Nashville: "Pilot"

Coming from someone who is far from a fan a country music fan, I thoroughly enjoyed ABC’s new drama centered around the country music world. Nashville tells the story of an older country music idol Rayna James (Connie Britton) who is beginning to be pushed off of her top spot by the young up-and-comer Julia Barnes (Hayden Panettiere). We also get stories from young country musicians who haven’t been “discovered” yet as well as the political world involving Rayna’s husband running for mayor with the support of her father.

Considering I’ve never been a fan of Hayden Panettiere and that I’ve been a huge fan of Connie Britton since I’ve known her as Mrs. Coach on Friday Night Lights, I might be a little biased, but I’m going to be rooting hard for Rayna Jaymes going forward. The character of Rayna definitely has way more likability so far than Julia at this point, but we got some brief glimpses into Julia’s family life which may explain her less than desirable behavior.

It was kind of tough to keep track of all the minor characters involved outside of Rayna's family, but the show has a lot of potential to work with going forward with the young kids just breaking into the industry with their singing/songwriting abilities. The end of the episode seemed to allude that two of them may be teaming up with Rayna in the future for music concerts and tours.

The political aspect of the show wasn’t one I would have suspected going into the show and I could see it being tough to balance with the other storylines of the show going forward. That being said, I’m sure it was a big selling point for the initial pitch of the show seeing as the show is called “Nashville” that this show would be about something bigger than music(*) and much more about how everything and everyone in this city is affected by some of its most recognizable citizens.

(*) The big comparison here is Connie’s former fantastic show Friday Night Lights. The show was centered around a high school football in the town of Dillon, Texas, but all the football did was set the table for so many brilliant and emotional moments for the fantastic characters we got to know.

Well I’m positive that Nashville is never going to be my favorite drama of all time, but I liked the Pilot episode a lot and I’m excited to see where the show goes from here. Based on the pilot I think I’ll be sticking with every episode and it seems like there will be plenty to discuss for the reviews of each.

Some other quick thoughts:

• I think it should be mandatory that Connie Britton tells Hayden to shut-up, either directly or indirectly, at least once per episode. In this episode she told it to her via the tv set in her dressing room.

• “Thank God for autotune.” – Music Producer. Ah the music industry. Julia Barnes unfortunately is representative of a lot of the pop singers in today’s world. I know that at 23 years old I’m too young to be considered a curmudgeon, but man I can’t agree more with Rayna’s rant that Julia overheard in Randy’s apartment about the “adolescent crap” she sings about.

Comments are certainly welcome, whether they are for agreement, disagreement, or indifference.