Thanks NickelPickle! Now I understand what is going on...how others already now what happened!! I was just a bit confused...thanks!

OK, so I finally watched the last episode of Season 3 and oh man, I can't stop saying how much I love this show. I have come love every character. Some more than others.
I really look forward to a 4th season....*praying for a 4th*

ebowers--have you seen the first 2 seasons? If not there is a link on the first...you'll love it even more after you watch the first 2 season

Good new FNL fans! NBC and DirectTV have worked out another deal to keep "Friday Night Lights" on the air for two more seasons, according to sources close to the show.

The deal calls for the production of 26 episodes to air over the next two seasons in 13-episodes installments, sources close to the show said.

Although some of the most beloved characters, such as Lyla (Minka Kelley) and Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) have graduated, producers expect them to return for a few episodes to wrap up their stories the way Jason Street (Scott Porter) did this past season. Of course, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler pictured) will be back--even if he isn't coaching the Dillon Panthers.

The seasons will air first on DirecTV's 101 Channel and then on NBC, the same way it worked this year.


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/03/touchdown-friday-night-lights-renewed-for-two-more-seasons.html

Thanks, Mappy..I hadn't seen that yet. That's great! I hope it doesn't lose it's spark with most of the main characters having graduated and leaving.

That's good news! I'll miss the characters though. I love this show

I have not seen the first 2 seasons of this great show, catty, but I do plan to next week during my Spring/Easter break. We can't wait each Friday night to watch this show and have told others to watch it, too.

http://tvcritics.org/television-critics-association-announces-2009-award-nominees/

The Television Critics Association today unveiled its 2009 TCA Award nominations.
NBC leads the list with 11 nominations including comedies “30 Rock,” “The Office” and “Saturday Night Live,” which garnered 7 nominations total. “Friday Night Lights,” which initially aired on DirecTV, got a nomination along with long-time series “ER.” NBC also received a nomination for its coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
“Breaking Bad” (AMC)<----this show is one of my favorites also
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC/DirecTV)
“Lost” (ABC)
“Mad Men” (AMC)
“The Shield” (FX)

That's great. What exactly qualifies as an outstanding achievement? They have some tough competition..i love Lost and Mad Men too.

I have no idea what "outstanding achievement" is, but if I had to guess, "it's a kick-ass show" and it deserves any recognition it can get!!

I follow FNL on ms and they posted a blog...so anyone who is looking for an internship in the Austin area, or if you know anyone, here is the info.


"FNL" Casting office INTERNS needed
As of 8/17/09, we have officially opened the "Friday Night Lights" Extras Casting office in Austin, TX and filming will begin on 9/2/09.

On Location Casting is currently looking for part-time casting office INTERNS who live in the AUSTIN area to help out with answering phones, booking extras, passing out flyers, posting casting notices, answering talent emails, company marketing, paperwork and MUCH more.

Interns MUST have their own laptop computer that they are willing/able to use while volunteering in our office.

If you have 2-3 days a week (or more!) from now until the end of December that you can volunteer in our office for 3-4 hours a day (or more!), please send us an email with your interest and all of your details to: castsubmissions@aol.com (**please DO NOT respond via Myspace!!)

Intern positions may be eligible for college credit. Intern positions could possibly lead to occasional paid work days or paid positions with our company.

From EW's Fall Preview Issue.

Quote:

Season 4 features a Dillon divided, as Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) tackles the job at the reopened East Dillon. "It's turned from him being in a situation where there was so much expectation, to the opposite situation, where there is none," says exec producer Jason Katims. Among East Dillon's new faces: Vince (Michael B. Jordan), a troubled star athlete who clashes with unhappy West Dillon transfer Luke (Matt Lauria), and the Lolita-esque Becky (Madison Burge), who befriends Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) after he beds her mom. Meanwhile, Tami (Conne Britton) gets entangled in what Katims calls a "major controversy that could cost her her career," and Saracen (Zach Gilford) struggles with his choice to remain in Dillon before leaving later this season.

Drama returns on Oct 28 on DirecTV 9-10PM

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/10/21/friday-night-lights-exec-producer-jason-katims-teases-season-4/

