Friday Night Lights

Here's an interesting Friday Night Lights casting note - an insider at TV Guide is reporting that the addition of pretty newcomer Madison Burge as Becky (a beauty pageant princess) will cause scandal in a story line involving Tami Taylor and Tim Riggins.

Interesting threesome. Sorry. But come on, it totally is.

Becky, 15, comes from a working-class background and is raised by a single mom.

She uses her looks to get what she wants. When that fails, she can always fall back on her charm and humor. In that sense she is very far from alone in high school.

One assumes Tami will be her principal. But what is she doing with Tim Riggins?

We don't even wanna know. Okay, we totally do. But we assume it means more trouble with Riggins. It seems to find the guy like a magnet. What else is new?

Friday Night Lights does not shooting until September, but the rumors, news (see Monday's note on some new recruits) and gossip surrounding the new season is heating up.

Here's what Aimee Teegarden (Julie Taylor) told E! about her vision for season four:

"I really hope there's a dance this season, because we've never actually had a real prom! I want a corsage. I want a dress. I want the family pictures. The whole shebang."

Who would be Julie's date? "Matt Saracen could take me." Obviously.

"They could still go to prom together, right? I would have to ask him though," Teegarden mused. "At least I think that's how it works when your date is not in high school."

As for whether Aimee Teegarden and other cast members have creative input, the star said, "Sometimes I talk to [executive producer] Jason Katims, and say, 'Julie needs to do this.'"

"Then the next thing you know it'll be written in. It's really funny."

Hopefully that means Matt and Julie break it down on the dance floor when Friday Night Lights returns to DirecTV in October. NBC will re-air the season in early 2010.

Up-and-coming actor Michael B. Jordan (no relation to the basketball legend) will be joining Friday Night Lights as Vince, East Dillon’s resident troublemaker.

The alum of All My Children and The Wire is joining will play the team's junior running back, a dangerous and menacing type with a crime-riddled upbringing.

He quickly finds himself at odds with the team’s new pretty boy Luke.

Speaking of Luke, he'll be played by Lipstick Jungle alum Matt Lauria!

In a departure from his previous role as Lindsay Price’s gay assistant on the late NBC soap, Lauria joining the Season 4 cast in the series regular role.

Luke is a charming yet cocky junior who reluctantly finds himself playing for Coach Taylor’s East Dillon squad, and one of four new characters being introduced to help fill the huge void left by departing Adrianne Palicki, Minka Kelly, and Zach Gilford.

Michael B. Jordan, left, and Matt Lauria have joined the acclaimed cast of Friday Night Lights, which begins its 13-episode fourth season run October 28 on DirecTV.

With the return of Friday Night Lights right around the corner, discussion has centered on how the critically acclaimed NBC and DirecTV series will wrap up the story lines of all the kids who graduated from Dillon High School and are now going to college.

Not even the actors know the answer to that.

Jesse Plemons (Landry Clarke) revealed that the cast isn't even shooting the new season until the beginning of September. Until then, all we can do is speculate.

"They kind of left everything up in the air," said Plemons. "I think Tyra's not going to be there the first season, but she might be there the second (of the two remaining)."

He joked, "Maybe we'll be texting back and forth, or I'll get an email from Tyra."

What does the future hold for Julie, Matt and Landry?

As for the show's storybook romance, Aimee Teegarden has high hopes for Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and her character, Julie in Season 4 of Friday Night Lights:

"I do [want to see them together]. There's something special and sweet about Julie and Matt's relationship that it has to stay together, or else I feel like we'll have a lot of upset fans."

"Hopefully Matt breaks up with Julie though, so fans can't blame me."

Are Matt and Julie's romantic days over, or at least numbered, on Friday Night Lights?

Not according to cast member Aimee Teegarden, who said that even Zach Gilford’s reduced role on Friday Night Lights this season can keep Matt and Julie apart.

“It’s all about Matt and Julie,” she professed, “it’s forever-after love.”

Swoon. Check out EW's interview with the talented teen post-jump ...

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During the NBC session of this week's Television Critics Association press tour, entertainment president Angela Bromstad took to the microphone.

She addresssed the status of three Peacock shows: the scheduling of Chuck and Friday Night Lights; and the structuring of Southland. Here's what she had to say about each:

On the new focus of Southland: “[The show] tried to do too much in those [initial] six episodes, It became [too] serialized. It’s now going to focus on Regina King and Ben Mackenzie and those two sets of officers." (Note: this is evidenced by the new poster for the series, shown below)

On Chuck's mid-season premiere date: The show is “is on a great track creatively," but there are no plans to move up its midseason launch. However, there may be room for fresh episodes to “run over into the summer... those are discussions we will continue to have.”

On delaying season three of Friday Night Lights until the summer of 2010: “Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the ratings to justify putting it on the fall schedule.”

Plans for Adrianne Palicki to come back to Friday Night Lights this fall to give Tyra Collette some closure have hit a new snag, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"I'm actually going to be shooting [Red Dawn] during the fourth season, so I don't know if I'm going back," she said while promoting her upcoming thriller Legion.

"I know they want me to [come back]."

The actress confessed that the thought of leaving Friday Night Lights for good makes her "very sad, I had such a great time on that show. They're like my family."

There's always Season 5 - which is guaranteed to actually take place after the show's highly-unusual two-season pickup. The show returns on DirecTV this fall.

As one of the few original cast members set to star on the fourth season of Friday Night Lights full time, what's next for Taylor Kitsch's Tim Riggins on the show?

When E! suggested Riggins become an assistant coach for East Dillon's new rag tag football team, Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton replied enthusiastically:

"That's not a bad idea. They tried to do that with Scott Porter's character (Jason Street, in Season Two) so it would be funny if it was Tim Riggins doing it this time."

We also saw Riggins do some impromptu coaching during his short-lived suspension from the team (below), so maybe it's more of a natural fit than we might think.

What do you think? Should #33 help coach the team? On another Riggins note, rumor has it he does not stay faithful to Lyla while she's away at college. Shocked?

While no guest stars for Friday Night Lights' upcoming fourth season have been set yet, Connie Britton admitted she's already campaigning for a visit by her friend Ron Perlman, whom fans of FX's Sons of Anarchy know needs no introduction.

"It would be so fun if he came in and was some awful coach, a really hardass coach," Connie said in an interview with E!. "Of course, Ron is busy doing Sons of Anarchy."

Connie also said she would love to show up on Friday Night Lights executive producer Jason Katims' new NBC show Parenthood, but scheduling conflicts won't allow it.

Similarly, the outstanding actress who plays Tami Taylor said. "At some point they were talking to me about doing some stuff on Californication, which I would really love. It couldn't work out, scheduling-wise, but if it ever did, it would be fun."

While Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton recently said the series' two-season pickup would likely mean the end of the show in 2011, she now says, "You never know—if it does do really, really well, maybe they would go on for more seasons."

Either way, what do the next - and possible final - two seasons hold?

Peter Berg, who adapted the book and film of the same name for television, is directing the first episode, which will likely have a time jump similar to Season Two.

Said Connie Britton of the new season, "I bet they will do it from that three-month ending to the beginning of the new school season, which would be September."

And if a sixth season of Friday Night Lights isn't ordered after the fourth and fifth?

"Everybody is really embracing the idea of having two seasons and being able to be really specific with these arcs and know where we're going to end up," she said.

"That's exciting to be able to do that on a TV show. I really do feel like these two seasons are going to be really strong. I think it's going to be a lot of change."

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