Friday Night Lights (TV series)

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Friday Night Lights
Intertitle, seasons 4–5
Genre
  • Sports drama
  • Teen drama
  • Family drama
Inspired by
H. G. Bissinger
Developed byPeter Berg
Starring
Theme music composerW. G. Snuffy Walden
Composers
  • W. G. Snuffy Walden[1]
  • Bennett Salvay
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons5
No. of episodes76 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
Production locations
Cinematography
Running time43 minutes
Production companies
Original release
Network
ReleaseOctober 3, 2006 (2006-10-03) –
February 9, 2011 (2011-02-09)

Friday Night Lights is an American

H. G. Bissinger, which was adapted as the 2004 film of the same name by Berg. Executive producers were Brian Grazer, David Nevins, Sarah Aubrey and Jason Katims who also served as showrunner. The series follows a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, a small, close-knit community in rural West Texas. It features an ensemble cast led by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, portraying high school football coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami Taylor
, a school faculty member. The primary cast includes characters associated with football and high school. The show uses its small-town backdrop to address many issues in contemporary American culture like family values, school funding, racism, substance use, abortion and lack of economic opportunities.

Friday Night Lights premiered on October 3, 2006. It aired for two seasons on

writers' strike, it was shortened to 15 episodes. Although the show had garnered critical acclaim and passionate fans, the series suffered low ratings and was in danger of cancellation after the second season. To save the series, NBC struck a deal with DirecTV to co-produce three more seasons; each subsequent season premiered on DirecTV's 101 Network, with NBC rebroadcasts a few months later.[2] The series ended its run on The 101 Network on February 9, 2011, after five seasons.[3][4][5]

Though Friday Night Lights never garnered a sizable audience,

Peabody Award, a Humanitas Prize, a Television Critics Association Award and several technical Primetime Emmy Awards. At the 2011 Primetime Emmy Awards, the show was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton also scored multiple nominations for the Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress awards for a drama series. Executive producer Jason Katims was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Chandler and Katims each won the Emmy in 2011.[7]

Background

Inspiration

Friday Night Lights was inspired by

H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger's non-fiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990) and the 2004 film based on it. The book, which explores the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers, a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, was a factual work of documentary journalism. The people featured were not renamed in the book.[8] The Universal Pictures film, which stars Billy Bob Thornton and was directed by Peter Berg
, Bissinger's second cousin, based its characters on the residents of Odessa, c. 1988.

Conception

Peter Berg, who directed the film, developed the series, and wrote and directed the pilot episode.

Once filming on the movie was completed, Berg began to explore adapting the story for television. Berg later said he had regretted having to jettison many of the interpersonal topics from the book because of the time constraints of a feature film. Creating a TV series, particularly one based on fictional characters, allowed him to address many of those elements in-depth.[9]

He decided to set the series in a fictional town of Dillon, Texas, with some characteristics of Odessa. The football team was given the Panthers name. Berg deliberately carried elements from the film to the series, particularly for the pilot, which was closely related to the film.[10] He cast Connie Britton as the wife of head coach Eric Taylor, and Brad Leland as Buddy Garrity, a major businessman and football booster, in roles similar to those they played in the film.

Production

Filming for the show's pilot began in February 2006 in

RRISD Complex. The Dillon Panther football team and coaches' uniforms were based on the uniforms of the Pflugerville Panthers. Some of the scenes were filmed at Texas School for the Deaf.[12]

Berg's observation of local high school students while preparing to film the movie inspired his development of some of the characters. For example, Jason Street, the character whose promising football career is ended by a spinal injury in the pilot, was inspired by a local event.

David Edwards, a football player from San Antonio's Madison High, was paralyzed during a November 2003 game. Berg was at the game when this accident occurred; he was profoundly affected by Edwards' injury and how it overturned his life. Berg set up a similar incident in the pilot.[13]

Performances

While relying on a script each week, the producers decided at the outset to allow the cast leeway in what they said and did on the show. Their decisions could affect the delivery of their lines and the blocking of each scene. If the actors felt that something was untrue to their character or a mode of delivery didn't work, they were free to change it, provided they still hit the vital plot points.[14]

