connie britton

Everybody who's ever been a parent, or a teen, or especially a parent of a teen, can relate to the restrained insight of "Friday Night Lights." In the acclaimed NBC series' second-season return, Kyle Chandler's character is stunned when his crush-riven daughter resists his inquiring about her life during the months he's been halfway across Texas coaching his new college football team.

"What does this have to do with you?" she answers flatly, with teen logic/obstinacy, and some justification. And things get worse. After she's been out half the night chasing some bar-band stud, dad arrives to retrieve his teary girl, and she finally pours forth in the car. Turns out she's just mortified that if she makes nice in this podunk town, she'll end up like, yes, her parents.

Now tonight's episode presents her admission a bit too easily, and eloquently, but that's not the point. The miracle here is, as they say about the frog singing off-key, not how well it's done but that it's done at all. Tonight, when "Friday Night Lights" returns for a second season, it will ask viewers a simple question: How forgiving are you? Does your loyalty extend beyond one stumble?

Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Because the season premiere, at 9 on Channel 7, contains a plot development that belongs in a far lesser teen drama such as "One Tree Hill." I won't describe the botch in this review, nor will I ponder out loud how a group of excellent TV writers could so clearly lose their heads. But I know you'll recognize the twist when it occurs. In a series built on realism and intimate moments of pain and joy, the event has the subtlety of an offensive tackle. And it arrives during an hour that's already straining slightly to reestablish the characters - now eight months further along than last season - by making them a shade more obvious than usual.

Otherwise, though, "Friday Night Lights" is back in top form. I've seen the first three episodes of the season, and, after tonight's hour, they are alive with the kind of emotional honesty that has made the show both a critical darling and an underdog beloved by fans. The new layout of the action - Coach Eric Taylor lives in Austin, coaching college football, while Tami Taylor is at home in Dillon on maternity leave - doesn't make the story any less cohesive or satisfying.

Indeed, the strains of a long-distance marriage give Connie Britton an opportunity to draw us even further inside Tami as an individual, without her support system. We know Tami is a powerhouse as a wife, ruled by the instincts of her good heart; now we get to see the excruciating sensitivity of her emotional compass. She is at extremes holding down the fort alone, faced with both an infant's needs and the alienation of her 15-year-old daughter, Julie, who hungers for something more than small-town life. Britton's the kind of actress who has a wide range of emotions in her arsenal, and they are all readily available in any given scene.

This season also promises to showcase a number of supporting actors, including Jesse Plemons as Landry. Initially deployed mostly for comic relief, Plemons's Landry is becoming one of the show's most unexpectedly heroic characters. I love the fact that the "Friday Night Lights" producers are astute enough to see Plemons's potential, because he doesn't fit into any obvious categories. Zach Gilford also shows different facets of quarterback Matt Saracen, whose slow-motion response to life is tested by a teammate's ego, as well as his own ego.

And then Brad Leland turns Buddy Garrity into a tragic small-town figure, a guy who is responsible for ruining his life and fully aware of it. Leland doesn't soft-sell Buddy's awful drunkenness, but, like every actor on the show, he makes his character human. It's rare to find such a cast of living, breathing dramatic characters on network TV, and that's largely thanks to the peripheral work done by the likes of Leland. Even the smallest recurring performances - Louanne Stephens as Matt's fading grandmother and Liz Mikel as Smash's passionate mother, for example - are indelible.

Anyone who has watched "Friday Night Lights" knows that it is about football and yet it is so not about football. I can't imagine what stopped Emmy voters from lavishing this series with nominations this year, unless they failed to realize that it's not, strictly speaking, a sports drama. I also can't imagine why "Friday Night Lights" isn't a ratings success, except for the same confusion. Perhaps locating the series on Fridays will help draw in more viewers, since the title doubles as a schedule reminder. And a quality reminder, too, since
The overhyped fall TV premieres so far have met with yawns. The only newcomers showing the potential to break out are "Bionic Woman" and "Private Practice," two mediocre hours that are respectively violent and ditsy.

Viewers have favored returning series. That's good news for one of the very best dramas on television, NBC's "Friday Night Lights," launching its second season at 8 tonight on Channel 9.

The beautifully conceived story - again, Not About Football - continues to delve into its rich characters as it disdains clichés, tackles questions of blame and responsibility, and details how very lost lives can become even within the tight parameters of small-town Texas patriotism and sports allegiances.

No spoilers here, but there's a twist at the end of tonight's hour of "Friday Night Lights" that will reverberate through the season. This is cause for concern: The addition of a sustained mystery, not to mention the sight of teens jumping through windows to meet sex partners, could render "Friday Night Lights" more like every other show. Still, if it makes the story more accessible for those who crave a more literal narrative without altering the basic nature of the series, I'm for it.

As the season opens, Panther coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) has left Dillon to take a job coaching college football at TMU. His wife, Tami (Connie Britton), is about to have a baby, and their daughter, Julie (Aimee Teegarden), is feeling alternately trapped and overlooked.

Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) has found Jesus; Julie has found life beyond boyfriend Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford); Buddy Garity (Brad Leland) is drinking; and Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) and Landry (Jesse Plemmons) are hanging out. "Smash" Williams is loving the limelight, and Jason Street (Scott Porter), the wheelchair-bound former football star, is finding satisfaction in coaching.

The phenomenal Britton does terrific work in the first three hours of the season as the wildly hormonal, overextended coach's wife.

The story arcs dare to treat small-town American life in all its solemn complexity. The characters rise above inert cutouts, each following a journey, for better and worse, worth taking. New to the cast is Daniella Alonso, as Carlotta, a fetching live-in Latina caretaker for Matt's mother who may pose a dilemma, or perhaps an opportunity, for Matt.

From the start, the writers have used the admirable but complicated marriage at the heart of the series to anchor the action. Unfortunately the pair do too much talking on cellphones in the early hours this season. The sooner they can be reunited, the better for the story, not to mention the marriage.

On the sidelines, an ongoing source of angst and pride is the town's self-defining relationship with its high-school athletes. Is it possible they might go to State? The communal desire to "go to State" translates to Be Something or, perhaps, find a reason for living.

Panther pride means never having to say you're sorry. But this year the individuals are separately and collectively being swept toward a realization: At some point, somebody has got to step up and take responsibility. For decisions, for mistakes, for themselves.

ABC News bureaus

In what they're calling the largest expansion in two decades, ABC News this week posted correspondents in New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Seoul, South Korea; Jakarta, Indonesia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Dubai, UAE; and Nairobi, Kenya.

Lightweight gear means reporters can serve as their own producers and transmit stories from anywhere, ABC News president David Westin said in making the assignments.

They're not "bureaus" so much as apartments and hotel rooms, but the move is to be applauded. Cutbacks, layoffs and bureau closings have been the rule in recent years for all of the networks as foreign coverage has been curtailed.