Friday Night Lights had its Paley Festival panel last night, and the mood appeared to be optimistic.  TV Guide's Michael Ausiello moderated the event.  While the entire cast was unfortunately not on hand to speak about Friday Night Lights, there were more than enough familiar Dillon faces to please the fans in attendance.  The big question hanging over the entire panel was, of course, whether or not Friday Night Lights would be returning for a third season.  The fate of the series has been up in the air since it premiered in Fall of 2006, and the speculation hasn't stopped since.  The recent announcement of a joint NBC/DirecTV deal that would allow Friday Night Lights to produce a third season has raised the hopes of fans.  By the way the panel discussed that possibility, I think Friday Night Lights fans can feel pretty good right now.

On hand at the panel were cast members Adrianne Palicki, Zach Gilford, Aimee Teegarden, Minka Kelly, Scott Porter, and Connie Britton, with producers Jason Katims and Jeffrey Reiner.  Taylor Kitsch, Gaius Charles, Jesse Plemons and Kyle Chandler were all absent – they were out of town filming various movies. 

It was made clear that the DirecTV deal with NBC has yet to become official, but the general feeling was that it would get done.  The producers stated that if the deal does gets done, production on new episodes could begin as early as July. 

They are not sure where the story will pick up come next season, but most likely the action would jump ahead to a new school year and they would be realistic – a new class would come in and the graduating students would go to college.  They would show some of the collegians – especially Smash's adjustment to college – but the main focus would be on Dillon football.  And, new students would enter the fold. 

There were apologies and responsibility taken for the divisive murder plot of season 2. 


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of NBC)