This freedom was complemented by filming without rehearsal and without extensive blocking. Camera operators were trained to follow the actors, rather than having the actors stand in one place with cameras fixed around them. The actors knew that the filming would work around them. Executive producer Jeffrey Reiner described this method as "no rehearsal, no blocking, just three cameras and we shoot."[15]

Working in this fashion profoundly influenced everyone involved with the show. Series star Kyle Chandler said: "When I look back at my life, I'm going to say, 'Wow, [executive producer] Peter Berg really changed my life.'"[16] Executive producer and head writer Jason Katims echoed this sentiment, saying: "When I first came on [the FNL] set, I thought, it's interesting – this is what I imagined filmmaking would be, before I saw what filmmaking was."[17]

Filming

All five seasons of Friday Night Lights were filmed in Austin and Pflugerville.[18] With the show yielding roughly $33 million a year in revenue,[19] other states courted the production company after the state of Texas failed to pay all the rebates it had promised to the show's producers.[18] The Texas legislature authorized funding to match the offers of other states, and the production company preferred to stay near Austin, so the show remained in Texas.[19]

Friday Night Lights is unusual for using actual locations rather than stage sets and sound stage. These factors together with reliance on filming hundreds of locals as extras, gives the series an authentic feel and look.[17]

The producers used a cinéma vérité (documentary-style) filming technique. Three cameras were used for each shoot and entire scenes were shot in one take. In contrast, most productions film a scene from each angle and typically repeat the scene several times while readjusting lighting to accommodate each shot. The first takes usually made the final cut. By filming a scene all at once, the producers tried to create an environment for the actors that was more organic and allowed for the best performances.[20]

The series borrowed the uniforms, cheerleaders, fans and stadium of the Pflugerville Panthers. Producers shot Pflugerville games and used them as game footage in the series.

Texas State University
in San Marcos were used as the setting and creative inspiration for the fictional Texas Methodist University. The show features the fictional Herrmann Field, named for George Herrmann, the head coach of the Pflugerville Panthers.

Some scenes were filmed outside Texas. On June 20, 2010, scenes were filmed at Temple University, which was to portray the fictional Braemore College. An episode from Julie's senior year in high school was filmed in the Boston area, at Boston College,[21] Boston University, and Tufts University.

Some scenes at fictional Oklahoma Tech University were filmed at

The University of Texas at Austin.[22]

Marketing

Promotional website with Toyota.

Initially targeted at the youth market, the show emphasized the football element. NBC teamed with social networking site

FastWeb.[23]

To complement this promotion, NBC sent out "School Spirit" kits to 1,000 high schools around the country. These kits included posters, pom-poms, mini-footballs and disposable cameras, all bearing the show's logo. The kits also contained copies of the show's pilot episode on DVD.[24] The network repeated this promotion for its second season promotion, when it teamed with HouseParty.com to send out 1,000 "Party Kits", which contained advance copies of the Season 2 opener along with other promotional material.[25]

NBC also paired with

AOL Instant Messenger icons, screensavers and desktop wallpaper. Students who registered could also download free movie theater passes to special early screenings of the pilot episode. These movie theater screenings took place in 50 cities nationwide and ran until a week before the show premiered on NBC.[26]

In the later part of the season, NBC chose to switch course and pursue the female demographic. The network designed a strategy based on the personal elements of the show, giving the show the tagline, "It's about life". NBC Marketing President Vince Manze stressed that the goal was to assure viewers that the show was family and relationships as well as athletics. The network ran 30-second spots in movie theaters that featured cast members and fans being interviewed about the show.[27]

Cast and characters

Young members of the Friday Night Lights cast

As a show about the community of Dillon, Texas, Friday Night Lights has an ensemble cast. The show features Panthers' football coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), who strives to balance his work, family, status in a sometimes confrontational community and his personal ambitions. His family – wife Tami Taylor (Connie Britton), a guidance counselor turned principal at Dillon High, and teenage daughter Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden) – are also central to the show. Coach Taylor and Tami are the only two characters to appear in every episode.

Outside of the Taylor family, the show explores the lives of the Dillon high school football players. In the pilot, Coach Taylor's protege and star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) suffers an in-game spinal injury that ends his football career. He faces life as a paraplegic. At first, Street struggles with these disabilities and the upturn of his life. Gradually, he copes with his new reality. Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), his girlfriend, undergoes her own changes, making a transition from a Panthers cheerleader to a Christian youth leader.

