producers will write Ari out of the show, even if his client fired him at the end of last night’s show. There has rarely been a character as spectacular and compelling on TV as Ari, as played by Jeremy Piven (who just last night won an Emmy for his role). Vince and his boys will probably play some amusing cat-and-mouse games with Ari for the first few episodes of the next season (when will that be, by the way? 2016? ). Having said all this, I’ve just outlined the most predictable scenario imaginable, which is exactly what this show's writers will avoid, if the past is any guide. How they’ll pull it off, I have no idea.

Will we see Bob Ryan (played by Martin Landau) again? I sure hope so. As good as the acting is on this show all around, Landau showed them all how it’s done. Landau gracefully didn’t steal scenes, he just made them a whole lot better and funnier (and he's not known for comedic acting). He gave an acting lesson as the aging producing searching haplessly for another big one in his twilight years. Landau played to a tee the contrasts between the way he used to do business and the way it’s conducted in Hollywood today – not exactly collegial and civil in the old days but not as heartless and cut-throat as it is now among people who probably seem to him barely out of diapers. My guess is that, like so many big-name actors who have passed in and out of this show, Landau will do the same, but I’d love to get more of his character.

Will Johnny Drama get his pilot picked up? Something tells me that, even though Drama pulled off a pretty good performance in the pilot, he’ll be back pounding the pavement when the next season begins –- or just goofing off with Turtle and the rest of the guys, which is not too tough of a life.

Will Eric get serious with Sloan? He seems the more practical one, more likely than the other three guys to crack and settle down. Will that be like turning his back on the boys? Or maybe he and Sloan would just move in with them. I'm sure they won't mind.

Will Turtle find himself another rap band to manage? He was so close to signing Saigon, which would not only have given him a source of independent income but something constructive to do with his life. What kind of a life is this? How does he get up in the morning? I loved the scene when the guy who muscled his way into representing Saigon had his goon suspend Drama from his feet from a balcony while Turtle negotiated a “buyout.” When the deal was consummated, Drama, back on his feet, said to Turtle, “you should’ve held out for more.”

Can't wait for next season.

Jeff