“I do not like the way this is starting out,” said Coach Eric Taylor as Friday Night Lights began its run on DirecTV Wednesday night. Make that one of him.

The fifth and final season premiere was energetic with the changes we knew were coming. (SPOILER ALERT if you don’t want to knowFNL‘s episode details.) It’s August, and daughter Julie bustled around getting ready to head off to college. Brother Billy visited Tim Riggins in jail, a quick scene that suggested two developments: Billy has become a more responsible fellow, if only out of guilt at letting Tim take the fall for the chop-shop scheme last season, and Tim has become hollow-eyed and despairing — pretty wrenching, since the Tim we love is a smirking, lovable wise guy. At East Dillon, Tami is once again a guidance counselor, overseen by a principal who was suddenly exhibiting signs of friendliness, a far cry from the sourpuss he was last season. And Becky is living with her mean ol’ step-mom-with-squalling-baby, as her father drives his rig into the sunset, eager to get away from a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in Tobacco Road.

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“I’m going to miss this.” – Eric Taylor

Those words, spoken by Kyle Chandler’s Eric Taylor in the season premiere of Friday Night Lights(”Expectations”), written by David Hudgins and directed by Michael Waxman, are said as he looks over at the minor squabble developing between wife Tami (Connie Britton) and daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden). But that simple sentence, offered in a sweet and rather sad tone, might as well encapsulate the overall feeling of the audience: we’re going to miss this too.

Even though the “this” in question might be yet flare-up of adolescence angst from Julie Taylor. But it’s the fact that the Taylors are together, engaged in the regular rigors of daily life, that the entire declarative statement takes on bigger meaning. Change is coming for the Taylors, with Julie heading off the school. Their family is once again being split up and those breakfasts, those arguments, those stolen moments are soon to be a thing of the past.

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“Friday Night Lights” is back – at least if you have DirecTV’s 101 Network, which will air new episodes Wednesdays at 9 – and I have a review of the season premiere coming up just as soon as water is meant to be in my brother’s pants…

“I do not like the way this is starting out.” -Coach

As has been the case for these DirecTV seasons of “FNL,” there are a lot of beginnings and endings going on simultaneously in the season premiere. Landry and Julie are spending their final days in Dillon before leaving for college (Lance to Rice, Julie to the fictional Burleson University), and Tim is counting down the three months he has left on the prison sentence he began at the end of last season. At the same time, a new football season is upon us, which brings us a new player in the weirdly-named Hastings Ruckle, Tami proves remarkably tone deaf as she begins her new job at East Dillon, Becky begins a new living situation with Billy and Mindy and Billy in turn forces his way onto Eric’s suddenly-packed coaching staff.

To read the rest of this review go to: HitFix.com

“Friday Night Lights” begins its fifth and final season on Wednesday (Oct. 27) night on DirecTV.

These last episodes are sure to be emotional, but it’s possible that no show in television history has ever more thoroughly prepared its fanbase for saying farewell.

Devoted “Friday Night Lights” fans had already faced the possibility of cancellation after the first, second and third seasons. In fact, last year’s finale was the first time that viewers were able to enjoy the end of one season knowing that another season was guaranteed to follow. In the process of taking audiences on this high school-based journey, “Friday Night Lights” has also regularly graduated characters both within the show and off into the next phase of their lives, outside of the series. With varying degrees of ceremony, we’ve bid adieu to Smash, Street, Saracen, Lyla and Tyra in the past two seasons alone.

To read the rest of this article go to: HitFix.com