It is a rule of thumb in television that even the greatest shows can't stay great for very long. Most shows are never all that good in the first place, and even the ones that are often succumb later on in life to overly convoluted plots and characters acting out of character just to mix things up. And because great shows are often highly-rated (at least in theory) you often see a show pass its prime and stick around for several years in which it slowly degrades into a shell of what it once was. So what is perhaps most amazing about Friday Night Lights is that even in this fifth and final season, the show felt as fresh and warm and enjoyable as it ever did. I understand why it had to come to an end, and if anything NBC was extremely generous in even giving it more than one season. But I maintain that if the ratings had been there and if the cast and crew stayed interested, this show could have gone on for several more years without suffering a drop in quality. (Maybe it's for the best that I'll never have to see if I'd been right or not, but still. Just an opinion here.) I mean, Friday Night Lights already did jump the shark, way back in Season 2, but thankfully that season's sloppiness and terrible stories got swept under the rug with the writers' strike and the showrunners were allowed to do a hard reset for Season 3. I think what allowed Friday Night Lights to be successful (critically, if not financially) and good for so long where so many other high school dramas fail to do so is that Friday Night Lights did what so many other shows are too afraid to do; it allowed its high school student characters to graduate and move on, and it replaced those characters with new characters. You still had old characters showing up every now and again, visiting home during breaks from college (as is realistic), but it's not as if the same kids who were playing football in Season 1 were still doing so in Season 5. The central characters of the show, the anchors, were Coach Taylor and his wife and daughter. And even the daughter became a recurring character in Season 5. All in all, Season 5 may have been the second-best year of FNL ever. (Season 1 comes first for me, and Season 2 is last and Season 4 is fourth - what I can't properly place is where Season 3 belongs, as I've only seen it once.) Since this is the final season of Friday Night Lights, I should end this recap by reflecting on its overall legacy. And without question, FNL currently goes down in my top ten favorite dramas of all time. Perhaps top five, although its quiet and dignified portrayal of small town America just doesn't compare on an "epic" scale to shows like Breaking Bad and The Wire. Still, whereas a once-great show like Lost was addictive for years, but went out with a total whimper, FNL quietly remained consistently touching and engaging in its understated way for years. Great show, great final season, and I'm looking forward to watching it all over again someday on my DVD sets. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
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