Friday Night Lights Returns for Final Season: Sneak Preview Review

Friday Night Lights returns for its final season on NBC tonight.  It was already aired on DirecTV in the Fall, and my wife and I saw the complete final season on DVD (via Netflix) earlier this week.  In a phrase: it was everything we hoped it would be, and more.  In a word: superb.   I would add: Friday Night Lights is in a class by itself as a television series, and though comparison with radically different kinds of series such as The Shield make no sense, I would say FNL is the best series ever to have been on television.

I'll be reviewing every episode here of the final season, starting tonight.  I promise in the reviews not to post any explicit spoilers, and I'll try not to let my knowledge of what will happen seep into or influence the tone and text of my reviews.

In the meantime, here are some non-spoiler tidbits:

• almost every major character in the entire run of the series makes an appearance
• there are some excellent new characters
• football of course continues as the centerpiece, but, as in the past, FNL is much more importantly about a multitude of aspects of real life
• the acting continues to be extraordinary
• yes, you'll see plenty of Tim Riggins (I had to tell you that)

I'm dying to tell you more, but I don't want to give anything away.  But I'll be here later tonight with my first review of the final season ...

See also Reasons to Watch Friday Night Lights

And coming this summer, my "Friday Night Lights, NBC, and DirecTV: How an Unlikely Partnership Saved a Great Show and Pointed the Way to the Future" in this brand new anthology ...