Because of Street's injury, sophomore

Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons). Star running back Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) works to get a college football scholarship. Fullback Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) struggles with alcoholism and complicated family problems. His older brother Billy Riggins (Derek Phillips), while not his legal guardian, serves as Tim's caretaker. Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki
) stars as a town vixen who wants to leave Dillon for a better life. Involved with Riggins, Tyra eventually develops a complicated relationship with Landry Clarke.

The fourth and fifth seasons shift focus to the East Dillon Lions, now coached by Eric Taylor. The fourth season introduces several new characters, including Vince Howard (

Madison Burge), a beauty-queen hopeful who has complicated family issues; Becky also develops a deep relationship with Riggins. Jess Merriweather (Jurnee Smollett), an East Dillon student who works at her father's restaurant and cares for her three younger brothers; she briefly dates Landry and has a relationship with Vince; and shows aspirations of being a football coach. Hastings Ruckle (Grey Damon
) is introduced in the fifth season, a basketball player turned football player, who serves as a receiver for the Lions.

Plot

Season one

Season one revolves around two main events: Coach Eric Taylor beginning as head coach and the injury and paralysis of star quarterback Jason Street in the first game of the season. Coach Taylor's career depends on his ability to get the Dillon Panthers to the state championship, despite the loss of Street. If the team suffers a losing streak, he knows his family will no longer be welcome in Dillon.

Season two

Season two begins with Coach Taylor living and working in Austin as an assistant coach at fictional Texas Methodist University, while wife Tami remains in Dillon with daughter Julie and newborn baby Gracie. The Panthers' new coach, Bill McGregor, creates friction between Smash and Matt by showing blatant favoritism to Smash and alienates many members of the football community. Buddy engineers the firing of the new coach and persuades Taylor to return.

Season three

The season begins with Coach Taylor's having failed to lead the Panthers to another State championship the year before, creating new pressure for him. Quarterback Matt Saracen's position is threatened by the arrival of freshman J.D. McCoy, an amazing natural talent who comes from a rich family with an overbearing father, Joe. Matt eventually moves to wide receiver after Taylor names J.D. McCoy the starting quarterback, but Matt is pushed back into his former role in the playoffs. Matt and Julie Taylor reconcile, and rekindle their romance.

Season four

Season 4 kicks off with Eric Taylor struggling as coach at the underprivileged and underfunded East Dillon High. A new character, Becky, is introduced when Tim Riggins rents a trailer on her mother's property. Becky becomes pregnant by Luke and decides to get an abortion. Matt Saracen moves to Chicago without saying goodbye to his girlfriend or his best friend. Tim Riggins falls back into criminal activity, opens a chop shop, and ends up in jail.

Season five

Billy Riggins joins Coach Taylor as a special teams coach for the East Dillon Lions. Eric Taylor has strong hopes for the team to go to state. Vince's troubles cause his relationship with Jess to take a hit. Buddy Garrity becomes a father again when Buddy Jr. is sent back to Dillon to get help from his father. Julie's college experience is nothing like she imagined. Julie looks for support from Matt Saracen, who is living in Chicago and attending art school. In the end, she moves in with him and they get engaged. Tim is approved for early release. Buddy gives him a job as a bartender at his bar. The series ends with Eric coaching a new high school team in Philadelphia.

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast airedNetwork
DirecTV
413October 28, 2009 (2009-10-28)February 10, 2010 (2010-02-10)
513October 27, 2010 (2010-10-27)February 9, 2011 (2011-02-09)

Reception

Critical response

Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler received unanimous praise for their performances throughout the series.

