NBC Orders New "Friday Night Lights" Scripts

Critically Acclaimed Freshman Show May Be Renewed Despite Low Ratings

"Friday Night Lights," the NBC drama about a high school football team in Texas, looked to be in danger of cancellation after it's first season drew critical raves, but failed to deliver big ratings numbers.  Today, NBC surprised Hollywood insiders by ordering six new episode scripts from the "Friday Night Lights" creative team.

Although the network has not yet confirmed that it plans to produce any "Friday" episodes beyond this season's twenty two shows, the script order suggests that there is a strong possibility that NBC will bring "Friday Night Lights" back for a second season.

Earlier this week, NBC placed a similar six script order for "Medium," the psychic detective show featuring Patricia Arquette. The Monday order for "Medium" coupled with today's news for "Friday" may point to a new network strategy for decision making about which series to keep and which to drop. However, the comedy "30 Rock," which has history of critical praise and lackluster ratings, has been picked up for a second season at NBC without an interim script order.

"Friday Night Lights" is an ensemble driven, hour long drama. The cast is headed by Kyle Chandler (Early Edition) as Eric Taylor, the head coach for high school football team The Panthers. Connie Britton (Spin City) stars as Taylor's wife, a guidance counselor at the fictional Austin high school.

The show's premise found success and large audiences in several forms before hitting the small screen. The 1990 book "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream," a non-fictional account of the Permian High School football team in Odessa, Texas, made it to the number one spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. In 2004, a well-recieved silver screen adaptation of the book starred Billy Bob Thornton as the coach. For the move to television, writers and producers re-tooled the story, moving the scene from Odessa to Austin, and swapping out true-life names and stories for fictional characters and plots based loosely on the book and movie.