Friday night's all right

The long wait is over. The series I'm absolutely not at all ashamed to say I'm madly in love with -- Friday Night Lights -- returns tonight, and I could not be happier. Go Panthers! State champs, wooo! Ahem. When I first heard about this show, I assumed it wouldn't be very good, if the natural order of things held true. That is to say, when you take a wonderful book (by Buzz Bissinger) and turn it into a movie, the movie is often a letdown. Which it was. And when you then take that blah movie and turn it into a TV show, well ... you get what I'm saying. But while the Friday Night Lights movie was nothing to write home about, the show is incredible. It can break your heart at one turn and make you feel full of youth and hope at the next. The characters and relationships are so damn real. These are people who are trying to figure out how to love each other, how to find happiness and meaning in their small, football-psycho town. Really, it's a joy to watch. I know I watch a lot of TV shows, and I can freely admit that some of them are not so great. But trust me when I say that this is one of the the best shows that's been beamed into our homes in the last several years, and it kills me that no one's watching. I'm so paranoid that it's going to get canceled.

And that would be a crying shame, because then the world would be denied the glory of Connie Britton, who is acting her white-hot ass off in FNL. If you can watch even one episode and not fall in love with her character (and with her), then you are made of stone. Every time I watch the show, I can't decide whether I wish she were my wife, my mother, my sister, or my friend. (Usually wife wins out, like that's a surprise.) You can catch up with last season's episodes for free at NBC.com. What are you waiting for?