Although the series never had a high viewership, it was met with critical acclaim and has a strong fan-base. On the

ESPN Magazine implored readers of his column in the September 24, 2007 issue to watch the show, calling it "the greatest sports-related show ever made."[31] Positive reviews also came from USA Today,[32] the San Francisco Chronicle,[33] and international sources, with The Guardian's Jonathan Bernstien calling the pilot "beautifully shot" and the Metro awarding it 4 out of 5 stars.[34]

Throughout its inaugural season, many online journalists responded positively to the show. Matt Roush of TV Guide dedicated several of his "Roush Dispatch" columns to the show calling the last episodes of season one "terrifically entertaining"[35] while Zap2it's Amy Amatangelo asked her readers to "promise to watch [the last 4 episodes of] Friday Night Lights."[36] The show's pilot did, however, receive negative reviews as well. The Philadelphia Inquirer's review was particularly harsh, calling the show a "standard high school sports soap opera."[28]

Season two reviews were considerably less positive than for the first, with the Landry and Tyra murder plot being particularly panned by critics. The Los Angeles Times said that the show had lost its innocence, while The Boston Globe said the event was "out of sync with the real-life tone of the show."[37][38] Others were more positive, though, with Variety saying "faith should be shown in showrunner/writer Jason Katims" while The New York Times said "to hold Friday Night Lights to a measure of realism would be to miss what are its essentially expressionistic pleasures."[39][40]

E! Online ranked it number 4 on her list, "Top 20 TV Series of the Past 20 Years".[47]

Friday Night Lights's final season was lauded by critics. Based on 10 reviews, the season obtained a score of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim"

The Huffington Post's[55] and E! Online's[56]
2011's Best TV Shows.

In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked Friday Night Lights No. 22 in its of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time".[57]

Awards and accolades

Friday Night Lights won a

Television Critics Association Award, and has earned multiple Writers Guild of America nominations. The show's two leading actors, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, received Emmy nominations for their performances in 2010, while executive producer Jason Katims won two Humanitas Prize awards for writing.[59]

In 2011, after concluding its run, the show was honored by four Emmy nominations and Kyle Chandler won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Jason Katims won for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "Always".[7]

Fan base

Friday Night Lights enjoys what former NBC President Kevin Reilly called a "passionate and vocal [fanbase]". This fan dedication has shown itself in everything from advertisers expressing their support for the show[60] to news outlets getting massive amounts of support mail after running positive pieces about the show.[17]

After some statements made by NBC's Entertainment head Ben Silverman about the future of the show and the fact that everything seemed to point that Friday Night Lights wouldn't return after the writers' strike, fans put together several campaigns. Save FNL Campaign raised money to send footballs and contributions to charity foundations that were related to the show. The Save FNL Campaign raised a total of $15,840 for 18,750 footballs, $2061 for charity, and $924 worth of DVDs for troops stationed overseas.[61]

Television ratings

U.S. ratings

Though it was critically acclaimed, Friday Night Lights never enjoyed high ratings. The first two seasons averaged roughly 6 million viewers each.[62][63] Ratings dropped in subsequent seasons with the third season averaging 4.6 million viewers,[64] the fourth season with 3.8 million,[65] and fifth season with 3.6 million.[66]

International ratings

The show's pilot, which aired on February 21, 2007, on

DVR ratings

On December 29, 2006

Digital Video Recorder
to record shows for later viewing. These ratings, called "live plus seven", include all viewers who use a DVR to record the show and then watch it within a week of its initial airing.

According to the Nielsen numbers, DVR viewers increased Friday Night Lights ratings by 7.5% overall in December.[68] When Nielsen monitored viewers again in April 2007 the increase went up to 17% for the week ending on April 8.[69]

Affluent viewers

On March 5, 2007, Media Life Magazine reported that Friday Night Lights was one of the most popular shows among "affluent viewers" who had little experience playing football. This was determined using a report from Magna Global who in turn used analysis done by Nielsen Media Research. Affluence in the study was determined by yearly income.

In the study, Friday Night Lights tied for the 11th most watched show by affluent viewers. According to the study viewers of the show have a

median household income of $65,000 per year.[70]

Distribution

Online episodes

Streaming videos, such as cast interviews and the full episode from the previous week, have been available on NBC.com since the series' inception. In December 2006, NBC expanded this selection to include every episode of the season. The move to offer every episode was made for only a few select shows and represents a marketing push on NBC's part.[71]

In addition to the free ad-support offerings, every episode of Friday Night Lights became available for download on the iTunes Store on February 10, 2007, for $1.99 per episode. As a special promotion, the pilot was initially offered as a free download.[72] The series was available on Netflix through October 1, 2017.[73] The series returned to Netflix in the United States on August 1, 2021.[74]

