It’s about feelings (and football)

NBC has called a Hail Mary pass with one of its new fall shows.

It’s a weekly drama set against the backdrop of prep sports, a relatively unglamorous world that hasn’t yielded a TV hit in nearly 30 years. The series’ roster lacks any big-name stars, and come winter it’ll have to dodge the ratings blitz that is “American Idol.”

Oh, and even though it’s scheduled for Tuesdays, the program will be called “Friday Night Lights.”

The odds may sound hopeless, but fourth-ranked NBC has little to lose by hurling a bomb toward the end zone. Adapted from the 2004 movie starring Billy Bob Thornton (itself based on a bestselling book by H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger), “Friday Night Lights” is a slice-of-life tale about a small-town football coach, his troubled young players and the football-obsessed local burghers.

It may be tough to persuade non-fans -- hello, NFL widows -- to care about a gridiron story. With the exception of “The White Shadow,” a 1978-81 cult drama about a high-school basketball coach, sports-themed series have a dismal record on network TV, including Steven Bochco’s “Bay City Blues,” the ‘70s sitcom “Ball Four” and CBS’ “Clubhouse,” which ran for just five episodes in 2004.

So, NBC brass have hatched a game plan to let any reluctant viewers know that “Lights” is really a show about relationships. The backfield action is just an added bonus.

“It’s ‘The O.C.’ with guts and authenticity,” NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told reporters when plugging NBC’s lineup in May.

As David Nevins, president of Imagine Television, which is producing the show with NBC Universal’s in-house studio, put it in an interview Friday: “We’re very aware that what makes dramatic TV click is women.

“This is not simply about the dynamics of a team,” he added. “You’re going to really explore the lives of the kids who are in the limelight.”

Women indeed make up the majority of prime-time TV viewers, so it’s only common sense to target them. NBC watched from the sidelines the last couple seasons as ABC scored with two female-skewing shows that cleverly reinvented the soap format, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives.” Reilly and his executives got burned betting on noisy, high-concept action flops like “Surface,” “Heist” and “E-Ring.” The only new NBC show from last fall to survive is a comedy, “My Name Is Earl.”

Audiences, meanwhile, are beginning to tire of crime procedurals like the “CSI” and “Law & Order” franchises, which have seen recent ratings declines. So, there’s an opportunity for networks to try something different, if not necessarily bold, in the dramatic category. And it doesn’t hurt that NBC this fall will telecast NFL games for the first time since 1997, giving “Friday Night Lights” a ready-made promotional platform (the network revealed late last week that it had failed to reach a renewal agreement with the indoor-only Arena Football League, which is now seeking another broadcast partner; NBC has telecast those games since 2003).

The rights to Bissinger’s book were bought by Imagine producer Brian Grazer, who spent years trying to get it on-screen, according to Nevins. After the film saw modest box-office success, its director and co-writer, Peter Berg, started developing the material as a TV series. Its movie roots show through; the pilot is nearly as self-contained as a short film. But several changes were made from the feature version. The action was moved from the 1980s to the present and the setting shifted from Odessa, Texas, to the fictional town of Dillon, Texas.

More important for NBC’s marketing purposes, the female roles were beefed up. In addition to the all-American quarterback, Jason (Scott Porter), and hotshot running back, Brian (Gaius Charles), there is the requisite flirty teen blond, Tyra (Adrianne Palicki), and her brunet cheerleader nemesis, Lyla (Minka Kelly). In a nod toward “Grey’s Anatomy,” the producers cast Kyle Chandler, a memorable guest star on ABC’s hospital drama, as square-jawed, hunky Coach Taylor, who in the pilot is beset by high-pressure townsfolk who doubt his abilities as a team leader -- and then is dealt an unexpected setback during the week’s climactic game.

“It’s about the pressures we put on our kids at a very young age,” Nevins said.

As “showrunner,” the executive producer in charge of the writers’ room and day-to-day production, NBC picked Jason Katims, a former writer for “My So-Called Life” and “Roswell,” two cult dramas with strong appeal among young women. The network’s promos feature recent pop ballads along with visuals that accentuate character relationships rather than football.

In fact, some sports fans may well wonder whether any football will be left by the time the network and the producers are done. But the fate of past sports-related series makes some dramatic compromise necessary.

“You would think sports would be such a natural for TV drama ... because sports is such a great metaphor for American life,” said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. “But maybe that’s the problem: There’s so much sports on TV already, it’s crowded out the need to fictionalize it.”

Even a gain of a few yards in the ratings would probably produce cheers at NBC.

“There’s no question that the history of sports dramas isn’t an illustrious one,” Nevins said. He points out that no one thought that a show about Washington politics would work until “The West Wing” came along, either. “But there’s always that one show that breaks through.”