In Case You Missed It: Friday Night Lights

It’s the third season of serious and sweaty southern football for the Dillon Panthers of Friday Night Lights, and our patience is running out. So why aren’t you watching it? That The Hills is popular enough to snag the cover of Rolling Stone while FNL barely makes passing ratings is so tragic to us that it physically hurts. Everyone in the cast is obscenely attractive, and we’re not just talking about the twenty-somethings-as-fake-high-school-students; Coach and Tammy Taylor are damn good looking parents. Unlike most shows that start and solve problems faster than you can say “We cater to ADD Nation!” Friday Night Lights isn’t afraid to let its stars fuck up and fight their way back to good in real time. The handheld, documentary-style camera work is a welcome break from the uber-airbrushed look of glossy CW programming. Passionate, insightful and clever as hell, Friday Night Lights is the best thing on TV that you’re not watching — yet. New episodes won’t be airing on NBC until early 2009, but DirecTV channel 101 subscribers can catch the new season on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. Tune in: you can’t lose.