Y’know, it’s a good thing I checked out those two episodes of “Gossip Girl” before I checked out the next two episodes of “Friday Night Lights.” If I’d seen the latter first, I’d've probably used the former as a point of comparison for how impossible it is for the average kid to relate to most characters on TV; the latter, however, is about as real as any show this side of…well, actually, I don’t even have a ready point of comparison. That’s how realistic they feel to me…though I’m willing to concede that maybe it’s just the handheld camerawork that makes it feel more real. (At the very least, it gives the show a look that’s unique to most anything else on the air at the moment.)

My opinion on “FNL” can’t be trusted as much as our dedicated blogger, Mr. John Paulsen, who’s been in the show’s camp from the beginning, but I’ll just say that these two episodes - tonight’s and next week’s - made for great viewing, with both the teen and adult storylines unfolding in a manner that was consistently enthralling, both in the dramatic and the comedic sides of things. The teen characters have the kind of problems that adults will remember from their own youth, such as a girl trying to accept that the best person for her isn’t necessarily the school matinee idol, and the adult issues - like, for instance, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife, Tami (Connie Britton), dealing with her sister’s refusal to realize that she’s being a nuisance of a houseguest - are pretty damned familiar, too. And damned if it isn’t true what people have been telling me all along: there’s precious little football in “Friday Night Lights.” And when there finally is a big game, which happens in next week’s episode, it brings with it one of those great “oh, shit!” moments that you don’t need to be a sports fan to appreciate.

Hmmm…looks like Season 1 of the show is only $18.99 over at Amazon. Maybe it’s time to finally take the plunge and get the full experience of what everyone’s been telling me is one of the best shows on TV…?