Friday Night Lights

Can you see me here, begging, dragging my knees across shag carpet to ask you to tune into this show so NBC doesn't kill it! (Next Episode, Monday, October 30.) It is so good and so worth your while. You don't have to love football to watch.

Here's what you get:

* Small town life that isn't made up, put down, laughed at or condescended to
* Football games up close and personal
* Brooding teenagers
* Southern drawls
* Teenagers with manners (who knew!)
* Teenagers with character (those too??)
* Kyle Chandler as the coach - tousled hair, worried expression, nice "jawline"
* Movie-like tight shots and the entire show shot in letterbox
* Wind sprints in the pouring rain at night
* Lines like this (shouted at kids doing wind sprints in the poring rain at night): "You think you're somethin' 'cause you got a free piece of pie a the diner last night!!!???!!! Well you're NOT!!!"
* Diner shots of people eating pie they paid for
* Booster Club parents who you want to punch
* Kyle Chandler (have I mentioned him?)
* Dueling quarterbacks
* God (no really, they pray before games)
* Pretty cheerleaders named "Lila"
* Sexy cheerleaders named "Tyra"
* Interior shots of homes that look like the homes you and I live in, not the homes of people living on Hollywood sets
* Tear jerking moments like the one when quarterback Matt Saracen's dementia-addled grandmother is brought back home to the house they share, after walking into someone else's house and taking a bath. She cries against his shoulder as he walks her to the front door.
* Very few shots of IPods or Playstations
* Men teaching boys to be men
* Football

Tune in! Next Monday, Oct. 30!

P.S. - B, K, and L in Austin, if you are watching "Dancing with the Stars" instead of this then you have no business cheering for the Longhorns!