On The Road To Awards Season? Kerouac Book Finally Makes It … 
Michael Bay’s Name Pushed Paramount To Settle Injured … 
Several More New Series In Recasting Mode; Returning Ones … 
‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ Moving To March 2013 To … 
Directors Fortnight Says It Must “Police … 
‘Chronicle’ Helmer Josh Trank Takes On … 
Big Media Chiefs Tell Cable Operators To Speed Up ‘TV … 
Will ‘Pan Am’ Take Flight With Amazon? 
EMMYS: Showtime Launches Free Weekend Promotion Targeting … 
TOLDJA! ICM Management Buyout Complete 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’, … 
An Olympian Effort: NBCUni Plans 5,535 Hours Of Coverage … 
Netflix Exec Denies It’s Responsible For Nickelodeon … 
DESPERATE: HuffPo & Oprah Team Up Now 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Great Gatsby’ 
How Did Women Pilot Writers Fare For 2012? 
Disney Quits Snow White Film ‘Order Of The … 
Cannes Planning Surprise Screening Of Non-Fest Films; … 
Investors Unfriend Facebook As SEC Investigates IPO … 
Cash Windfalls For WME Agents, Assistants 
A&E IndieFilms Sets ‘Happy Valley,’ … 
The start of Season 4 was moved back from April 30th to May 7th (8-9 PM ET).
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
-
Marketplace
-
-
-
News/Opinion Poll
Loading ...Box Office Poll
Loading ...
- The Watch Teaser: Vince Vaughn Helps Debut New, Improved Marketing Push
- Pretty In Pinkgate: Is Duckie Gay? Jon Cryer Responds
- Shirley MacLaine Earns AFI Honors, IFC Eyes Cannes' Sightseers: Biz Break
- Zach Galifianakis Attached to Confederacy of Dunces Adaptation That Will Never Get Made
- The Great Gatsby Trailer: Leo + Baz, Together Again
One of the few good shows out there. Smart move by NBC.
Dear NBC: You don’t actually have that many good shows to broadcast. It would be awesome if you let us watch some of the best ones…
P.S. Parks & Recreation has gotten much, much better this season. You might want people to know that.
Why don’t they cancel that God awful show already?
Probably because it’s one of the best and nuanced shows on tv?
God awful? It’s one of the best written, directed and acted shows out there. NBC has been so lazy with this show it’s disgusting.
A great show spun-off from a great film which was a great book.
Hey JP,
“God Awful???” It’s just about the ONLY show on NBC that’s worth watching.
If “FNL” is awful, which programs are better?
It’s done after this season, so you won’t have to hear about it for long
Wrong. The 5th (and final) season will air on Directv this fall and NBC next spring.
Best show on network, by the way.
“God awful show”…? Really? Friday Night Lights is hands down the best show on NBC and might be the best show on network TV at the moment. I’m curious… In your eyes, what makes Friday Night Lights a “God awful show”?
I’d love to know too. That’s probably one of the most laughably ridiculous comments I’ve read in ages.
Because Direct TV picks up some of the production costs in exchange for first broadcast rights. So the show ends up being much cheaper than expected. Moreover, it’s popular among that segment of the nation known as “America.” The fly-over states. Where people are not tragically hip and cool.
Plus, it provides some original programming during the late spring and early summer.
That is crucial because cable nets like FX and USA counter-program with new stuff while the broadcast nets shovel repeats of reality stuff that was boring the first time round.
Look at Saturdays. As recently as the mid 1990′s, Saturday had original programming on Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now only Fox runs stuff (Cops, America’s Most Wanted). Constantly ceding nights and time-slots is damaging to the networks. Which have become narrower and narrower as the population gets bigger. Yeah cable choices erode that, but most of it is just lousy programming, stuff made for people in NYC and LA.
Friday Night Lights is not my cup of tea either, but I can see the value. More partnerships and more original content not made for just LA-NYC is the answer. Not the 21st season of Law and Order, or more Fattest Loser.
A great, great show. Has anyone done middle class life better and more honestly (soap opera elements aside)? Just let us see it, please NBC!!!
Wait – when you say the show is returning to NBC in May, do you mean that they’re just going to re-broadcast the season that just aired on DirectTV – which was a FANTASTIC season – or do you mean that it’s now going to be an entirely new season?
NBC is beyond idiotic to have let this show shift time slots and content providers. Such a brilliant show.
agreed, this show is not good. While the production looks good, FNL has nothing to do with it’s concept of high school life and football. It’s a very whiny (very very very whiny) soap opera where 18 year olds act like 35 year olds and no one acts real.
direct tv viewers know how amazing season 4 was and now the rest of the network viewing audience can experience the brilliance of fnl. thanks, nbc!
