• Grantland, Friday, July 15, 2011 3:01 PM

Why wasn't "Friday Night Lights" a ratings hit? "The moment that critics from New York to L.A. loved the show, I knew we were doomed," says Brad Leland (who plays Buddy Garrity), somewhat tongue in cheek, as quoted in this oral history of the series.

More likely, the show's relative failure (it survived, just barely, for two seasons on NBC, with three more seasons of a DirecTV/NBC run that will end tonight) had to do with scheduling flubs and misguided marketing that made potential viewers think it was just about football -- as others note in this post.

(For the record, we neither enjoy nor fully understand football, but were attracted by those critics' raves, and quickly became hooked on a story that's "about community and family and the way people interact with each other," as Connie Britton (the beloved Tami Taylor) says here.)

Check out this post before you watch the last episode ever tonight -- but avoid the last section, presumably where the spoilers are. (Thanks to a commenter on New York magazine's Vulture for warning us away.)

Read the whole story at Grantland »