| 100 |
Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
You don't have to love football to admire Friday Night Lights. |
| 100 |
The New York Times Virginia Heffernan
A fiercely controlled and inventive work of art. |
| 90 |
Newsday Diane Werts
[A] rewardingly seasoned new drama series that's practically indistinguishable from the acclaimed feature film, except that it's better. |
| 90 |
Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz
The biggest and most pleasant surprise of the season. |
| 90 |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
One of the fall's brightest new dramas. |
| 90 |
Washington Post Tom Shales
Extraordinary in just about every conceivable way. |
| 90 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland
More than simply being outstanding, "Friday Night Lights" is an important series because of the way it takes family-friendly television seriously. |
| 90 |
Slate Troy Patterson
The most engrossing new drama of the fall season. |
| 88 |
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
"Friday Night Lights" is not good. It's great. |
| 88 |
San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum
A finely detailed exploration of high school life and small-city dynamics. |
| 88 |
USA Today Robert Bianco
Lights has a rare ability to portray life in small-town America without being condescending or sentimental. |
| 80 |
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
Both cinematically broad and heartbreakingly specific, a melding for once of the best that movies and television have to offer. |
| 80 |
Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
Director-writer Peter Berg understands completely, and he explores the psychology of team sport and the dynamics of personal tragedy with great sensitivity. |
| 80 |
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
The drama is one of the season's best because it makes you care even when you know something big is coming -- and because it finds pleasant little surprises along the way. |
| 80 |
Baltimore Sun David Zurawik
Surprisingly wise and moving. |
| 80 |
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
Berg has done a fine job of lifting his series above familiar teen melodrama and making it into a group portrait of a town. |
| 80 |
Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart
I can’t say enough about how "Friday Night Lights" defied my expectations for what a TV show about football would be. |
| 80 |
TV Guide Matt Roush
Intensely stirring. |
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly Henry Goldblatt
Between its cinematography, setting, and subject matter, Lights doesn't look a whole lot like anything else on television right now. |
| 75 |
New York Post Linda Stasi
Every character is dead on - no exaggerations, no caricatures. |
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman
It isn't as ambitious or objective as HBO's "The Wire," but it's about as close as broadcast TV gets to "The Wire." It finely depicts the daily grim and gritty existence of kids and adults dealing with narrow hopes, sad expectations, provincial victories, race and poverty. |
| 75 |
Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy
The smartly told stories of first-year coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, "King Kong") and his Dillon High School Panthers are packed with gritty style and heartfelt emotion. |
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor Gloria Goodale
The plotlines are predictably full of teen melodrama and small-town angst, but the cast is interesting, and the show's semidocumentary style gives it surprising grit. |
| 75 |
New York Daily News David Hinckley
It's the best high school coaching drama since "The White Shadow," and deserves a chance. |
| 70 |
Miami Herald Glenn Garvin
You've seen it all before, but Berg's sharp powers of observation and a talented and very pretty young cast... keep it fresh. |
| 70 |
Wall Street Journal Nancy DeWolf Smith
Ultimately, what makes "Friday Night Lights" compelling is not the football or the cast. It's the accumulation of little details, like the eager faces of the pee-wee players as they meet and respectfully worship the big high-school boys whom they dream of becoming. |
| 70 |
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
This is one show that could, with the right kind of leadership, make it to the playoffs. |
| 70 |
Time James Poniewozik
Has the same quick-cut look, crisp dialogue and bone-crunching game scenes [ast the movie]. |
| 63 |
People Weekly Tom Gliatto
It feels so close to actual American life that it lacks the gut excitement that would take it over the line into true entertainment. [9 Oct 2006, p.41] |
| 60 |
Variety Brian Lowry
"Friday Night Lights" ultimately feels like one of those family programs middle America and conservatives pine for that too few of them actually bother to watch -- a portrait of decent, God-fearing folks wringing joy from America's game as an escape from their hardscrabble lives. |
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times Paul Brownfield
Peter Berg... seems to have decided that the show would only work if storytelling were pared down to quick-cutting iconography set to guitars. |
| 30 |
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
Standard high school sports soap opera. |