Syndication

ABC Family acquired syndication rights for the first four seasons and began airing reruns September 6, 2010,[75] but it was pulled on October 18, 2010, due to low ratings.[76] In July 2011, it was announced that ESPN Classic had acquired the rights of all five seasons and started airing the series beginning on July 12, 2011.[77]

In an attempt to bolster series ratings, NBC repositioned reruns of the show to air on its sister network

Bravo, during the weeks leading up to the season one finale on NBC. These episodes aired on a schedule of one hour every Friday and three hours every Saturday. Bravo is known to have an audience that is upscale and largely female, which is in line with the new strategy of NBC's then-President Kevin Reilly (now at FOX) for selling the show.[78] When questioned about this strategy, he admitted to having regrets about initially marketing the show incorrectly, saying: "It's been so clear to me that [the marketing for] the show ended up confusing people in terms of what [the public thought] it was supposed to be". He said he felt the show is, at its core, a "women's show", and his wish is that the marketing had reflected that to a greater extent.[60]

Once the 2006–2007 television season ended, NBC planned to air reruns throughout the summer in the hopes of gaining new viewers during the summer hiatus. Despite rising ratings for the reruns, NBC abruptly pulled them from the network's schedule on June 24, 2007. NBC resumed airing reruns in late August/early September, timed to the Season 1 DVD release.[79]

TeenNick acquired the rights in 2015 and began airing the series, in chronological order, on April 10, 2015, with a week-long event in which three episodes aired nightly.[80]

DirecTV

During the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, NBC Universal's decision to release the Season 2 DVD with only the 15 produced episodes and comments by NBC chief Ben Silverman led to speculation that the show would be canceled.[81]

In March 2008, it was confirmed that NBC had picked up the series for a third season, after a cost-sharing partnership between NBC and DirecTV was struck. The agreement had first run episodes airing exclusively on DirecTV, and the episodes aired on NBC at a later date.[82] Season 3 premiered exclusively on DirecTV channel 101, with the episodes replaying on NBC beginning on January 16, 2009. In March 2009, NBC announced it had renewed the series for two more seasons.[83]

Home media releases

DVD and Blu-ray

The first season was released on DVD in region 1 on August 28, 2007, and in region 2 on October 29, 2007.[84] Special features include deleted scenes from several episodes and a featurette titled "Behind The Lights: Creating The First Season of Friday Night Lights".[85]

The second season was released on DVD in region 1 on April 22, 2008, and in region 2 on February 11, 2013.[86] Special features include deleted scenes from several episodes, audio commentaries for "Last Days of Summer", "Are You Ready for Friday Night" and "There Goes the Neighborhood" and a featurette titled "Friday Night Lights Cast & Producers at the Paley Festival in L.A.".[87]

The third season was released on DVD in region 1 on May 19, 2009, and in region 2 on March 25, 2013.[88] Special features include deleted scenes from various episode and an audio commentary for "Tomorrow Blues".[89]

The fourth season was released on DVD in region 1 on August 17, 2010, and in region 2 on May 20, 2013.[90] Special features include deleted scenes from various episodes, audio commentary for "East of Dillon", and several behind-the-scenes featurettes.[91]

The fifth season was released on DVD in region 1 on April 5, 2011, and in region 2 on August 12, 2013.[92] Special features include deleted scenes from several episodes, audio commentaries for "Don't Go" and "Always", a featurette titled "The Lights Go Out", and a photo gallery.[93]

A complete series box set containing all the episodes and material from the individual season sets was released in region 1 on October 4, 2011.[94]

In March 2016, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series in region 1; they subsequently re-released the first two seasons on DVD on September 6, 2016.[95] On September 26, 2017, Mill Creek Entertainment re-released the complete series on DVD and also released the complete series on Blu-ray for the first time; however, these releases lacked the previously included special features.[96]

Soundtracks

Two soundtracks with music featured on the show were released. The first,

W. G. Walden. The score for both the film and television show, along with all background music and all instrumental music is performed by Explosions in the Sky
.

Cancelled film sequel

In July 2011, it was revealed that creator and executive producer Peter Berg was interested in continuing the series, as a feature film.

Imagine Television would produce the film, with Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton set to return.[98] In May 2013, executive producer Brian Grazer confirmed the film was continuing to be developed.[99] In December 2013, Berg confirmed that a film would not be moving forward.[100]

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