Friday Night Lights - SAVE THIS SHOW

I am going to stray from the reality shows this blog usually covers for a minute today.

I watched a few episodes of the show Friday Night Lights ON DEMAND right before Christmas because of some critical buzz, and have never looked back. THIS is the best show on television! Last night was the season finale and this show is on the brink of being cancelled. It has been bounced around the schedule, and in doing so, hasn't developed the audience the network would have liked. If you haven't seen it, all 21 episodes are available here. If you can find time, take a couple of hours and indulge yourself in this show. I promise you that you won't be sorry!

The show on the surface is about a high school football team called the Dillon Panthers, from Dillon, TX. BUT, this show is about so much more than football. It's about the players, their coaches, their friends and families, and the lives they live in the small town of Dillon. It is about their success and failures, their good times and bad, and their relationship's with each other.

It might take a few episodes to meet and get to know these people because they are complex and real. It is worth the investment of your time.

Here are a few things that have been written about the show:

USA TODAY:

"Few series have ever better captured the mix of open hearts and small minds, kindness and cruelty, that so often mingle in a small town's devotion to its high school. And few series have ever laid better claims on your emotions or manipulated them so efficiently that you may find yourself laughing and crying at the same time."
Robert Bianco
USA TODAY, April 11, 2007

The Hollywood Reporter:
"When I watched, something unexpected happened. I couldn’t take my eyes off these characters. It wasn’t just their impossibly good looks. I was fascinated by their lives and their interactions. I couldn’t wait to see them each week, to see how they would deal with their triumphs and disasters, to revel in their basic goodness, to find joy and sorrow in lives that, as it turned out, were more familiar to me than I imagined.

If there was better dramatic writing on TV this season or a cast with more chemistry, I must have missed it."
Barry Garron
The Hollywood Reporter, April 10, 2007

Salon:
"If only more people knew what a rare and beautiful thing they're missing: a drama that sets the bar much higher than it has to, daring to take on the romance and heartbreak of being a teenager with honesty, compassion and wit. The writers don't take shortcuts with pointless fisticuffs and cliques and ironic asides; they stick to the emotional center of the story at all times."
Heather Havrilesky
Salon, March 7, 2007

If you like it...and you will...tell NBC...here's how: http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/

another site: http://fightforlights.com/

The decision on whether this show will be in the fall season lineup will be made mid May...so don't delay! Here are a few of the characters...

Coach Taylor and his wife, Tami, the high school guidance counselor

Their daughter Julie and Matt Saracen, the teams quarterback

Lyla Garrity, cheerleader, and her Dad