0/5

Airdate: Friday Night Lights

One of the more recently-acclaimed dramas, Friday Night Lights is finally coming to Australia.

Although the NBC drama is set against the backdrop of a Texan college football team it has received rave reviews from critics for the way it addresses contemporary issues.

The New York Times wrote “if the season is anything like the pilot, this new drama about high school football could be great — and not just television great, but great in the way of a poem or painting.” The Washington Post similarly praised the series as “extraordinary in just about every conceivable way.” ESPN Magazine called it “the greatest sports-related show ever made.” Along with an Emmy and a Television Critics Assosication Award, the the American Film Institute has twice recognised it as “culturally significant.”

TEN is set to screen the feature film, which was the forerunner to the series at 6:30pm Saturday March 1. That’s the good news.

The bad news is the TV series will only be on TEN HD, and in a timeslot that mirrors its title the show will screen at 11:05pm Friday nights, beginning March 7.

In the US the show has had some difficulty in building a mainstream audience, and endured various timeslot changes. NBC President Kevin Reilly dubbed the cult fanbase as “passionate and vocal.”

But since premiering in October 2006 the show is now in jeopardy. There are question marks hanging over a third season, resulting in fans sending actual light bulbs to NBC in a protest bid to “Save Friday Night Lights.” NBC is understood to be exploring a shared-broadcast with other networks, as it did for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, screening on both NBC and USA Network.

Additional source: Variety, Wikipedia

Kindly link to this website when sourcing or posting in messageboards, thanks!

9 Responses

  1. this show is so awesome. it’s funny how tv is now like movies – the Sopranos, the Wire, Mad Men.
    ok, Friday Night Lights is about football but there is only a couple of minutes of football in each episode. it’s just really slow, with beautiful scenes of a small town in Texas and really intricate plot lines, the characters are all just so awesome.
    I’m an Australian who lives in the States and have watched both seasons online

  2. Ah, no surprises there, 10 like to put all there Law and Order type shows on the SD channel, everything else that is “not ratings material” gets shafted to the 10HD channel, so if you don’t have a HD Box, well too bad, you can watch “All the Law and Order shows”.

  3. Wow, TEN really don’t want to give it a chance at all its bad enough they chuck it on HD, but to then place it at 11.05 on a friday night, on the HD channel is crazy. HD doesn’t get monitored for ratings anyway, so why don’t they put it on earlier.

    Think I’ll just grab the DVD too on my next Amazon shopping spree!!

Leave a Reply