A slew of Friday Night Lights writing online has reminded us that it's ten years (ten!) since Coach Taylor first told the Dillon Panthers (but really the rest of the world) that with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts, you just Can't Lose.
It was a pretty magnificent show, and bar a couple of wild narrative meanders in the curtailed second season (eh, Landry's murder!?) it still retains a strong place in our heart.
The actors recently got together for a ten-year reunion, and the pictures looked absolutely magical.
Therefore, we have been devouring the various nostalgia-tinted pieces doing the rounds over the last couple of days. Twitter Moments did their own quick run-down, presumably realising the great public thirst for the humble Twitter reaction.
Here are some of the highlights, in GIF form:
Yes hi how can I make this .GIF of Coach Eric Taylor into my weekday alarm clock? pic.twitter.com/0jEekNqM6u
— Vanessa Golembewski (@vgolembewski) November 5, 2014
I miss Riggins/Street friendship. #FNL pic.twitter.com/QhXUlwhz1I
— sarah (@sundaytrain) October 3, 2016
Happy 10th anniversary to a show I thought I'd never watch but quickly became one of my favorites, #FridayNightLights.
Texas forever. pic.twitter.com/EoMhbo5Om6— Jonathon Dornbush (@jmdornbush) October 3, 2016
The actors have given their theories as to what their characters are up to at the moment, which you can read here.
There's come great Friday Night Lights writing across U.S. sites with The Ringer doing a Where Are They Now on the show's characters. This was our favourite line:
Landry remains the frontman for Crucifictorious — a popular speed-metal band, though their sound has mellowed some over the years. . Now more of a beards-and-suspenders roots rock band, Crucifictorious is coming off of their biggest success to date: the multi-platinum, best-selling, Grammy Album of the Year–winning, radio-conquering instant classic, Killed a Guy Once, IDK, It Was the Writer’s Strike, We Got Away With It — an emotionally harrowing concept album about two high school kids who kill some random guy because they don’t have any better ideas.
The Atlantic have a very fine story of how Friday Night Lights changed up TV storytelling: basically, everybody had a story to tell.
The sales pitch for Friday Night Lights, the NBC drama that premiered 10 years ago today, is that it was about football but also totally not about football. The central sport, here, was simply a vehicle that allowed the show to explore ideas like community and competition and diversity and adversity and—if you’re laying the pitch on especially thick—the triumph of the human spirit.
We've been finding excuses to get some Friday Night Lights writing on this site for years, so while you're in the mood, you can check out/violently disagree with our power ranking of the show's top 15 characters, and while you're at it, check out what the actors are up to now.
Oh, and everyone loves a montage:
