• TV Guide, Tuesday, February 8, 2011 1:30 PM

In honor of the season finale of "Friday Night Lights" airing on DirecTV tomorrow, check out the first two of TV Guide's three-part series that reads something like an oral history of the show, with quotes from cast members and executive producers. (If you've been waiting for the show to come back to NBC on April 15 and are worried about seeing spoilers, you can relax -- at least for these two pieces).

Even for non-fans, there's at least one interesting quote here on network TV politics, from Executive Producer David Nevins: "I was coming off 'Arrested Development,' so I was used to doing a show that's not in the mainstream.... I always like to make shows where you're almost daring the network to cancel you. If you can actually be the network's favorite show, they sometimes keep you on."

And here's Nevins on 'FNL'"s quirky appeal: "It's a show about football, but it's primarily for women. It's a show about teenagers, but it's primarily for adults. It's a show about the economically disadvantaged [but] it's got some real upscale appeal. So there were a lot of contradictions built in."

Read the whole story at TV Guide »