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Universal / 3349 Minutes / 2006-2011 / Unrated / Street Date: October 4, 2011
Tastes vary - this is a basic tenet of viewership - but resisting Friday Night Lights seems futile in every way. Whether or not one makes it through this entire gargantuan TV-on-DVD box set or not, Friday Night Lights' pilot cements a helluva series, and the following episodes (and seasons) not only live up to it: They nail it.
Maybe it's the mid-season rush of football season that has fanned the fire of my adoration for Friday Night Lights. In fact, last Saturday, after a long day of watching as many college games as my eyes could handle, I popped in a Friday Night Lights disc and let sundown turn into bedtime in a wholly pleasing fashion. If it's a grand show across the board, during the fall, Friday Night Lights feels perfect.
While Friday Night Lights' heart and soul lies on the dusty fields of Dillon, TX, the show - over the course of five sensational seasons - really has a far broader scope to it. Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) spends a bit of time helming a college team in the second season here, but the struggles of the 'big time' and being away from his wife (Connie Britton) and daughter allow Dillon to use its tractor beam to bring him right back into the fold.
And from the star quarterback's paralysis in the series opener to the alcoholism that plagues a handful of characters (adult and youth) as well as pregnancy scares, heartbreak state championship losses, thrills of victory and other interpersonal dramas large and small, Friday Night Lights simply never lets up. One of the better melodramas of the modern television age, Friday Night Lights: The Complete Series is a seminal achievement, a show that is as engaging, conscious, and screamingly addictive as they get.