Friday Night Lights

Set in fictional Dillon, Texas, the core subject of Friday Night Lights is, to some degree, familiar to almost everyone in the United States. High school football—American style—is filled with the exuberance of youth, the ecstasy of victory, the embarrassment of loss, the battle for recognition, the obsessive memories of old men and the frustration of those who just do not understand. Friday Night Lights, the series, captures all these emotions associated with the game. But it is about much more than football. It is about coming of age, about the internal and external struggles of families, about dreams shattered and dreams undreamt until a single moment opens a future. Significantly it is about community and most significantly it is about community beyond the confines of Los Angeles, of back lots, of urban canyons. This television series speaks of—and to—viewers who do not live their lives exclusively inside the walls of familiar institutions such as hospitals and courtrooms. Friday Night Lights is that rare program that creates a world at once common and extraordinary, and for this receives a Peabody Award.