The Main Event: Friday Night Lights 101

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You may have heard that Season Two of Friday Night Lights kicks off tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBC, giving you the chance to stare at the lovely Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly, below) on-screen instead of online for a change!

But seriously, folks. This premiere is not to be missed.

The only chance to save FNL from cancellation is to make sure everyone you know gets hooked in a hurry. Just ask Adam Best, a sports columnist from epiccarnival.com and a new Friday Night Lights convert. He writes:

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The Lovely Lyla
I recently came down with a cold and ripped through Friday Night Lights: Season One in less than a week.

I'm actually glad I got sick, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have listened to everyone who raved about the show and checked it out. Point blank - it's effing unbelievable, probably my favorite show on TV right now (yes, even including Entourage).

My goal is to spark your interest with this post so that you too will be flat out hooked on FNL, sort of like Travis Henry is on baby making.

Unfortunately - as ESPN's Bill Simmons and others have pointed out at length - most people aren't hooked at this point. Friday Night Lights was snubbed by viewers and The Emmy Awards alike during its first season.

Fans and insiders alike now fear that the series will get canned before the second season even really gets rolling. How could this happen to such a bad-ass series?

Here's how:

  • Friday Night Lights the movie (2004) faired somewhat well with critics, but flopped commercially, desecrating the franchise's name in the process. Plus, the classic H.G. Bissinger book has been out since 1991, making Friday Night Lights the series seem like a retread from day one.
  • The show was initially marketed - or at least perceived, by many - as a show created solely for football fanatics.

Continue reading this Friday Night Lights analysis here.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.

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Friday Night Lights Quotes

"When Jason Street went down the first game of the season, everybody wrote us off. Everybody. And yet here we are at the championship game. Forty thousand people out there have also written us off. But there are a few out there who still believe in you."

Eric Taylor

We will all at some time in our lives, fall. Life is so very fragile, we are all vulnerable, and we will all at some point in our lives, fall, we will all fall.
We must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special, that it can be taken from us, and that when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. We will all be tested.
It is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.

Eric Taylor

Friday Night Lights Music

  Song Artist
Muzzle of Bees Wilco iTunes
Song Evergreen The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Song Bang a Gong (Get it On) T. Rex