The recent breeze in Tallahassee has me feeling nostalgic for my favorite fall memories: the inaugural pumpkin iced coffee of the season, NFL Sundays on the couch with my mom, burning a fall Bath and Body Works candle, and my first time curling up in my dorm bed with my iPad to watch Friday Night Lights (FNL). In the wise words of Belly Conklin from the TV show The Summer I Turned Pretty, “There are moments in every girl’s life that are bigger than we know at the time,” and my freshman-year choice to tune into FNL on that fateful fall evening was certainly one of these moments.
Clearly, I’m passionate about my stance on this early-2000s teen drama. The series serves as my annual fall rewatch, my favorite show in every classroom icebreaker, the basis of every TV-show edit on my TikTok For You page, and my staple show recommendation. As I prepare to revisit the tiny, fictional town of Dillon, Texas, this fall, I’d like to invite you to join me with four reasons why FNL is the best fall binge.
Football as a plot device
Despite the show’s namesake of high school football games, Friday Night Lights isn’t a show exclusively reserved for sports lovers. In FNL, football serves not as the main plot but the thread that ties all the characters together and drives their character development. The show’s motif of football is what introduces us to Matt Saracen, Tim Riggins, Smash Williams, Coach Taylor and family, and many other beloved FNL icons.
Football gives once second-string quarterback Matt a chance to step up to the plate, or in this case, the 50-yard line, come into himself, and build relationships with the friends that he’ll soon call family. It gives Tami Taylor the impetus to break free of the “coach’s wife” mold and discern her own passions. It offers Smash a means to leave Dillon and explore life outside the small town, and it allows Tim to prove to himself and those watching that he can be part of something bigger than himself.
While the show features its fair share of football highlights (and aren’t all Fridays spent better under stadium lights?), the heart of the story follows the characters and how they develop beside football.
realistic view of small-town life
The value of FNL lies in its simplicity; it tells the real story of seemingly real people dealing with real problems behind a rural, small-town backdrop. The show doesn’t rely on attention-grabbing plot twists that would detract from its authenticity to small-town life.
The characters we see onscreen represent people that we probably know from our own hometowns: the star quarterback and his cheer captain girlfriend, the coach’s daughter, the overzealous football dad, or the comeback kid.
We watch as the show breaks down these stereotypes and addresses core cultural issues, from the public schooling system to substance abuse to economic disparity, all through the lens of the raw affairs of Dillon, Texas.
While many critics have agreed that season two may be deemed an exception to this trend with its fair share of eyebrow-raising twists and turns, I choose to believe that nobody is perfect and that the four other seasons of perfectly curated small-town drama make this season worth it. Smile and wave, people, smile and wave.
the right amount of romance
As a rom-com enthusiast, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a nod to the couples of FNL. Not only do we get to watch as the characters navigate young love, but we’re treated to the ultimate TV power couple in Coach Taylor and his wife, Tami.
The romance depicted in FNL is sweet, endearing, entertaining, and doesn’t overpower the other dynamics we see in the show. Viewers watch as the characters form relationships with their friends, family, teammates, coaches, and even themselves, with romance complementing their personal development.
Cozy fall aesthetic
FNL hits all the hallmark themes of the fall season. We join the Dillon High Panthers on the sidelines of Friday night football games, and we sit with the Taylors for post-practice family dinners. We spend afternoons with Matt and Landry tossing a football on Grandma Saracen’s front lawn, and we hang out in cozy diners with the characters after big games, walking the high school halls with them.
Even the show’s slight sepia-toned hue gives viewers a warm, comforting feeling of vague familiarity, like we’ve somehow been here before, sharing these experiences with our favorite characters. While that could be my chronic rewatching speaking, I find a sense of comfort in spending my fall time in Dillon.
In a world where Gilmore Girls reigns supreme as a fall cult classic — and, believe me, I, too, love a GG binge — I hope to bring awareness to the perfect fall rewatch that is Friday Night Lights. Whether you’re looking for sports, a fresh comfort watch, a new favorite TV couple, or a pep talk from Coach Taylor himself because clear eyes and full hearts can’t lose, FNL has it all.
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