EMMY AWARDS

"Friday Night Lights"

The free spirit

"FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS" is a show ostensibly about football but not really at all. "I think we've been able to do a show that talks about so many basic important things — family, faith, marriage, adolescence," show runner Jason Kadims said. "The subject matter is the town. It's never been about football."

Peter Berg, who created "Friday Night Lights" just two years after directing a film of the same name, said he never had a master plan for the show, except to allow for a loose structure both on set and in the finished product. "We were interested in making a show that is not as producer- or writer-dominated as television often is," he said. "David Milch, David Kelly and Aaron Sorkin have done great jobs, but we don't have anybody on board with that much singular talent so we have to divvy it up."

On the set of "Friday Night Lights," actors are encouraged to improvise. Directors are not treated as hired hands and writers are told to focus less on climactic events and more on smaller human moments. Everybody has a stake in the outcome and a sense of creative freedom prevails.

That freedom extends to exploring some very sad stuff in the lives of the ever-expanding cast of characters who live in a small Texas town. "I think we've done a very good job of capturing the emotional brutality we experience in life," Berg said. "It's something we try to move away from but we keep coming back to it."

Berg is aware that darkness in the show can sometimes seem overwhelming. "I've seen a couple of episodes in rough cut and commented that we've really outdone ourselves in terms of depression this week," he said. "But life is tough."

And he doesn't think that's what's stopping viewers from tuning in. "I think the biggest thing we need is a new time slot," he said. "I would say almost anything but 8 o'clock against a Top 3 show."

(Berg's wish has since been fulfilled. During the television upfronts presentations, NBC announced that "Friday Night Lights" would get a new time slot: Friday nights at 10.)

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