If you didn’t watch this week’s episode of House, called “Saviors,” then you probably don’t want to read this. Unless you aren’t really into House. Then it’s probably okay…

Here’s a small excerpt of what I wrote about Friday Night Lights the day of its first season finale.

Trying to tell someone about a good TV show usually means you have anywhere for 30 - 90 seconds to hook them. Most people are not into television as much as the people I work and go to school with. [My friend] Nate tells me, via his David Foster Wallace essay, that TV is a huge clusterf*ck of mirrored psychological quirks for both the public in general and specifically fiction writers. I’ve read, in my oft-recommended Everything Bad is Good for You, that modern day television is making us smarter when it’s good. Nevertheless, whatever someone thinks about TV, they will give you at least 30 - 90 seconds to talk about it. The social rules of small talk dictate you get 30 - 90 seconds about most anything (except the weather, which gets a minimum of a minute).

In 30-2-90, here’s the way I’d describe Friday Night Lights:

It’s based on a book written by this journalist who lived in a small Texas town - you know, one of those towns that revolve around football. He lived in this town and wrote this book about this season where the star quarterback was severely injured and the team had to overcome adversity to do well in the playoffs for the town. The book did well and became a movie - unfortunately starring Billy Bob Thornton - around 2004. The TV show is about the fictional town of Dillon Texas and their football team that is supposed to go the state this year, but the star quarterback is paralyzed during the first game. But, it’s not just about that. The show isn’t really about football, it’s more about the relationships of the people in the town, and small town life in general. It kind of reminds me of high school and how people acted back then. It’s also serialized, so it’s kind of like a soap-opera.

In terms of the content, all the above information is correct, but reading it back to myself right now, it doesn’t sound like something I’d want to watch. Maybe I’m the only one who describes it this badly, but I find it difficult to explain the things I really like about FNL. There isn’t really a hook like other really popular shows:
-It’s a suspense show about terrorism that takes place in real time

BAM!
-These people are in a plane crash and are stranded on a desert island, but through the slow revelation of their pasts through flashbacks, we learn that things are much more sinister and complex than that.

POW!
-Two FBI agents explore strange happenings. One believes in the paranormal because his sister was abducted by aliens, and the other is attractive and skeptical…and a redhead

ZAP!
-Heroes…one’s actually named Hiro. And we’re going to sloganize our plotlines (”Save the Cheerleader, Save the World”)

Uh…sure, why not.

All I’m saying is that you really have to sit down and watch one, maybe two episodes to notice the nuances in character, the fantastic acting (mostly from the actors who play Coach Taylor and his wife Tami Taylor - the Taylors deserve some sort of award), and the accurate portrayal of small-town life and falling in love during that f*cked-up period of high school.

Then, Friday Night Lights kind of stumbled during its sophomore season, only to barely get picked up by DirecTV for a third, 13-episode season, which surprised the crap out of me by returning to being really good.

[The good news for those of you convinced by my old write up? You can see ALL of Season One on HULU Free!]

And I’m glad things worked out, because there are TWO more DirecTV-sponsored seasons on the way…

Slusho, like the Dharma Initiative logo (Lost) and the Tagruato Corporation (Cloverfield) is one of JJ Abrams inside jokes that he fits into his projects when he can. Sort of Like Quintin Trantino’s Big Kahuna Burger or Red Apple cigarettes.

We know that Tagruato, which makes Slusho and might have awoken the Cloverfield monster will be hidden in the Star Trek movie, and now some happenstance Fringe photos by Smoke In The City show that Slusho will make it on TV, it’s first time since the Heroes characters showed up online pimping the slushy drink.

I wonder why the Fringe cast didn’t tell me when I was at that dance party with them last week (I’m wearing a black vest and a silver tie and can’t dance very well)?

Hey, you remember the preview for Labor Pains? It’s a Lindsay Lohan movie where she’s, like, the worst secretary ever and instead of getting fired, she pretends to be pregnant to avoid the axe.

Yeah, there’s a pre-economic downturn story for ya. These days, not knowing how to manage your personal birth control still get you fired.

But, pretending that Lehman Brothers didn’t happen, the film was possibly going to be Lohan’s return to a film star, a reputation she destroyed by going on a high-speed, coke-fueled chase and getting arrested right before her latest movie was released. Also, that movie was I Know Who Killed Me, which did great…at the Razzies.

So what happened to Lindsay’s comeback…?

Courtney Cox is shooting a new half-hour sitcom for ABC with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence. The half-hour single cam series was described by Variety:

Lawrence and Cox will executive produce “Cougar Town,” which stars Cox as a newly single 40-year-old mom. Lawrence is writing the pilot alongside “Scrubs” writer Kevin Biegel.

I don’t know how far they are into the series, but taking these set photos from two different days, it looks to mostly revolve around Cox’s character stomping around a suburban nowhere in her bathrobe.

Which isn’t so bad, because Courtney actually looks pretty good in them bathrobes.

When the bells rung midnight on January 1st 2009, I hadn’t seen any Battlestar Galactica. I can’t remember what made me download the miniseries on to my iPod so I could watch it on the flight back to New York, but as soon as I did, I sped through the entire run of the show, doing double viewings of each episode so I could listen to all the commentaries (on some episodes, like Season 2,5’s “Pegasus,” I got to watch it 3 times thanks to a special directors cut). I soaked up Battlestar Galactica fast and completely so when the series finale aired last Friday I was as deep into the mythology, characters and world of the show as anyone, anywhere who wasn’t actually on set.I absorbed it qucikly, but with pleasure and care. I dug the finale and what it did for Science Fiction television, even the Deus Ex Machina moments didn’t bother me. But, as I told friends and family: Caprica, the Battlestar spinoff SyFy will pick up for a season, is still in the air. I want Caprica to be a show on different terms, not a show that hammers away at the same themes as Battlestar. ‘Cause Battlestar was in space, on a battleship and this is a family drama on an alternate, Earth-like world.

BSG ended up being about one God vs many gods, if the human race deserved to survive, what happens when we decide to play God and create ourselves and how those creations come into their own.

So, I’m kind of disappointed that the 7 clips I have for you of the Caprica premiere cover a lot of the same ground thematically. And if they spend another 4 seasons of good Sci-Fi (on SyFy) debating the same issues, I’m going to wish they just made more Battlestar, because I’m never going to wish Eric Stoltz’s Adama was my father like I sometimes wish Edward James Olmos was my father…

Yesterday saw an interesting event taking place at the United Nations where an invitation-only audience got to see some sort of panel featuring Battlestar Galactica stars Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell and producers Ron Moore and David Eick discussing four major UN/BSG issues with a few UN panelists and Whoopi Goldberg moderating.

If it sounds like an oddly-geeky event for the UN, you’re right with me on that one. However, it seems like there were a few degrees of coolness showing up in the UN chambers. First of all, the audience watched the panel from 12 sections, each one labeled as one of the 12 Colonies of Kobol (though I’m told the name placards still had their corners - blooper alert) and at one point, Edward James Olmos told the UN to stop using race as a dividing classification between people. He turned to some high school students that had nabbed an invitation and said: “Adults will never be able to stop using the word ‘race’ as a cultural determinant….There is only one race: the human race. SO SAY WE ALL!”

To which the audience responded: “SO SAY WE ALL!!!” Because Admiral F-ckin’ Adama told them to.

More deets of the coolness under the cut…