Friday Night Lights scores a touchdown with TV audiences
Among long-form television narratives, Friday Night Lights holds a special place. Many who watched its five seasons on the air or caught up with it on DVD believe it contains some of the finest storytelling TV has ever given us. We marvel at how many stirring events take place and how many full-flavoured characters spring to life within a plot focused on a marginal subject, high school football in a small Texas town.
It’s strange that such an accomplished piece of work could get made for television and stranger still that it was so badly distributed that it never found the audience it deserved. But it’s even odder that it had to survive a now legendary mistake that nearly killed it before the second season ended.
