When it comes to NBC’s Friday Night Lights, I still can’t believe that it took so long for the show to find a wider audience. I mean, football flows through the veins of every red-blooded American like the other "football" called soccer pulses like a religion in every other country outside of the U.S. After a rocky but critically praised start in its first season, it was clear that some football fans didn’t seem to care about the lives of the players as much as the game itself. Then again, we are talking about high school football in Texas and not the big time. Still, as we all know, life in high school makes for great drama.

Despite being hailed by loyal fans and critics as one of the best sports dramas in the history of television in its first season, Friday Night Lights received somewhat of a luke-warm reception in its sophomore outing. Throw in the writers’ strike and a shortened season, and the show couldn’t possibly maintain the same magic of season one. While the first season bravely tackled such relatable real world themes and issues as on-field injury paralysis, the affects of alcoholism, overcoming adversity, and sacrificing victory for morality, the second season took on a more melodramatic tone with a much heavier focus on romance, awkward relationships, pregnancy, the quest for hope, issues related to stem-cell therapy and homelessness, and the secrecy surrounding a murder.

Although the second season wasn’t quite as magical as the first, Friday Night Lights was challenged in the same way as Heroes after its inaugural season. Heroes arguably delivered one of the best first seasons in the history of television. It was such a great debut that Heroes really could have existed as a one season, stand-alone series only. When the second season rolled around, it was almost impossible to maintain the same level of success without faltering a few times along the way. With Friday Night Lights, it’s not exactly the same but the series somehow diverted from the bar set by the absorbing realism of the first season to explore "sudsy" and "soapy" relationship issues that required a much bigger investment in season two - young girls dating older men, young girls dating teachers, team politics, young guys dumping cheerleaders for nurses, hidden dead bodies, and... well, you get the idea. If you love sudsy drama, the second season of Friday Night Lights is mostly about relationships. It’s certainly entertaining and a great show to support, but it’s certainly a different tone than the first.

As for the second season on DVD, fans won’t be disappointed by the extras in any way, shape or form. Whatever entertainment was lost due to the writers’ strike is made up for in a big way on DVD across four discs that include all 15 episodes of the season. Included on the first three discs are insightful, informative, and engaging episode specific commentaries featuring executive producer/creator Jason Katims and co-executive producer Jeffrey Reiner and show stars Connie Britton, Aimee Teegarden, Jesse Plemons, and Adrienne Palicki. The fourth disc houses the half-hour long featurette from the William S. Paley Television Festival where the cast sits on the panel to give even more insight into the quality of the show’s writing, how the locations are used in the series, secrets behind various set pieces, and how the actors are given the creative freedom to inject their own unique life into the show through the scripts. Rounding out the set are a hefty 40-minute’s worth of deleted scenes scattered throughout each disc, which help to expand on the show’s storylines and give further insight into various sub-plots and character elements that eventually got axed for a variety of reasons.

Although Friday Night Lights had a much stronger first season, the second outing does punctuate the fact that the show is ripe with drama, quality, and emotion. If you haven’t plugged yourself into the series, you can still jump in with season two and double back at some point to see how it all started with season one. Also, the commentaries, interviews, and deleted scenes will definitely go a long way in catching up to one of the best shows on TV that you might still be missing.