October 2007 News Archive (Page 5)

Welcome to Friday Night Lights Insider and the site's first ever Caption Contest, in which we invite fans to test their creative mettle and have some fun doing it. The Season Two premiere, "Last Days of Summer," kicked off this new Insider feature. Let's take a look at our first-ever winner.

We only received five entries, all of which were good (and not a bad showing for our first feature). We went with Jake 2.0, whose winning caption appears beneath the photo. Scroll down for the full list of replies - and good luck again this week. Submit as many as you like and help make this a popular feature!

This week's Caption Contest image:

Invisible Man in Sandals: "Should I touch Tyra's boobs? She'll never know it was me!"

The second season of Friday Night Lights is underway, and Kyle Chandler, who plays Coach Eric Taylor, and Connie Britton, who plays Tami Taylor, stopped by the Today show on Friday to discuss. The pair sat also down with MSNBC to talk about their on-camera marriage, their off-camera relationship and their favorite characters on the acclaimed show. Here's the interview.

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MSNBC: One of the strengths of Friday Night Lights that everyone points to is your marriage... critics have called it the most realistic portrayal of marriage on television. So what's your relationship like off camera... and how do you reach the point where you can present this realistic portrait of marriage?

Connie Britton: [looking at Kyle] Be careful.

Kyle Chandler: This is one of the first roles I've had of being married and having children since I've been married and had children. So that's 12 years now. So I have a wealth of information to bring into this as a husband and father. One of my responsibilities I have is telling my wife what to do, so with Connie, I tell her what to do and everything works fine.

Connie Britton: [sarcastically] Yeah... you can believe that for sure. I, on the other hand, am not married and have never had children. So I'm obviously just an exceptional actress! [laughs]

Kyle Chandler: That was great! Oh my God! [high-fives Connie]

Connie Britton: I think we also got really lucky, because we wanted to play this marriage the same way. We both have the same ideas that we wanted a foundation, a partnership, a trust, and then the sky's the limit from there. We both agreed on that and have been very stalwart about that. And we just end up really having a good time together. So it works out.

MSNBC: What kind of things do you talk about off camera?

Connie Britton: You know, he complains about being away from his family. I never complain, I just listen.

Kyle Chandler: Connie almost always has her nose in a book. [laughs] If not, she's always jogging or going to the gym.

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Its numbers weren't exactly high wattage, but NBC's Friday Night Lights opened its second season on a definite positive note on Friday night.

The premiere ("Last Days of Summer") of the critically acclaimed drama, whose first-year ratings made it a tough choice for the Peacock to renew, tied CBS rookie drama Moonlight for its hour's lead among young adults, according to Variety.

Competition for both will pick up this week when ABC enters the fray with new crime drama Women's Murder Club.

Looking at Friday preliminary Nielsen estimates, Friday Night Lights scored a 2.2 rating / 7 share among adults ages 18-49 and 6.5 million total viewers, tying in the key advertising demographic with week two of the new vampire detective drama Moonlight on CBS (2.2/7 in 18-49, 8.3 million).

Repeats of ABC's Private Practice (1.6/5, 4.9 million) and Fox's K-Ville ran farther behind (prelim 1.2/4, 3.3 million).

Honored with a Peabody award and tabbed AFI's program of the year, Friday Night Lights won the hour outright in adults 18-34 (1.7/6) and male demos.

In both 18-49 and total viewers, Friday Night Lights ratings were up 10 percent from its average over the final month of its first season.

As for Moonlight, it's not a juggernaut either, but it managed to hold onto most of its demo lead-in from 8 p.m. winner Ghost Whisperer (2.4/8, 8.7 million) and won the slot by 2 shares in adults 25-54 (3.1/9).

Numbers (2.7/9, 9.5 million) capped the Eye's winning night, up a tick vs. its season preem of a week ago. ABC's 20/20 moved up to second (2.4/8, 7.2 million), with NBC's Las Vegas slipping to third (2.1/7, 7.4 million).

The Insider has compiled its episode guide to "Last Days of Summer," for those of you who may have missed - or want to relive - all of last night's Friday Night Lights drama. There's a lot going on with our favorite characters, to be sure - including one of the darkest, most shocking plot twists on television.