Are you ready for some football? No, not Monday Night Football—we’re talking Friday Night Lights! Given that season 4 kicks off just one week from tonight (Oct. 28 at 9 p.m. on DIRECTV; NBC will air these episodes in 2010), FNL exec producer Jason Katims offers up the following teasers to get you fired up. Let us issue a SPOILER ALERT and proceed:
• Dillon will live every week like it’s Rivalry Week now that East Dillon High School has reopened. “The whole idea of this season is about this town being divided in two because of this new team,” says Katims. “And over the course of the season, the lines are literally drawn between these two teams. At times it’s funny but it eventually gets really ugly.”
• Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) will be challenged as he assumes the reins of the East Dillon Lions, who aren’t at the top of their game yet. “He’s got to figure out how to make something out of nothing,” says Katims. “It’s tougher than he can even imagine because with all the obstacles he’s had in the past, it came with a group of football players who all wanted to please this guy. When he walked into a room, they took a knee. These guys don’t…. It becomes less about winning a championship [than] winning a game.”
• Prepare to wave goodbye to Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), the former QB stud who boldly decided to skip school and stay in Dillon with his grandmother Lorraine (Louanne Stephens) and girlfriend Julie (Aimee Teegarden). Alas, now he’ll struggle to find himself. Sample bummer: Delivering a pizza to current QB stud J.D. McCoy, played by Jeremy Sumpter. (Gilford, by the way, will appear in the first six episodes; he’s slated to return for one to two more episodes later in the season.) “Ultimately it’s a love story,” hints Katims about the Matt-Julie arc. “It comes down to: What happens when you find your soulmate too [early] and you realize that the best thing to nurture the relationship might not the best thing for yourself and for your future?”
• Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) will try to sort out his life while working with brother Billy (Derek Phillips) at Riggins Rigs, their new repair shop. After his bedroom is converted into a nursery for Billy’s baby, Tim winds up living in a trailer behind the house of Becky (Madison Burge), an East Dillon student/beauty-queen hopeful who bonds with him after he has a one-night stand with her cocktail waitress mother, Cheryl, played by Alicia Witt. (Yes, Tim Riggins is one Panther who’s not afraid of cougars!) “She has a little bit of a Lolita vibe,” says Katims of Becky. “She and Riggins develop a quirky friendship, and later she becomes embroiled in a controversy that permeates the town, and inadvertently she gets Riggins involved.” As for Tim’s love interest, Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), who left Dillon for Vanderbilt, she’ll appear in two episodes. “An event that happens to one of the characters in the show is going to bringing her back,” says Katims, “and she and Riggins will deal with this relationship that’s been left unfinished.”
• Wanting to enjoy her senior year, Julie (Aimee Teegarden) faces tension in her relationship with Matt as he’s no longer interested in attending high school parties. Plus, notes Katims, “her desire to get into the next phase of her life and become more of an adult is an ongoing story between her and her mom.” And speaking of mom, Tami (Connie Britton) tries to “figure out how to balance the fact that she’d rather be going to the East Dillon games to support her husband, but as the principal, she has to stand up and cheer for the Panthers,” says Katims. Later in the season, Tami comes under fire when she gets enmeshed in a situation with one of the show’s new characters.

• In addition to the aforementioned Becky, we’ll meet several other East Dillon students, including the talented but troubled football player Vince (Michael B. Jordan). “He’s trying to toe that line of becoming a rising star and at the same time doing whatever he needs to do to support his family while his father’s in prison,” says Katims. “And sometimes that puts him in [the position of] doing very questionable things.” Another new face is Luke (Matt Lauria), a standout last year on West Dillon’s JV team who is forced to transfer to East Dillon when it’s discovered that he’s been lying about his address. “He’s a charming, outspoken, upbeat guy who’s been put into a very difficult situation,” says Katims, adding: “He immediately has conflicts with Vince on the team, and these two guys are like oil and water.” And please welcome Jess (Jurnee Smollett), the daughter of ex-football player Virgil “Big Mary” Merriweather (Steve Harris) who’s ”very charismatic, high energy, and knows more about football than most guys know,” says Katims. Juicier still, Jess—who’s had an on-again-off-again relationship with Vince—becomes “romantically entangled” with Landry (Jesse Plemons), who is zoned for East Dillon High and ends up playing for Coach Taylor’s Lions.

Someone got me into this show and I just started watching it a couple weeks ago! It is SOOOOOOOO so good! I love it. I went out and bought all 3 seasons because they were relatively cheap (and also because I have a nicely sized TV DVD collection) so it was hard to pass up. I'm on the 7th episode of season 3 now and loving every minute of it.

I agree! I love shows like that. In that respect, it reminds me a lot of One Tree Hill because FNL is to football what OTH is to basketball. If you like FNL, you should try watching OTH (but you'll want to start at season 1 because if you start with the ones on TV right now you'll be very confused because it's on season 7 haha).

But anyways, I was just coming here to post a really good FNL fan video that I found. I feel like it captures the show perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9f67xBY5Uc

Thank you for that video Bryanna I don't have DirecTV so I am going to watch the new season online later this week or weekend.

New season and some new characters. It should be a good season. So far so good.

Yes! So far I'm loving it, even though there's only been one episode. I don't have DirectTV either so I'm going to have to download the episodes or watch them online every week. The preview for next week looks good too.

I watched it online, but the preview for next season was cut-off. I can't wait though

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1932782,00.html

Friday Night Lights: Back from the Brink

By James Poniewozik

High school dramas, like high school itself, have a ticking clock built in. Time passes, graduation looms, characters outgrow their acne years. Beverly Hills 90210 was fun while it lasted, but eventually Luke Perry and Gabrielle Carteris appeared to be starring in an AARP ad.

Last year, in its third season, the high school football drama Friday Night Lights (loosely based on the book and movie) sent several characters on to college and the wider world, with farewells that stayed true to the show's small-town-Texas realism. In the outstanding finale, coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) was ousted through school politics after the Dillon Panthers' heartbreaking loss in the state championships.

