Aimee Teegarden

CHICAGO – If your ideal vision of prom is best represented by “Carrie,” then odds are Disney’s “Prom” is not for you. In fact, if you are a high schooler, were a high schooler or may become a high schooler, “Prom” is guaranteed to strike you as monumentally childish. It’s the sort of harmless dreck so mediocre and generic that it could’ve been made in any time period. In a sense, it’s timeless dreck.

CHICAGO – There are many essential questions in life. What is my purpose? How do I find my place in the universe? Where did I put my mobile phone? But the most important of all, as Aimee Teegarden is about to experience, is who will I get to take me to “Prom.”

CHICAGO – Even diehard fans of the show have to be stunned that “Friday Night Lights” made it five seasons. And perhaps the program’s most enduring legacy will be that it changes the delivery model. The fifth and final season has already aired on DirecTV’s 101 and starts playing tonight, April 15th, 2011 on NBC, but is also already available on DVD. Yes, the shows haven’t even aired on network TV but they’re already at the DVD store. Times are changing.

CHICAGO – The saga of “Friday Night Lights,” the fourth season of which is now available on DVD, is not unlike that of an underestimated football player who most people thought wouldn’t make the team despite his obvious talent but who proved everyone wrong by changing the rules of the game.

CHICAGO – Why has a seemingly ordinary tale of an oil patch town in Texas and their high school football obsession conquered books, film and television? Because the folks telling the story continue a tradition of beautiful, significant truth.