We've also put together a photo gallery from the episode, as well as our exclusive forum thread. We're working on a list of memorable Friday Night Lights quotes from "Last Days of Summer." You can also check out some videos.

Thanks for visiting and please check back with Friday Night Lights Insider often! More news and updates to come throughout the weekend and into next week!

Every day counts. One night matters. Tonight is that night as Friday Night Lights returns for a second season. The long-awaited new episode, "Last Days of Summer," promises not to disappoint... and to shake things up.

You can discuss it with fellow Friday Night Lights fans before and after the show in our FORUM. Share your thoughts on your favorite players, the dark plot twist that everyone's talking about or anything else related to the best show on TV. Join an existing discussion or start your own!

After the show airs, Friday Night Lights Insider will post its official episode guide recapping the night's drama. We'll also compile a photo gallery, list of memorable quotes from tonight and a whole lot more. Thanks for visiting, and making us the #1 Friday Night Lights fan site online!

Tonight's season premiere of Friday Night Lights, entitled "Last Days of Summer," looks like it's going to be terrific. We'll know for sure in a matter of hours. For now, here's a clip from the episode in which Lyla (Minka Kelly) tells Tim (Taylor Kitsch) about her newfound commitment to Jesus. Riggins is, well, Riggins.

Follow the jump for another intense clip from "Last Days of Summer," in which Eric (Kyle Chandler) gets some attitude from Julie (Aimee Teegarden) ...

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Get ready for the small town of Dillon, Texas, to start looking more like Dallas now that NBC's Friday Night Lights is back for a second season.

That means a lot more skin and scandal, observes William Keck of USA Today, and numerous others who have previewed the Season Two debut.

"There are a large number of shower scenes," star Adrianne Palicki, 24, says with an uncomfortable giggle. Her character, Tyra Collete, is first seen in the season premiere licking a popsicle suggestively. Control yourselves, guys.

"We've also had a couple of (nude) scenes in the locker room," adds Adrianne's co-star, Jesse Plemons, 19, whose social outcast character, Landry Clarke, has just reluctantly joined the high school football team.

"The good thing is that Landry's not really okay with taking his clothes off — unlike Tim Riggins (played by Taylor Kitsch). Taylor has been complaining the most about having to take off his shirt."

Adrianne Palicki as sexy, sassy Tyra Collette.

No one's complaining, to be sure, about a second chance to prove themselves after a first season that was critically acclaimed but ratings-starved.

Over lunch, both actors acknowledge that the set was somber the day Emmy nominations were announced. Nary a nod went to the underdog drama.

"It was very disappointing," Adrianne Palicki says. "There was a backlash from not getting nominated — people were furious. So that's even cooler, in a way. Look at how many fans were so angry."

"The feeling now," Jesse Plemons adds, "is let's give them even a better show, so there's no way they're going to be able to pass us up."

 The new game plan: less football, more personal struggle.

Among the drama: Adrianne Palicki's Tyra and Jesse Plemons' Landry enter into a secret romance that, Plemons says, "catches both of them off guard."

The unlikely duo — Tyra the Beauty, Landry the Geek — came together when Landry became her tutor, then came to her rescue after an attempted rape.

"I would love for them to be together," Palicki says. "Tyra deserves a good guy."

There's also a stunning plot twist that we won't get into here.

Plemons, a native of Mart, Texas (outside Waco), has been dating a Texas girl for six months who he says is "beautiful — inside and out."

The single Palicki says she has had many Landrys in her life, but as a high school student in Toledo, Ohio, she strictly dated jocks.

"I had Landrys as friends," she says. "The guys you thought you'd marry someday, but you just couldn't date because it wasn't cool. How stupid is that?"

You may have heard that Season Two of Friday Night Lights kicks off tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBC, giving you the chance to stare at the lovely Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly, below) on-screen instead of online for a change!

But seriously, folks. This premiere is not to be missed.

The only chance to save FNL from cancellation is to make sure everyone you know gets hooked in a hurry. Just ask Adam Best, a sports columnist from epiccarnival.com and a new Friday Night Lights convert. He writes:

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I recently came down with a cold and ripped through Friday Night Lights: Season One in less than a week.

I'm actually glad I got sick, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have listened to everyone who raved about the show and checked it out. Point blank - it's effing unbelievable, probably my favorite show on TV right now (yes, even including Entourage).