One reason Season 3 could offer that closure was that it seemed unlikely there would be a Season 4. But the low-rated, high-quality FNL has returned on DirecTV's 101 Network (Wednesdays, 9 p.m. E.T.), thanks to a continuation of its cost-sharing deal with the satellite company. (The season will air on NBC sometime next year.)

So where does FNL go from here? The show has an advantage in that it has always been about much more than high school. It's about life in a struggling town where the recession is biting hard, kids grow up early and people rely on faith and football to get by. Also, much more than most high school dramas, it's about the adults — in particular Taylor and his wife Tami (Connie Britton), Dillon's principal.
As Season 4 begins, Taylor gets a new team and new problems. The Dillon school system has been redistricted, and he's been transferred to coach at the reopened East Dillon High, across town and a world away. Whereas Dillon (now West Dillon) was a sports powerhouse, richly funded by alumni who once opted to raise money for a JumboTron rather than classroom resources, East Dillon is overlooked and underfunded. When Taylor visits the school's broken-windowed field house, he's greeted by a raccoon in a locker.

Taylor's fresh start at East Dillon does more than allow for new stories; it highlights the class and race issues that have always percolated on FNL. Tami gets an earful from rezoned parents upset about their kids' being sent to "that hellhole ... with that element." Taylor sees more black and brown faces at East Dillon, including Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan), a juvenile offender who joins the team through a Cops and Jocks program.
And Taylor's move, pitting him against longer odds, establishes him as the true protagonist of the show. At a time when many of the best TV dramas feature antiheroes (House, Breaking Bad, Mad Men), he's a rarity: an example of classical virtues — integrity, loyalty — depicted without gush or cynicism. His signature locker-room slogan "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" would be moving regardless, but the Gary Cooperlike Chandler makes us see the grit and belief with which Taylor delivers it, even when he's pumping up a team he knows probably will lose.
Taylor can be stubborn, hot-tempered and petulant. But he is an actual hero, someone whose virtue is to be respected, not subverted. And he and Tami — whose role is also prominent this season — have one of the most mature, combatively supportive marriages on TV (not to mention, for a 40ish husband and wife in a medium obsessed with young couples, an awfully hot one).
Some of the original students remain, though FNL intends to cycle a few of them off this season as well. Former quarterback Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) is trying to start adult life in Dillon, having given up art school in Chicago to care for his increasingly senile grandmother; the Taylors' daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) may out her parents as hypocrites when she insists on transferring to East Dillon over their objections. And tragic hunk Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) is off to college — if he can overcome his low self-esteem and bad family history enough to tough it out.
Oh, yeah, there's football too, including, in the first episode, a game as dramatic and moving as any FNL has shown. But if you haven't yet watched — the first three seasons are on DVD — rest assured you don't need to know a tight end from a split end to love this show. Come to it with clear eyes and a full heart, and you can't lose.

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/10/29/the-morning-after-post-game/

The Morning After: Post-Game

Posted by James Poniewozik


It was not a great night for sports in New York City, so it's a good thing Friday Night Lights came back. At least if you have DirecTV, or access to the DirecTV press website. My unscientific poll of Tuned Inland yesterday showed more people in favor of my waiting to write about FNL until it comes back on NBC next year, and more people can watch it.
So of course I'm going to disregard them and write about it here. Just a few specific thoughts I couldn't fit in my review; after this, I'll probably write about FNL only as the mood takes me, unless the readers demand it. (In the meantime, Alan Sepinwall will be recapping the show weekly.) After the jump, some (spoilery, but not too spoilery) bullet points on FNL, and a quick comment on last night's Modern Family:
* TV loves an underdog story, but one occasional problem with FNL's stories is that Coach Taylor was dealing with an overdog team—one with problems, injuries and other setbacks, yes, but a traditional powerhouse. Having him start from zero with East Dillon—and you can't get much more zero than the bloody mess the team was at halftime—is one of several ways hitting the rest button seems to be helping the show.
* The different racial balance of East Dillon (at least from what we've seen on camera) promises some interesting stories about the social strata of Dillon, but I like that the episode didn't make anything unnaturally overt. The fight between Landry and his teammate, for instance, didn't necessarily have a racial subtext—but it could have. Likewise, when Taylor lays down the law about (among other things) respect and no jewelry on the field, it seems like a disproportionate number of black players joined the walkout.
* "What's it like being the guy who used to be Tim Riggins?" I think FNL will generally be better off not prolonging the stay of its graduate characters too long, but it would be interesting seeing Riggins deal with this for a while.
* Sometimes I forget how funny FNL is, but the confused exchange with new player Vince (Taylor asks if he's ever played football and Vince says "Madden"; the coach doesn't realize he means the videogame) was priceless.

Just caught up on the premiere episode. So far so good.

I just finished watching last week's episode. The relationship between the Taylor's is so good. Very realistic. I miss some of the old characters. And the new ones I still have to remember their names.