Detailing on the experience of high school student in football team, the everyday struggle, family issues, coaches and the friends they make in a small town called Dillon.
For all the narrative sincerity and good-looking imagery offered by FNL it is most admirable for its insights into the industry models that shape U.S. entertainment, sports, religion, and education.
Part of the reason Friday Night Lights works its magic on viewers is that Berg's documentary-style stamp gives the show a more mature feel -- it has none of the trappings of a teen drama, none of the sheen of a network series set in a small town.
More than simply being outstanding, Friday Night Lights is an important series because of the way it takes family-friendly television seriously. The issues covered here create the kind of family drama that can bring everybody to the table.
Sometimes great television doesn't need a unique hook or an edgy or dark side to be something special; it just needs terrific writing and acting, something this show has an abundance of.
Friday Night Lights gets off to a rousing start. Everything about it is vividly drawn, with [Kyle] Chandler excelling as an up-against-it coach whose locker room rallying cry is "Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose."
[Peter] Berg's Lights evokes the wonderful sense of how fleeting glory can be, and it's fleeting not just for the kids. We sense among the adults, living through the players, a pining for the life that slipped past them a time ago when they were young.
[I] find himself at full grovel, crawling toward Nielsen households, begging that they flip on [this show]. The show is terrific -- the most engrossing new drama of the fall season -- but it's also the worst-rated, and that's just not fair.