My goal is to spark your interest with this post so that you too will be flat out hooked on FNL, sort of like Travis Henry is on baby making.

Unfortunately - as ESPN's Bill Simmons and others have pointed out at length - most people aren't hooked at this point. Friday Night Lights was snubbed by viewers and The Emmy Awards alike during its first season.

Fans and insiders alike now fear that the series will get canned before the second season even really gets rolling. How could this happen to such a bad-ass series?

Here's how:

• Friday Night Lights the movie (2004) faired somewhat well with critics, but flopped commercially, desecrating the franchise's name in the process. Plus, the classic H.G. Bissinger book has been out since 1991, making Friday Night Lights the series seem like a retread from day one.

• The show was initially marketed - or at least perceived, by many - as a show created solely for football fanatics.

Continue reading this Friday Night Lights analysis here.

Taylor Kitsch talks about the return of Friday Night Lights (tonight), as well as his charity work, why it's important to be a role model for kids, and how he motivates himself to work out in the new Men's Health.

In his breakout season as the volatile fullback Tim Riggins, Taylor Kitsch appeared on the cover of Men's Health in January, showing us how to eat our way to a six-pack.

Last month, he took part in the Nautica Malibu Triathlon, which benefits Children's Hospital Los Angeles, but not just to show off his abs. Taylor is out to support fitness activities for kids.

In an interview with Men's Health, Kitsch talks about childhood obesity and the magazine's new initiative, Men's Health FitSchools. His advice can also help you shape up, too.

Men's Health: What can we expect in the premiere of Friday Night Lights?
Taylor Kitsch: Some intense stuff happens in the first episode with Landry (Jesse Plemons) and Tyra (Adrianne Pilicki). It's going to shape their characters for the rest of the season. I'm excited to see it myself.

Men's Health: How about the rest of the season?
Taylor Kitsch: Episode 2 might be more intense than the first. Tim Riggins is even more lost this year. He goes to Mexico with Jason Street (Scott Porter) and he lets loose. Last year, Riggins was very dark, but there's better balance this year. At times, he's comic relief, but there's also a serious matter with his best friend who has an idea to go for stem cell surgery, which he thinks will probably make him walk the next week. His friend has tunnel vision, so he's trying to figure out how to get through to him.

Men's Health: Is the mood as intense on set as it is in the show?
Taylor Kitsch: We have a lot of fun when we shoot the football scenes. Kyle Chandler (who plays Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights) and I chuck the ball around in between takes. Just yesterday I was thinking, 'Man, I'm getting paid to throw the ball around and run routes.' I just laughed. It's really fun.

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Everybody who's ever been a parent, or a teen, or especially a parent of a teen, can relate to the restrained insight of Friday Night Lights.

A Newsday review notes that in the acclaimed NBC series' second-season debut, Kyle Chandler's character is stunned when his crush-riven daughter, Julie (Aimee Teegarden, pictured) resists his inquiring about her life in the months he's been halfway across Texas coaching his new college team.

"What does this have to do with you?" Julie answers flatly, with her teen logic / obstinacy, and some justification.

Then things get worse. After she's been out half the night chasing a guy, dad arrives to retrieve his teary girl, who finally pours forth in the car.

Turns out she's just mortified that if she makes nice in this podunk town of Dillon, Tex., she'll end up like, yes, her parents.

The Season 2 premiere episode of Friday Night Lights presents her admission a bit too easily, and eloquently, but that's not the point.

The miracle here is, as they say about the frog who sings off-key, not how well it's done but that it's even done at all. Television doesn't deal with the heart anymore as acutely as this show does. Maybe TV never did.

• The way Chandler and long-distance wife Connie Britton look into each other's eyes, with innate knowing and bedrock devotion.
• The awkwardness of those desperate-to-mature high-schoolers, whether it's how to touch a girl's arm the first time or how to rebuild trust after they've stupidly slept together.
• And there are the adults they grow into, sometimes without growing at all. Friday Night Lights boldly lets characters screw up unspeakably or stew in silence, revealing volumes more than words ever could.

This is that rare case where the spin-off surpasses the original, writer-director Peter Berg weaving thicker webs here than he could in his 2004 feature film.

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