Last Sunday night found me red-eyed and bleary, the first pangs of hunger finally breaking through the imaginary wall I put around my mind. I emerged from a two-day bender and found myself wrapped in my bathrobe, my hair lank, sitting in a well-defined groove on the couch.

You see, I just got the season 5 DVDs of 'Friday Night Lights' and I watched the entire thing in about 20 hours. I gorged on those episodes, ignoring all but the most pressing bodily needs, until the Taylors and the motley residents of Dillon, Texas had shown me all they ever would of their lives.

Friday Night Lights - Wednesday May 4, 10PM ET/PT, Global (Friday, 8PM ET/PT, NBC in US)

Things start to go sideways for the Taylors as the fifth and final season of 'FNL' moves into its middle period. The arrival of Mr. Howard in his life stirs up images of the old Vince -- the angry, sullen kid standing on the edge of a precipice.

Becky and Mindy make a strange peace, and Tyra's older sister finally gets a plotline all to herself. Meanwhile, Tami continues her campaign to reach out to troubled East Dillon students, and is met by much apathy. She may have finally met a kid who doesn't respond to her no-nonsense charm. As always with this show, there is an undercurrent of impending doom and somehow, hope.

As the final season debut of 'Friday Night Lights' approaches on Friday, April 15, my joy at the chance to return to Dillon is mixed with sadness and frustration.

I'm pissed that almost no one watched this show during its four miraculous seasons and that almost no one will be watching its swan song. Like 'Veronica Mars' and 'Arrested Development' before it, it will become a weird quirk of conversation for the people who watched it. At parties and chance meetings, fans of the show will reminisce about the beauty of it while other people will avoid the freaks talking about fictional, canceled characters as if they were real.