Stream It Or Skip It: ‘QB1: Beyond the Lights’ on Netflix, a Gritty Documentary Series Capturing the Drama and Character of High School Football Hopefuls

Netflix documentary series QB1: Beyond the Lights returns for a third season, once again trailing three high-ranked high-school quarterbacks as they chase their football dreams. The series is from creator/producer Peter Berg, who clearly envisions it as a real-life version of his acclaimed Friday Night Lights movie and TV series. In the new season, he follows young hopefuls Lance LeGendre, Spencer Rattler and Nik Scalzo, all seniors trying to stay focused on their quests for high school state championships as they eye exciting futures on Division I college fields.

QB1: BEYOND THE LIGHTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A bleary silhouette of two football players battling beneath a blazing sun. “The best times I ever had in football wasn’t in pros, wasn’t in college — it was in high school,” goes the voiceover.

The Gist: LeGendre goes to Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, Louisiana. He’s the fifth-ranked dual-threat quarterback in the country. Sometimes, his Cajun accent is so heavy, he needs subtitles. At camp, he stands in front of his teammates and says his motivation is his mother, who always finds a way to put food on the table for him and his three younger siblings when times are hard. He and his mother buy crisp khakis and a Warren Easton polo shirt at the sport shop; his coach chews out the team after a sub-par practice; “NFL bound!” shouts a man in a car driving by as LeGendre plays catch in the tiny yard outside his urban home, and he looks embarrassed. He’s a pretty humble kid, frequently smiling with a mouthful of braces.

Rattler goes to Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, Arizona. The top-ranked pro-style quarterback in the country, he’s already committed to Oklahoma University. Commentators say he boasts the perfect amount of cockiness to render him confident, a winner. He and his parents sit for a sports-talk radio interview; he shows off his precise footwork during practice; he shoots hoops with his dad and sister in the backyard of his middle-class home. He won a state championship in basketball, and now sets his sights on doing the same in football.

Scalzo goes to Cardinal Gibbons High School in Parkland, Florida. The No. 21 dual-threat quarterback in the country, he’s committed to the University of Kentucky. At 6’0″, he’s undersized compared to other QBs, and plays with a chip on his shoulder. Seated at the patio table outside their affluent suburban home, his family prays before dinner; he and other Cardinal Gibbons players don their uniforms for a press conference and photo shoot at the Miami Dolphins’ stadium; his mother chews him out for not cleaning up dog poop before he and his friends and siblings run a few pass plays in the yard. Last season, he led his team to the state championship game, but lost an overtime heartbreaker.

Our Take: QB1 is a bit of an overlooked sports-doc gem. Under Berg’s watch, the series aims for deep character studies that the Friday Night Lights series dramatized to great critical success. Although audio interviews are used as voiceover, there are no talking heads on screen; the show sticks to a fly-on-the-wall approach that lends it a sense of intimacy and unvarnished observation. Let’s face it — our fascination with a documentary is equally proportionate to how much it feels like we’re eavesdropping on real life.

Although the behavior of on-screen participants still can be affected by the presence of a camera, this journalistic style and approach is about as close to objective as a Netflix-produced doc can get; it thankfully avoids all the trappings of canned and glossy reality TV. This first episode contrasts the external — and sometimes all-too-adult — pressures these young men face with footage of teenagers goofing around like all teenagers do. Nothing is stated outright, but the dynamic is clear and present, in the subtext of a tightly edited collection of sequences. QB1 isn’t flashy, but it’s quietly extraordinary.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Wearing a Kentucky backpack, Scalzo walks toward the team bus after the Cardinal Gibbons’ first 2018 preseason game as his coach, in voiceover, addresses the serious injury suffered by the team’s star defensive end: “You’ve gotta go hard on every play, because you never know when it’s gonna be your last. You never know,” he lectures.

Sleeper Star: The Scalzo family’s chubby golden retriever steals a scene when he wades into the swimming pool and needs to be dried with a leaf blower.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I love the hate, actually,” quips Rattler, responding to an interviewer’s question about how he handles his critics.

Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s no reason even casual football fans and Friday Night Lights diehards wouldn’t find QB1 fascinating.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream QB1: Beyond The Lights on Netflix