"Friday Night Lights"

Catching up with the best new show of the season …

I know, I know, some of you love "Heroes" more. But I suspect you are not watching "Friday Night Lights" as closely as you should. I had missed a couple of recent episodes, but watched them over the weekend and marveled again at everything this show has going. The characters keep getting better, the stories range wide and even when you can guess where it's going, it makes the trip worthwhile. It's not, after all, that Saracen wins the big game, it's that he does it by finding another part of himself, with the help of Street, and that Street finds a better part of himself in the process — and that you share the joy he feels when the coach points out that Street may have found a new path.

The rape story was unnerving, especially since the uneasiness began the moment you see a guy alone in the restaurant on the night of the biggest football game in town. Obviously up to no good. But how great was it that we didn't get a woman-as-victim story, or a nerd-as-hero moment, but a woman who fought and saved herself? And made sense in doing so, since she came from a family of women who understand fighting and self-preservation.

And I just totally loved the game being played in a cow pasture.