"Friday Night Lights" typically shoots around Austin: at an old stadium in Del Valle; at a stadium in Pflugerville; and in homes and locations in the area. Texas Stadium represents not just a change for the fictional players but for the real actors.

The first day of the shoot focuses on a practice session, and as usual with an "FNL" shoot, things look almost random to an observer, as the crew's hand-held cameras roam around the actors as they work. It's almost hard to believe that the end results are so coherent, but it's all in keeping with the show's loose structure.

"We walk in and we do not rehearse," Leland says. "We find out lots of times little gems of truth and real things about our characters by not doing that. By simply speaking to each other. ... You take the time to do that, and what we find ourselves doing is not only creating little edges to the words - they've given us great words, but then we find things around them by just sort of living in the moment."

The second day, however, is much more controlled. It's game day, and even the most casual bystander can look up at the scoreboard and tell where the story's going. A few thousand extras - many of them recruited from local charity groups - fill a couple of sections in the stands; they'll be digitally reproduced so that it looks like there's a full house when the episode airs.

It looks a lot like a real high-school game, with "Panther Power" banners hanging in the stands and the crowd, dressed in Dillon blue, screaming and waving whenever something goes right for the Panthers. Except that first assistant director Michael Waxman is on the public-address system, instructing the crowd on how to react.

At the center of the crowd are Britton and Teegarden, along with Fort Worth's Louanne Stephens and Libby Villari, who play Matt Saracen's grandmother and the town mayor, respectively. Even from a distance, you can see the looks of nail-biting concern on Britton's face as she's in character as Tami, rooting for her husband's team in the latest in a series of do-or-die games. "Friday Night Lights" seems to share that sense of do-or-die - the feeling that it could go out as a champ or just have that one bright season that ends with everyone's heads in their hands.

"The thing that's a little tricky about doing something that we love so much and that we're so passionate about is the idea that people aren't seeing it," Britton says during a break. "... Today's my last day of shooting, and I feel really strongly that we're going to come back. We have to come back. Because these characters are not over. I feel like all of our lives have just begun, really, with this season."