FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS SAFE, FOR NOW

Phew! Just when I thought I would have to report on NBC pulling the plug on their amazing Texas-set drama "Friday Night Lights" the network announced ordering two additional scripts for the freshman drama. That means the NBC is sticking by FNL, at least for the time being.

As we reported yesterday, this year's shows are among the most expensive ever produced, and the networks do not have too many midseason replacements on hand. For this reason, they are unusually reluctant when it comes to pulling the plug on underperforming shows, whereas in the past they would not give them such luxury.

As for "Friday Night Lights", NBC president Kevin Reilly said today that the network did not expect spectacular performance given how competitive the hour is. The show has actually had pretty rough two airings; it premiered to a little over 7 million viewers last week being dubbed one of the worst fall premieres this season and then it lost 900,000 viewers this week.

NBC will continue to support the show, at least through mid November when ABC ends its current run of "Dancing with the Stars" at which point NBC expects the rookie drama to grow.

In related news, FOX has given similar bode of confidence to their freshman drama "Standoff" ordering three additional scripts.