Much is made in the television industry lately about the changing face of advertising, and how in our progressively time-shifted world, companies don’t feel comfortable buying television commercials in the ways they once did. After all, <ba-doop badoop badOOP!> and those commercial breaks are over in seconds.

I recall reading about a study showing that consumers remember just as much about commercials when they fast-forward as they do when they watch them at regular speed, but studies don’t often influence the priorities of industry decision makers. For example, the Oberholzer-Gee study of 2004 suggests that file sharing has had little or more likely zero bearing on CD sales, but that certainly hasn’t stopped the music industry, then the movie industry, from raising a ruckus about piracy being the ultimate threat to their existences.

But advertisers are the ones spending the cash, so they get to call the shots. More and more that means product integration into content. For blatant examples, consider the side wall ads in soccer or racing video games. For less blatant but more unignorable examples, consider where the team from The Office holds the Dundees… (Did you say Chili’s? Because they’re banking on the fact that you did…) It’s no coincidence that Michael took a client there before the night he first hooked up with Jan. Meanwhile, who is Dunder-Mifflin’s primary competitor, and where did Dwight go to work when he quit? Ever notice the logo on Stanley’s computer? Or remember what Michael brought to the Christmas white elephant?

For the most part, these placements don’t get in the way of the story or the character, or in fact can even lend a certain authenticity. But this week NBC featured placement in Friday Night Lights that seemed to cross the line between clever producing and crass hucksterism.

(MINOR SPOILER ALERT.)

In a subplot of this week’s episode, Jason Street get a job working at Buddy Garrity’s car lot. Street was the former star quarterback of the Dillon Panthers who was paralyzed during a critical game in his senior year. Many of the supporting plotlines of the first season dealt with his recovery, and the stress it put on his relationship with his girlfriend. In season two, with Jason somewhat over the emotional hurdles of his loss, the show has struggled to find a purpose for Jason. He wasn’t featured for a few episodes, until this week, in need of money to fix his truck, he took a job as a car salesman. It’s rough going at first, but after a gutcheck Jason delivers an inspirational speech to a perpetual looky-loo customer and convinces him to buy.

To be fair, the speech is pretty decently written, and it served the arc of this episode at least.

However, at the next commercial break, an announcer reminded us what we had recently seen. We listened to Jason Street repeat his speech about how there’s no time to buy like the present, and how “you” should do it now. Then the announcer reminded us that it was a Chevy Tahoe that Jason had been talking about. Then came a commercial for a Chevy Tahoe.

Given the inelegant way this product placement unfolded, this viewer is left to draw the disturbing conclusion that the creatives must have reverse-engineered that storyline to lead up to that moment of telling us about the product. And even if they didn’t, it sure enough felt like they did.

Friday Night Lights was one of my favorite shows last year. It was, hands-down, the best new show of the ‘06-’07 season. This year, however, FNL has been uneven at best, wavering as to whether it is worthy of a spot on my DVR list. Performances are solid, but a horrible, ratings-grabbing storyline almost ruined the show for me. Characters have been inconsistent from one episode to the next, and motivations seem random. If, in addition to those shortcomings, I’m left thinking character motivation for major, life-changing decisions is so the show can sell Tahoes, this show will finally go off the watchlist, and fast.

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