Season One: Complete!

So I finished Season One of Friday Night Lights in about two days and three hours.

Is that disgusting?

I don't care.

It was worth it.

It was so incredible.

Jason Street is my hero.

I love him more than Anne loves R-Patz.



And Lyla Garrity? She makes my heart hurt.

Minka Kelly looks just like Leighton Meester, but with serious acting ability. And her performance is consistently heartbreaking.



Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton play Coach & Mrs. Coach brilliantly. They have such a beautiful and real relationship. Love them.



And Tim Riggins, who looks like MattIsbell with dark hair... he makes some dumbass choices...but I can see him growing on me.



This show is SO good.

And part of why the show is so good is because of the way it is shot and acted.

The show’s producers decided at the outset to allow their performers flexibility in what they say and do on the show. Though scripted like any hour-long television drama, performers are given great leeway in the delivery of their lines and the blocking of each scene. If actors feel that something is not true to their character or a mode of delivery doesn’t work, they are free to change it provided they still hit the vital plot points.

The freedom that producers have extended to the performers is complemented by the fact that the show is taped without rehearsal and without extensive blocking. Camera operators are trained to follow the actors rather than actors standing in one place and having cameras fixed around them. This allows performers to not only feel free to make changes but to feel safe in making those changes because the infrastructure will work around them. Executive producer Jeffrey Reiner described this method as “no rehearsal, no blocking, just three cameras and we shoot.”

Working in this fashion has had a profound influence on everyone involved with the show, with series star Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor) going so far as to say “When I look back at my life, I'm going to say, "Wow, [executive producer] Peter Berg really changed my life."” Executive producer and head writer Jason Katims echoes this sentiment saying “When I first came on [the ‘FNL’] set, I thought, it’s interesting — this is what I imagined filmmaking would be, before I saw what filmmaking was.

It has to be the best drama series since ER Season One.

Even just the opening credits...I watch them all the way through every episode because they are just perfection.



Jason & Lyla 4 EVA



Can't wait to start Season Two!



Spend forty minutes at tvshack.net and watch episode one and you'll understand why this is the greatest show on television (when you click play the first time it'll open up a pop-up but just close that and press play again).

The first three seasons are also available online on Netflix "watch instantly".