Will a 'Friday Night Lights' Reboot Mess With Texas, or Will It

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I’ve watched a lot of television in my day, and my tastes are all over the map. Classic series and game shows from the ‘70s and ‘80s are my bread and butter, although I do love some more recent shows as well.

One series stands head and shoulders above the rest: “Friday Night Lights.” Everything about the show was nearly perfect. The improvisational nature of the writing and cinematography made you feel like you were right there in the middle of the action. The characters were realistic, both as Southerners and as small-town denizens. The cast — with Kyle Chandler as Coach Eric Taylor and Connie Britton as his wife, Tami, at the helm — was impeccable, and the music was pitch-perfect.

“‘Friday Night Lights’ is so well done that even viewers who don’t know or care about football can be enthralled by the lives of Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), his family, and his team,” I wrote back in 2018. “One of my friends credits the show with prompting him and his family to move from Atlanta to a smaller town — that’s a testimony to its power.”

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When the show ended in 2011 in one of the most satisfying finales to a series in history, fans circulated a petition for more seasons, and the producers talked about a feature film that took up where the series left off. Both ideas didn’t materialize because it’s so difficult to follow up such excellence.

That’s why I’m greeting the news that Universal and NBC’s streaming service Peacock is “rebooting” the underrated classic series with cautious optimism. Deadline announced the reboot in November.

“It’s believed to be a new story, still set in the world of high school football, with new characters rather than the previous cast, which featured Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Taylor Kitsch, and Jesse Plemons,” Peter White reported last month.

Peacock beat out Netflix for the rights to air the upcoming new series, which makes sense since Peacock and Universal are sister companies. The encouraging news is that original showrunner Jason Katims, producer-director Peter Berg, and producer Brian Grazer will be involved to some degree. Another good sign is that the new show is supposed to take place in a different Texas town than the original series.

“The new series, which is now in development at Peacock, will be set following a devastating hurricane, when a rag tag high school football team and their damaged, interim coach make an unlikely bid for a Texas High School State Championship and become a beacon of light for their town,” White wrote on Wednesday.

If Katims stays involved, especially if he’s writing, the scripts will be amazing. If the original style and look of the show remain intact, it will sparkle. However, we all know how difficult it is for lightning to strike twice. How difficult will it be to match the sparkling quality of the first show?

The other massive question that looms around a “Friday Night Lights” reboot deals with the increasing leftism in the entertainment industry. We’re living in a different world now than we were in 2006-2011, and even then, the show didn’t avoid hot-button issues like racism and abortion.

Some of today’s issues like college recruiting and name, image, and likeness (NIL) could make for some interesting subplots on a new series, but how much wokeness would the writers and producers subject us to? What kind of plot points would left-wing writers drum up? A football player struggling with his sexuality? A transgender cheerleader? A local illegal immigrant family facing deportation?

I’ll approach a “Friday Night Lights” reboot with cautious optimism. Hopefully, the new show will hold a candle to the original. Who knows? It might even be better (although that’s hard to imagine). I’ll be glad to revisit that version of Texas anytime.

I also can’t help but think that there are too many opportunities for far-left political and cultural issues to worm their way in. I hope not, but I don’t hold up tons of hope.

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