If Friday Night Lights returns to NBC in the fall, fans shouldn't fear that the Taylors will split up — despite Season 1's cliff-hanger. Kyle Chandler ventured that Eric and Tami will work things out now that the Taylors are expecting an unexpected baby. "We can stab each other, kick each other or shoot each other," the actor said at L.A.'s Museum of Television & Radio on April 13. "But we're going to make it in the end."FNL executive producer Peter Berg says Season 2 would be less about running backs and more about relationships. "The show will continue to explore the complexities of the personal lives of these characters, and we'll probably focus less and less on the actual game of football," he said. But will Coach Taylor move to Austin to pursue his dream job and leave his burgeoning family behind in Dillon? "Anything could happen," Connie Britton (Tami) said. "Having a baby will create all kinds of interesting conflict and humor." — Reporting by Bekah Wright
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Question: Is there any way the TV Academy can overlook Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton for best actor/actress Emmys this year after watching the recent episodes of Friday Night Lights? If they do, they'll lose what little credibility they have left. These two have more chemistry than any couple on TV, and are truly enjoyable to watch. What are the odds of actors on a show with such poor ratings getting recognized at the Emmys this year?
Answer: I'll say it right now. Friday Night Lights is this year's litmus test for the Emmys' viability. Ratings be damned, Friday Night Lights has been for much of the season the best drama on network TV. (The only show that comes close, including in its realism, is HBO's The Wire, which has also been ignored by the Emmys too long.) Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton should be front-runners in the acting race, not underdogs. For either to be ignored would be a new last straw. Their faces in the final episode, as Tami told Eric of her pregnancy and h ...
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“You feel different?” “I do. I do.” I do, too. Has there been a more sheerly exuberant episode of television this season than this? In a way, it was the perfect capsule of this show: Even if someone had never watched this show before, they could fall instantly into its rhythms and story lines just in this one hour. In fact, in looking at the whole season, both the pilot and the finale could be viewed as perfect one-offs. When I said last week that I thought the writers would be bringing their best game, I wasn't expecting for it to be the blow out that it was.Is it possible for a show to be both more than the sum of its parts and have those parts be almost more important at the same time? As wonderful as the episode was as a whole, the individual scenes themselves were so fully developed, they could have counted as one-acts. The pre-game dinner, for instance, with Buddy’s “Eric, I just came by to tell you that I’m gonna miss you, and that you’...
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“Does it get better than this? I don’t think it does.” So says Coach Eric Taylor (the marvelously understated Kyle Chandler) as he shepherds his team, the determined Dillon Panthers, into Dallas’ Texas Stadium, where the kids even have assigned lockers. Awesome. Don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys? Not in this show’s universe.TV really doesn’t get better than Friday Night Lights, which airs its season finale tonight (NBC, 8 pm/ET), a rousing and tremendously satisfying hour of high stakes, high emotion and deeply defined, honestly earned human dignity. As Coach says during a pivotal pep talk: “Pride and character cannot be reflected on a scoreboard.” Almost as good a motto as “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”Watching this final episode, my eyes were full (of tears), and my heart was clear (with unsullied admiration). Ratings aside, and once in a while they really should be, Friday Night Lights is a winner. It s...
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Speaking with TV Guide at Thursday night's Entourage premiere party, Connie Britton said she has heard "a lot of positive talk" about Friday Night Lights possibly getting a Season 2 pickup, but added, "You never know until you know."Britton suggested that the "old-school ratings" system hasn't given the acclaimed drama its due, noting, "When we go out [in public], so many people seem to be loving it, so I really do think it's building an audience. And the people who are watching it are so committed to it. We have our fingers crossed, hoping [for a renewal], but we feel very optimistic about it." — Additional reporting by Carita Rizzo
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Carla Gugino, Entourage
Now playing Vince's sexy new agent on HBO's Entourage (returning Sunday at 10 pm/ET), Carla Gugino talks to TV Guide about hanging with the boys, working with Pauly Shore and her secret talent. Hmmm....
TV Guide: How does it feel being the new girl in a boys' club like Entourage? Carla Gugino: It's the most natural thing in the world for me, actually. I've always been friends with lots of guys, and these guys have been incredibly welcoming. Sure, they're men — and good-looking men, to boot — but it's not a big testosterone fest on set. It feels like going to play, not to work.
TV Guide: You play Vince's new agent, Amanda. Will Vince be doing less "Aquaman" now and more of, say, whatever Nora Ephron's dir
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Can I take a moment here to reiterate that I hate promos for shows I care about? Promos are supposed to give you a teaser to keep you coming back; they are not supposed to give away key plot points. In any case, next week’s episode looks fantastic, and that’s as far as I’ll go.The more I thought about it, the more I considered last week’s episode to be a high point in an exceptionally strong freshman season. Compared to that, of course, this week was going to be a bit of a come down. Part of it has to do with the fact that we’re being set up for the final episode, so while we got many great little moments, something tells me they’re saving the bonafide A-material for next week.So let’s talk about those little moments. The meeting that Coach and Jason had with Saracen was hilarious. Jason had the best line in the scene when he explained, “I’ll take care of Julie. I’ll give her a nice call and tell her there’s a new girl in town a...
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“Welcome to the most talked about football game in the State of Texas.” It should go without saying that most sports commentators — and most network promo people — are prone to hyperbole, but I don’t think that this particular commentator was exaggerating, nor do I think that last week’s preview of this episode, touting it as, “one of the most inspirational,” was off the mark.It seems that we so rarely get to see the Panthers actually compete, but those games really serve to anchor their respective episodes. In the past they’ve embodied our characters’ feelings of suspense and disappointment, but this week it was all about control.Lyla told Jason what no one else was willing to tell him, which was that despite this terrible thing that happened to him, he doesn’t get a free pass in and that perhaps it was time for him to start getting a handle on his life. And he did. He took control during the settlement talks, finally getti...
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Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
He’s the coach. She’s the guidance counselor. Together, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton of NBC's Friday Night Lights (Wednesdays at 8 pm/ET) are TV’s cutest couple. This is the interview.
TV Guide: What do you think makes your marriage on Friday Night Lights so appealing to viewers?
Kyle Chandler: Our characters try to show that no matter what, we're going to support each other. That's the difference between a stereotypical TV relationship and one between two real human beings.
Connie Britton: Eric and Tami Taylor have an underlying trust. Kyle and I are both uncompromising about preserving that partnership. I guess that's probably true in a good marriage. Kyle has a great marriage, so he takes from that world.
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I’m having a hard time choosing my favorite scene here. On the one hand, we have the four boys on the football field reveling in small-town glory. On the other, the father-daughter dance. It’s too tough, so I’m not even going to make an attempt because both scenes were so full of joy on a show that never hesitates to show us the awful consequences of just about any decision one might make. Tyra’s mom seems to have a knack of making incredibly private moments available to all of Dillon, while the boys can be in what is usually the most public place in all of Dillon — the football field — and be completely cut off from the world.And here we are, going into the final three episodes and I have no idea where it’s all headed. Lyla has lost her faith in men in the space of about 48 hours, so while it doesn’t seem right to outright condemn her destructive behavior, I can’t see that it’s going to benefit anyone — least of all her. The ...
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