I watched the series finale of “Friday Night Lights” yesterday, and while I will not spoil a thing about it for any of you, I will say that my heart was full throughout, but my eyes were not always clear, if you know what I mean. And for the first time, I actually feel envious for the people who don't have DirecTV and/or aren't TV critics with screener access. Because you guys still have 13 new episodes of this great drama to watch, and I now have none. (I know, I know… the world's smallest violin is playing for me.)

The final two episodes of the series are going to air on The 101 Network on Feb. 2 & 9 at 9 p.m. That's simple for those of you with DirecTV. For everyone else, things get a bit stranger.

Yesterday, I got a press release about the release date for the final season on DVD: April 5, which is well ahead of the tentative summer premiere date NBC has been talking about. Now, the company that puts the show out on DVD is part of the NBCUniversal empire, so it's not like any signals were crossed. So I checked in with someone at NBC to find out if this was going to affect the premiere date – or if NBC was still planning to air the final season at all. (After all, DirecTV pays most of the production costs, and the show's NBC ratings are tiny; essentially, they're like cheap reruns the network can use in a low-expectations timeslot.)

via Friday Night Lights: The DirecTV/NBC/DVD conundrum – HitFix.com.