I am – Hercules!!
The fifth (and likely final) season of “Friday Night Lights” arrives on DirecTV 101 this fall and on NBC next year.
We’ve a potentially spoiler-filled report from an untested source claiming to have witnessed a key scene shot at Dallas’ Cotton Bowl. It is cloaked here in invisotext:
Hi Herc,
I know you have reported on Friday Night Lights before and thought you might find this tidbit interesting. I was a crowd extra last night for the taping of the last episode of Friday Night Lights Season 5 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX. The episode will see the East Dillon Lions, coached by Eric Taylor and Billy Riggins face off agains the Hudgins Hawks in the Texas High School Football State Championship at the Cotton Bowl. The bulk of Saturday's filming seemed to focus on crowd reaction shots of various plays by both teams, with the crowd switching shirts midway to cheer for the opposing team. Present in the crowd sitting in a row on the 50 yard line were Connie Britton, Zach Gilford, and Aimee Teegarden. Brad Leland was filmed walking up and down the sideline reacting to plays. Also introduced were a new East Dillon Swedish football player and the father of East Dillon QB Vince. Both will play prominent roles in Season 5. The most interesting item about the shoot was the filming of the last play of the game. The East Dillon Lions are down by 3 with :03 seconds to play and line up for the Hail Mary pass. The producers would not inform the crowd if the pass would be caught or not, and filmed two versions of the scene, one with the crowd reacting wildly to a win, the other to a loss. Throughout the filming, everyone seemed to be very careful not to refer to the episode as the "series finale" and a couple of the AD's let slip that East Dillon's win or loss will depend on whether the show sees a sixth season or not (although they did not elaborate on which eventuality would be played out in either case). This excited me to no end as it has been previously reported the show would end after five seasons. Apparently, the recent Emmy campaign and nominations has breathed some commercial life into this critically successful show. At least for now, the producers appear to be at least preparing for the possibility of a sixth season.
Thanks, Herc, and I really enjoy your contributions to AICN.
-Just list me as an anonymous contributor if you use this.
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