That’s great news. Oh, hang on, I’ve already WATCHED THE ENTIRE SEASON on DirecTV. Go Lions!
It’s a God awfully GOOD show. The writing, character development and use of locations sets this show apart. I saw the latest season on TV 101 – even with tons of cast changes, the show is still strong (thanks to the anchors Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton). Great spare writing, thanks to Katims and his crew. Maybe the Academy will hand out some much-deserved acting and writing Emmys.
Not convinced? Two words: Tim Riggins.
THANK GOODNESS! Now perhaps NBC may want to actually PROMOTE IT and now give it a crappy time slot. Just because it is called “Friday Night Lights” does not mean it should be on FRIDAY NIGHTS.
The REAL best show on television.
It should get mad awards-season love, but everyone in this town is too narcissistic to want to be Coach Taylor. They’d rather imagine themselves as the sociopathic Don Draper, instead…
JP –
Be honest — you’re not watching FNL. You’re not watching any TV… cause your stuck in the writer’s room all day and night taking notes. If you don’t like the business, get out — there are plenty of people out there who would love to have your job. Go back to NYC or wherever the hell you came from and take that job Daddy keeps calling you about…
cool! I liked that show!
Already watched every episode commercial free on the 101 network on DIRECTV. NBC gets sloppy seconds of their own show. Can’t wait for season 5 on DIRECTV.
Wow, JP. Congratulations on one of the more boneheaded posts I’ve seen around here. FNL is probably the best drama on network television. It celebrates the nobility and struggle of everyday life. I feel sorry for you that you’re numb to its many charms.
Saw it already on DirecTV, but FNL is seriously so good that I’m willing to see it again on NBC. I’m actually more excited this time around cuz it’s more accessible on NBC and I can get more friends into it. “CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN’T LOSE!”
JP watches Human Target. From his parents’ basement.
Hey, I like Human Target – it is what it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. But Friday Night Lights is in a different league. Probably the only show on TV where characters have said “we can’t afford it” or mentioned a checkbook. Easily the best thing Ben Silverman did at NBC was to extend Friday Night Lights.
Absolutely one of the BEST shows on TV, please show me a more realistic married couple than Tammy and Eric Taylor, Incredible Acting, Incredible writing, Incredible Directing!!! This is show people need to see instead of the crap that get fed to us by the Networks… I watched the season on DIRECT TV 101 and I will re-watch again on NBC, the only show on the network worth watching…I only hope parenthood is given some time, Jason Katims is a great show-runner.
From its first season, Friday Night Lights has ranked among the very best works ever done for TV. Am eagerly awaiting its return on NBC.
I gotta say that I Love FNL, Sure it gets a bit like a soap opera from time to time…. But the realism that the characters portray is fantastic. So the show doesn’t concentrate only on the football. I think that with all the other crap on TV, FNL offers something that promotes values and family and hard work.
In a time where half the shows on tv focus on killing, crime solving, forensics, and the other half are reality TV crap (which when you think about it isn’t any comparison to real people’s lives), FNL is one of the most “real” shows out there. Come to think of it, one of the longest running shows in TV history is a reality TV show – The price is right – maybe you’ve heard about it??? Let’s see real people competing for cash prizes… some lovable well spoken host… add a few bells and whistles…. lengthen the game…. sounds like a game show to me…
I think NBC is crazy to cancel FNL. I think all the networks need to take a real look at what they’re canceling. They’re so worried about losing the viewers that they currently have…. But those viewers will still be there sitting on their couch five nights a week watching any crap that the networks put on.
There are so many people out there who have stopped watching TV altogether because there’s nothing good on; or because the networks cancel all the good shows. The networks need to figure that it’s those people they should be trying to get back to watching TV… I can’t even count the number of people I know, who would rather rent a “family” movie a couple times a week instead of paying for cable at all. Because there are less and less “family” friendly shows on TV. Less and less shows that promote values, family, hard work, and everything that goes with that.
I agree with the poster who mentioned “parenthood” or the show “life unexpected” on the CW… shows with real believable characters facing normal struggles and hardships in their lives. Characters that people can relate to… Characters that grow and change with life experience, like humans do…. I’d tune in for those shows. Anything else I can catch on re-runs or streaming online when I truly have nothing better to do.
I can’t wait to see it!! It’s about time!!!