‘Friday Night Lights’ Is a Go for Season Two
Award-Winning NBC Series Gets a Much-Deserved Renewal
NBC announced Thursday that the network is renewing Friday Night Lights for a second season of realistic teen angst and gripping down-home drama. Despite earning inexplicably low ratings throughout its critically acclaimed freshman season, this development was pretty much a done deal as soon as the high school football drama received a coveted George Foster Peabody award for broadcasting excellence in early April.
Kevin Reilly, NBC’s entertainment president, even publicly said as much shortly before the achievement, around the time that 30 Rock, another severely ratings-challenged newcomer on the network, defied the odds and was extended for an additional season. To not renew Friday Night Lights would have been one of the dumbest decisions ever from a qualitative standpoint, guaranteeing the Peacock Network a permanent spot as the most reviled channel on the tube among the show’s small but immensely devoted cadre of fans.
Also included in Thursday’s announcement was NBC’s pick-up of four new series for 2007–2008: the eagerly awaited (at least by me) adaptation of The Bionic Woman, the spy dramedy Chuck, the sci-fi drama Journeyman, and the crime drama Life.
The network is slated to unveil the rest of its 2007–2008 schedule during the formal upfront presentation in New York City on Monday, April 14.
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Friday Night Lights photo courtesy of NBC
