Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights is a show about the Dillon Panthers, one of the nation's best high school American football teams, their head coach Eric Taylor also the dramas involving the players and their families in the smalltown of Dillon, Texas. FNL was developed by Peter Berg and inspired by the 1990 nonfiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger, which was adapted as the 2004 film of the same name by Berg.
==Fan Comments==
As cofax writes: 
Although the show is ostensibly about football, it appeals even to fans who don't understand or like the game. Jae Gecko writes:
In musesfool's words: 
==Keeping FNL on the air==
The show has a fairly small fandom. Late in season two, when the show appeared to be on the verge of being cancelled, a New York Times article argued that if there were more fanfiction, the show wouldn't have been in danger of being cancelled.Virginia Heffernan. Art in the Age of Franchising - Why Is Friday Night Lights Such a Bust?, in: The New York Times, 20 January 2008. (Accessed 03 Ocotber 2008)
During the campaign to save the show, fans sent 6,250 little nerf footballs emblazoned with "Save FNL" and "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" to the network. Save Friday Night Lights, link via Wayback Machine, original link now defunct (Accessed 08 December 2009) Fans also raised more than $1200 for the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis in honor of character Jason Street, and also contributed to contributing to AnySoldier.com and sent FNL dvd sets to soldiers in Iraq in honor of character Matt Saracen's father in Iraq.
A unique deal was reached between networks which kept the show alive. In fall 2008, season three began airing on DirecTV's channel 101; the same episodes aired on NBC in early 2009, beginning after the Superbowl.
Once S3 was underway on NBC, the two networks began a conversation about keeping the show going further; as of March 30, 2009, a deal was signed to create two more 13-episode seasons of FNL.NBC Renews 'Friday Night Lights' through 2011 Season five will be the show's final season.
==Fannish trends==
As in many fandoms which center around teenaged characters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter), a fair amount of FNL fanfic focuses on the lives and relationships of the teenaged characters, especially fan favorite Tim Riggins. The relationship between Tim and Lyla, and Lyla and Jason, sometimes leads to the writing of Lyla Garrity/Tim Riggins/Jason Street OT3 fic, however, there are only eight works of this relationship in AO3. 
Fiction featuring adults in the FNL-verse tends to center around Eric/Tami Taylor. Their marriage has been called "the most realistic marriage on television. And the sexiest, too."Friday Night Lights: watch it!, accessed November 20, 2008
In season four, the show shifted from its previous focus on the Dillon Panthers to a focus on the East Dillon Lions, the new team on the other side of town. The shift opened up the possibility of the show, and hence fanworks, delving more deeply into questions of race and class. A new livejournal community, East Dillon (link below), was formed in June 2010 to explore the new characters and their side of town.
==Fannish response to the finale==
Fan response to the finale was overwhelmingly positive.
Maria Lima wrote: 
heresluck's finale post reads, in part: 
==Notable fanworks==
Fiction
* The Countrymileverse by Jae Gecko is "a series of interconnecting Friday Night Lights stories set in the characters' future."Countrymileverse index page, accessed October 20, 2008. The stories run the gamut of gen, het, and slash.
* Minervacat's You'll Never Meet No Decent Girls At Dallas Honky-TonksYou'll Never Meet No Decent Girls At Dallas Honky-Tonks, accessed June 21, 2010 (Lyla/Tyra) shows both girls coming into their own, separately and together.
* devilc's What Happens in Vegas What Happens in Vegas, accessed June 21, 2010 (Tyra/Jason) tells the story of an encounter between Tyra and Jason in Las Vegas.
* Bone's You Can't Put a Price on Tim RigginsYou Can't Put a Price On Tim Riggins, accessed June 21, 2010 (gen) explores Tim's character through the lens of an interaction with Matt Saracen's grandmother.
* zulu's Bright Yellow SmileBright Yellow Smile, accessed June 21, 2010 (gen) focuses on the character of Jess Merriweather, introduced in season four.
Vids
* Cold as it gets by Barkley is a gorgeously sad look at first season Tyra, and is the vid that convinced a lot of fans that FNL wasn't just about teenagers and football.
* bop_radar's Life for RentLife for Rent, accessed June 21, 2010 is a Tyra-centric character study based in season one, exploring how Tyra defines herself (in relation to a string of male characters, and in relation to her mother) and how most of those relational self-definitions leave her bereft.
* obsessive24's New SlangNew Slang, accessed June 21, 2010 is an OT3 vid, wherein Tim, Lyla, and Jason live happily ever after.
* Luminosity and Liza's American Baby American Baby, accessed June 21, 2010 captures the feel and flavor of the first season. (streaming version at Critical Commons)
* Killa's Girl Trouble (not available online) takes a humorous look at the many women in Tim Riggins' life who get exasperated with him. By including Jason Street on that list, the vid makes a point both about Jason and Tim and about masculinity and femininity in Dillon writ large.
Other Fanowrks
* Can't Lose - gen zine
==Archives, Communities & Resources==
===Archives===
*Friday Night Lights tag at AO3
*Friday Night Lights category at FFN
*Friday Night Lights Crossover category at FFN
===Communities===
* fridaynight_tv- for information and discussion about the show
* fridaynight_fic - for fanfiction of all kinds
* fridaynight100 - for FNL drabbles (community may be defunct; no new posts in a long while
* fnl_santa - FNL secret santa exchange
* coachmrscoach - for Eric/Tami episode reviews, picspams, etc
* mattandjulie and matt_julie - for Matt/Julie shippers
* lylagarrityfans - for Lyla Garrity fans
* team_street - for fans of Jason Street
* tyra_landry - for Tyra/Landry shippers
* timtyra - for Tim/Tyra shippers
* fnl_rally_girls - for FNL adult-rated fic
* East Dillon - for fic, meta, and other info about the kids of East Dillon High
===Resources===
There is a Friday Night Lights wiki, launched on February 8, 2008.FNL wiki, accessed April 7, 2009.
==References==
Category:Friday Night Lights