Friday Night Lights

[Arles]

Yeah, love this show. But, five seasons is probably enough. It will venture into an "ER-like" recycle pattern if it went any longer.

[Pyser]

i disagree. 4th season was BY FAR the best. theyve done a better show than any high school show in history (EASILY) of phasing out kids as they graduate and bringing in new students and players.

this show should not end.

[Dr. Sak]

What a great 4th season finale

[Pyser]

i thought the finale was slightly predictable, but this was a top 10 season of tv for me EVER.

easily.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey32

Is there going to be another season? If so will it be the final season?

yes and yes.

[whomario]

just watched all of season 4 in a FNL marathon, lying sick in bed all day ...

am i the only one who didn´t like the 2nd half of the season ? Actually didn´t like it at all ... Maybe the first half was too good to hold it up, but imo it felt quite a bit like season 2 with a ton of stuff not making sense and/or not having any impact on the series but still getting screen time.



Things that i highly disliked (long ass spoilered text coming)

Spoiler

- Matt coming back and basically being trotted out as a slightly confused guy that was apparently a jackass, for no good reason really as his story was finished. The original sendoff wasn´t great either, but bringing him back in some really, really lame "well, let´s explain this again" kind of way just was stupid.
Trying to call Julie i can get and the first scene looked promising, but should have been for more than just needing someone to tell about his life ... And him not having any contact to Landry either ?
There was absolutely no point in bringing him back on the show, none. At least not the way they did it.


-All those over-the-top storylines that were badly reminiscend of that tyra/landry killing the abuser story line : Vince being contracted as a hitman-supporter to get his mom into rehab, Riggins brothers getting all criminal again. Tim getting in it to help his brother ? Yeah, ok. Him getting in it to buy a patch of land ? Yeah ...
And that teen-pregnancy storyline , especially the part with the angry mother of Luke ? Jesus...

- The Luke-injury storyline was just useless as well. Injured, getting pills, , getting different pills, not getting pills anymore, trying to buy pills but not getting any. And ? All the while none of it mattered at all to the grand scheme of things or was even in the least bit put into context.
Him blowing a game because he stepped out of bounds (and not just somewhere in a game where we didn´t even get told the score) ? Yeah, that would have done sth at least.
They didn´t even tell the score of the game he then had to leave injured. I realise it wasn´t about wins or losses, but come on.
It was like they started writing it and then realised "shit, we did the injured angle before. Let´s have him buy drugs and get busted by coach ! Oh wait, we kind of did that as well !"
They didn´t even have Taylor speak a single word about why it was bad he was not telling about the injury. Just didn´t make sense that he suddenly doesn´t adress things like that ...

And in the end, what freaking sense did it make that he announced he might be transfering ? When he got told he wouldn´t play, i also knew 100% he would play. So that didn´t make much sense either. Should at least have done a few scenes of Panthers taunting him or their coaching staff being surprised.
Again, needless storyline.

-Landry kicking a 46 yard field goal ? Yeah, with a kicking technique that could be done better by a 75 year old with arthritis in both knees.
It´s nice having Landry at the center as he was a consistently likeable character, but come on now. At the very least they would have had to invest more time in that angle. Bring in a kicking coach, have him train with a kids soccer team or whatever ...

- Riggins blowing off Becky 4 (or 5 ?) times... At some point that angle was badly played out, wasn´t it ?

another one of those "oh wait, we did that before !" was when this habitat for humanity guy suddenly disapeared with no warning. Did the actor jump of a cliff or what ?

You know what ? When Coach Taylor got news the game wouldn´t be played on their field and he hung up on Tami, i honestly thought he´d just had the idea to just build a field on Riggins land. I guess they then remembered they did that before as well...

i still liked the season overall, but the 2nd part really made me angry at times

[RainMaker]

Season 2 is seen as a huge dropoff from the first. I can confidently tell you though that Seasons 3 and 4 more than make up for it.

[chadritt]

Originally Posted by whomario

just watched all of season 2 in a FNL marathon, lying sick in bed all day ...

am i the only one who didn´t like the 2nd half of the season ? Actually didn´t like it at all ... Maybe the first half was too good to hold it up, but imo it felt quite a bit like season 2 with a ton of stuff not making sense and/or not having any impact on the series but still getting screen time.



