Last Chance U

As a French woman, living in France I do not get ANYTHING about American football. But I really loved the show and enjoyed the games; even though everything went a little over my head This is a really good show and it made me love American football!

The layout of most episodes follows like this:

• Players train up for a match and you get to follow their lives and the backstory of a bunch of players that the documentary focuses on. Especially the coach.
• You get an insight in what their studies is like and what hardships they face.
• The episode finishes with a football match that is edited with suspensefulness like a movie.

There is much to like about this series as you see the team spirit throughout and beyond the team to the town folks.

Although I routinely read the user reviews for shows and movies, I have never written one. After reading some of the reviews of this sports documentary I felt compelled to make a comment. :Last Chance U" provides great insight to how life is at Community College and the athletes in the sports programs.

As a life long football love the series didn't catch my interest right away and I really regret that fact, because its an awesome show. The student athlete stories are told with great detail and the directors add just the right amount of game action for balance.

My concern with the comments about the players seem stereotypical. Seems some people really do not understand these players circumstances even after watching the show. A lazy student is not the same as one that is ill equipped as a product of a poor educational system. Some have no idea how to study and have not ever learned study skills. Many students simply are not prepared for college after graduating from high school. Brittany Waggoner makes the same assessment after leaving the show that this problem is prevalent and not confined to Mississippi.

I also noticed that she didnt understand why some of the players would basically give up and leave. The feeling of being overwhelmed and behind with trying to catch up is stressful. Many students leave college but their experiences are based on harsh realities that must be dealt with in a caring manner. She does come across and genuinely caring for the students but fails to identify what life is really like for them. I love the show and look forward to watching more seasons !!

This series is more of a documentary than a 'netflix-series', and that's the way you should look at this. If you're just looking for a TV-series to lighten you're mood, then this clearly isn't for you. If you are, however interested in the subject of the importance of education, if you want to have a good look at how the American college system works ( especially if you're not from the US this is interesting), than this series might be exactly what you're looking for.

What sets Last Chance U apart from other 'reality-series' is the different angles where it is coming from. From the grad student, to the renominated coach Buddy Stephens, to the concerned tutor of the college athletes who is desperately trying to get them graduated at the end of the year. You really understand the importance of the situation, the legacy that these young athletes are trying to maintain. It also doesn't really feel like a real documentary-series, although you keep getting reminded that this in fact has really happened before.

However Last Chance has a hard time trying to keep my focus, maybe it was just me but I found myself numerous times being distracted while watching the series. and while this is no doubt a real documentary, I couldn't help myself but finding it all a bit by the books. It almost sounds like a classic football story which you have seen so many times before. I couldn't help myself wondering if some things were really scripted.

Still if you can get yourself invested in the stories of these coaches, students and their surroundings, you do really get a real reward out of it, because it does leave a mark. It really gave me satisfaction to get to know the stories of so many lives in this little Mecca of American football. So if this subject is your niche... you should definitely check it out.

7,5/10 Verdict: A very interesting and touching look at the life of student athletes

Sports documentaries are a personal favourite, but Last Chance U is a rare example of a sport's true colours shown through big budget filmmaking. Set in the collegiate American football setting of small town America, this show highlights everything inherently wrong with the system and the mindset that goes as standard with the sport. Being premier recruitment colleges for those denied a chance in the major leagues (sometimes through bad luck, sometimes through bad choices), they are breeding grounds for dangerous mentalities in children who genuinely know no better.

It starts with the coaches; men who have lived with the sport their entire lives, but who don't always understand the way teenagers think. On top of this, their academic teachers toil to get them almost unattainable grades to give them that slim chance of success, constantly fighting against a tide of setbacks and resistance. Finally, the students - arrogant, boisterous and over-pressured athletes thrown into stardom from the minute they discovered their talent, now deluded into thinking they are untouchable future stars.

The stupidity is that the cameras only enable these kids to act like superstars. Suddenly they have their inner belief of stardom reinforced by a full film crew following their every move - regardless of whether they win or lose. It's even made clear on the show: every single one believes they are going to make it to the NFL, but only the luckiest ever even get close. The teachers know it and try to make it clear, but nothing will dissuade these students of their dreams. You watch it with mixed feelings of pity and anger; they genuinely know no better, but they act so poorly they must know they deserve nothing from these people who give everything to help them in ways they don't appreciate. The few students who do eventually cross the line and are kicked from school all pretend to repent when the cameras are pointed at them, but the follow-up interviews make it clear some of them are just genuinely bad people.

Whilst this makes entertaining television with its various twists, it also presents the damage this society perpetuates. Whole communities suffer: these isolated towns devote their funds entirely to sportsmen they've never met, sacrificing all other academic students and their pursuits. Moreover, these students then push themselves through potentially life-threatening injuries, convinced they can handle "only another concussion" or a "small loss of feeling in their legs" from being hit repeatedly.

By the close of each season, you wonder if any of those you have seen grow throughout the show will be around for many more years. Some of them cannot resist the vicious cycles of crime and delinquency they have grown up in; others simply can't get the grades needed to take the next step. At the end of the day, the schools only care about the score after 60 minutes.