“Friday Night Lights”NBC/DirecTV
Created by Peter Berg
Starring Kyle Chandler & Connie Britton
Current Season: 3
Number of Episodes to date: 50
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Great news for those of you who are fans of “Friday Night Lights”, NBC has just announced plans for a fourth and fifth season in cooperation with DirecTV. For those who haven’t seen FNL, the show is based on the novel and the motion picture of the same name. The fictional town of Dillon, Texas is the spotlight for the locals and their day-to-day lives on and off the football field. The show’s great ensemble cast is its strength with a combination of veteran television actors such as Kyle Chandler (“Early Edition”) and Connie Britton (“Spin City”) along with the young student athletes, most notably Zach Gilford and Taylor Kitsch, of Dillon High School.
Despite the show’s generally positive reviews and growing list of awards, the ratings have always been an issue. In part because of the writer’s strike in 2008 and the rising costs of show production, NBC and DirecTV agreed to share financial obligations for season 3 of the show. This cost-saving measure is truly an innovative process that hadn’t been executed before with a major network, the success of this partnership may change things. As part of the agreement, season 3 premiered on DirecTV in October and NBC begin airing the season a few months later.
Some big problems do arise as the next 2 seasons are played out. A lot of the main characters are seniors in this 3rd season, including Matt Saracen (Gilford) and Tim Riggins (Kitsch). Jason Street and Brian “Smash” Williams, two main characters in season 1 and 2 have already been phased out. I am worried about the “ER” effect; continually introducing new characters while the originally cast members are written off the show.
2 comments:
I hear your argument about the ER effect ... but then again, I thought the same thing about Saved By the Bell and I actually loved The College Years. Who knows if they'll follow the existing characters or focus on new ones like they've introduced this season with JD
Friday Night Lights the book was a non-fiction novel.
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