Things that i highly disliked (long ass spoilered text coming)

Thats all season four stuff, not season 2. you might want to edit your post so you dont accidentally spoil stuff that hasnt actually aired on NBC yet.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Season 2 is seen as a huge dropoff from the first. I can confidently tell you though that Seasons 3 and 4 more than make up for it.

sorry, meant season 4 of course, seeing as i allready commented on that in length

@ chadritt : Done !

[spleen1015]

Just watched first episode of season 4 on NBC.

Looks good so far.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Just watched first episode of season 4 on NBC.

Looks good so far.

May have looked good on screen but it wasn't on many screens. The 1.2 rating A18-49 managed to hold off a repeat of House by 0.1 in order to finish third in its timeslot.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Just watched first episode of season 4 on NBC.

Looks good so far.

Agreed. Good to have it back.

[RainMaker]

Looks like most of the staff will be making appearances in Season 5. They have Riggins, Tyra, and Saracen signed on to make multiple episode appearances. Street is also supposed to show up sometime during the season.

This show is amazing.

[larrymcg421]

Spoiler

Fuuuuuuuuuuck yeah! Eat shit, Panthers.

[ISiddiqui]

Just finished the season... whoa, what a gut wrenching ending.

[JeeberD]

The season seemed to go by really fast. Was it as many episodes as usual?

[larrymcg421]

The seasons have gone:

Season 1 - 22 episodes
Season 2 - 15 episodes
Season 3 - 13 episodes
Season 4 - 13 episodes

I think season 4 was perhaps a little more ambitious and thus seemed to go by faster because alot of stories had to get truncated. They also had to introduce a ton of new characters as opposed to earlier seasons, so that made it more difficult. I still thought it was a strong year and now that we know some of the new characters really well by now, I'm looking forward to where the story goes with them next season.

[ISiddiqui]

And remember, next season is the last season.

[RainMaker]

Loved this season. Liked most of the new characters with the exception of Becky. My only gripe was that some of the storylines felt rushed at the end. They tend to wrap things up so quickly and/or forget about them.

Still the best show on TV.

[ISiddiqui]

And did anyone really think Luke wasn't going to play at all against the Panthers?

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

And remember, next season is the last season.

What?!

[Dr. Sak]

Yep the last season. They just wrapped up filming the Series Finale two weeks ago.

[spleen1015]

They are still planning on showing this on Directv first then NBC again next summer, right?

[ISiddiqui]

AFAIK, yes.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Just finished the season... whoa, what a gut wrenching ending.

I believe a few months ago you called me crazy when I questioned Tim Riggins greatness. It was in the "Greatest Characters created.. " thread or whatever it was.

I apologize. I have seen the error of my ways.

[whomario]

Makes mental note, *have to watch once more when have time again and weather is crap*

Such an amazing series, can´t wait for season 5. Hope Saracen returns for a few episodes still ...

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by whomario

Makes mental note, *have to watch once more when have time again and weather is crap*

Such an amazing series, can´t wait for season 5. Hope Saracen returns for a few episodes still ...

I believe just about everyone is coming back for at least an episode next season. Most of the cast from Season 1.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

I believe a few months ago you called me crazy when I questioned Tim Riggins greatness. It was in the "Greatest Characters created.. " thread or whatever it was.

I apologize. I have seen the error of my ways.

Apology accepted . It's ok. Just having the awesomeness of Tim Riggins being spread around is thanks enough .

[Dr. Sak]

Starting today at 6pm on ABC Family...FNL will be shown starting with the pilot episode.

[Dr. Sak]

Tomorrow the 5th and final season starts on DirectTV

[thesloppy]

Nice! Thanks for the reminder. I'll miss this show dearly, and consider it criminally underrated, but I'm kinda glad they're going out on top, so to speak, and have had plenty of time to craft an appropriately awesome final season (knock on wood).

[SegRat]

I thought it was a great first episode.

[RainMaker]

I don't think I can wait for this to hit NBC. Going to download it off a torrent.

[Dr. Sak]

Series Finale on Wednesday

[SegRat]

No.

[Dr. Sak]

I won't give away anything about the fifth season except that it starts a little slow and the series finale is really done well. It wraps up 95% of the characters that were on the show.

Hopefully NBC airs the full series finale because without commercials, it is 65 minutes long.

[SegRat]

Sad this has ended. My favorite show on tv right now.

