'Friday Night' Fights

Image credit: Friday Night Lights: Bill Record

But the one thing that cast and crew seem unable to protect themselves against is low ratings. Reiner, like everyone else on the Texas set, is baffled as to how to boost viewership, suggesting that in tackling themes such as teen sexuality and steroid use, FNL is not an 8 o'clock show. (Chandler grimaces: ''That means it's on at seven here in Austin — people aren't finished doing the dishes by then.'') Reiner asks, ''Do you think the [low ratings] are because it's a football show in Texas?''

The less-than-stellar history of TV sports dramas would seem to confirm this, but Reiner insists that FNL ''is not any more a football show than One Tree Hill is a basketball show.'' Chandler concurs: ''This is the first show where I've played an adult with a family. I've been married for 10 years now, with two kids, and I get to use all that in the show. It goes way beyond football stories.'' Still, some obvious cross-promotions couldn't have hurt: say, Chandler getting chummy with John Madden in the NBC Sunday Night Football booth.

Then again, with its glowing portrait of a marriage — Chandler and Britton have a lovely chemistry, bickering and cooing without snideness or sap — plus strong young female characters like Kelly's Lyla and tough-gal siren Tyra (South Beach's Adrianne Palicki), Lights' promotion really ought to be reaching out to women. Britton, who's reprising her role from the feature film, says, ''If I thought of it as a football show, I wouldn't be doing this role. And if I thought of it as a teenage-angst show, I wouldn't be doing this role. I was really straight with [Peter Berg] about that,'' she explains. ''But he left this message on my phone saying, 'Connie, I promise this character is going to be complex and sexy and strong and f---ed-up,' and after that, I couldn't say no.''

''So many people come up to me and say 'I love the show and I hate football,''' says Gilford. ''[But] marketing isn't my job. After the first three episodes I decided there's nothing I can do about the ratings as long as I'm doing my job and not sucking at it.''

So whose job is it to properly promote this baby? Ring, ring! It's executive producer Brian Grazer, calling the Texas set from L.A., bubbling effusively about the ''sexiness'' of the series. He cites other projects he's had a hand in producing; Fox's 24, for example, ''took until the middle of year 3'' to break through. He compares FNL to his Eminem epic 8 Mile. Huh? One pictures Grazer in Hollywood, his trademark spiky hair bristling with enthusiasm, and suddenly the gap between the industry and this series, set deep in the marrow of working-class Texas, seems vast.

NBC's Reilly comes tantalizingly close to committing to a second season, without quite doing so: ''I feel as if we'd have a better shot at reintroducing it to a bigger audience next season — put it out on DVD, let people catch up with it in reruns, and hope it pops next year.''

That's the game plan Coach Taylor certainly would like to implement. ''It's gonna be difficult for me, when I go back to do [a more conventional series],'' says Chandler, ''but for [the younger actors] it's gonna be downright foreign. I know when I go back into the real world I'm gonna be shocked at how much time can be wasted in making a regular show.''

Which is all the more reason to ask: Who will save this gloriously not-regular show?