[whomario]

the last 3,4 episodes were great again, the finale was amazing. Sad as hell it´s over but if it had to end i´m glad it did so on such a strong note.

do not read if you haven´t seen it on directv

Spoiler

How amazing was the ending of the state championship game, them cutting it off before the pass was caught with no celebration shown and then later showing the championship rings ? (i took it as "state was important, but that the series had gone way past having to show it", that wasn´t what it was about anymore)
My one complaint is that 1) they broke out of the "silent" game at all and then 2) they didn´t get more of a speech in and spared us the radio guy

Other than that i loved that final football game was shown.

I also loved the way the former main cast was brought back.

Happy to see Matt and Julie together. Zach Gilford was again great, guy can act. It would have been nice if the creators would have let Matt convince Coach alas "you know damn well that i can handle responsibilities, you´ve seen me do it"

[Pyser]

its crazy how much this show made me cry. im devastated it's over. ill miss it terribly.

[RainMaker]

Just finished watching Season 5 on DVD. Very nice season to end a great show. Sad to see it go but they got way more seasons than we could have ever hoped and it went out on top.

The one thing this show does better than others is the little things. So many details you catch when you look back. It also captures life extremely well. There aren't really happy endings, just endings. There was a scene in the 2nd to last episode that captured this show perfectly.

Spoiler

Matt is home to see his Grandma for Christmas and she is ecstatic. Hugs him and is talking about how great it is to see him and then says "Did you tell your Daddy you were coming home?" in the course of the conversation. Matt's reaction is perfect. He maintains a smile and carries on their celebration but is fazed by it. This happy moment is really quite sad. A reminder that his Dad is dead and his Grandmother has dementia in one innocent moment. It's just never black and white on this show, it's all shades of gray. That scene really got to me.

I'll also say that "The Son" in Season 4 was the single greatest episode of television show I've ever seen. Zach Gilford is a remarkable actor and I was blown away by his performance.

If there is anyone out there who hasn't seen this show yet, do it. It's on Netflix Instant and is truly a gem.

[whomario]

agree that "the son" was the high point of the series in terms of acting for any of the characters in it.

Zach Gilford needs a decent film to get going, it´s a joke that he doesn´t get them after theese sort of performances.
Actually he filmed the book adaptation of "The River Why" in 2010 but it still has no release date ...

[spleen1015]

One episode left in the season on NBC. I am sorry to see this show go.

Eric Taylor is one of my favorite characters of all time.

[Dr. Sak]

For those interested ESPN Classic will start airing FNL from the beginning starting July 21st.

[RainMaker]

Overdue. They should have been the ones that picked this show up and cut a deal with NBC.

[whomario]

An Oral History of Friday Night Lights - Grantland

just started rewatching a couple of the first season episodes, so brilliant even on the xth viewing ...

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by whomario

An Oral History of Friday Night Lights - Grantland

just started rewatching a couple of the first season episodes, so brilliant even on the xth viewing ...

This was awesome.

[JonInMiddleGA]

As good as the show may have been (and I'm content to take your word for it) the ratings were just flat out awful.

Monday adjustments correct the overnights downward a tenth for the finale, meaning it finishes its NBC run with a 0.8 A18-49, tied for third in the timeslot with a rerun of Bones and 50% fewer viewers than both a rerun of Shark Tank and new Flashpoint.

[RainMaker]

Yeah, ratings were never good for the show. But they did also release the DVD before the season aired on NBA and it's already been on DirecTV months ago. So any fan of the series has likely seen it all.

[chadritt]

Thats true, Im a BIG fan of the show but I havent watched any of it on NBC because I blazed through my DVDs months ago. Ratings still wouldve been low anyway though.

[k0ruptr]

BAM, I hope it never ends.

Article here:
hxxp://www.tvguide.com/News/Friday-Night-Lights-Movie-1035383.aspx

Friday Night Lights may be coming to a theater near you — again.

Executive Producer Peter Berg, who directed the original film on which the NBC series is based, confirms to TVGuide.com that he is developing a Friday Night Lights movie. A man of few words, Berg merely states, "I am," when asked if he's developing the film to continue the story of Coach and Tami Taylor (Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, respectively).

News of a possible film came out on Thursday when Grantland.com editor in chief Bill Simmons tweeted, "Peter Berg told us he wants to do an FNL movie with Chandler/Britton off the final episode."