BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

By all rights, the lights should have gone out on NBC's "Friday Night Lights" in May, given the low ratings for this critically acclaimed drama series set in a small Texas town.

Marketed last season as "a football show," "FNL" failed to connect with women, who should have been the core audience for what's truly more of a relationship drama than it is a sports-themed show.

Tonight's second-season premiere (9 p.m., WPXI) is noticeably lacking in gridiron bravado while the melodrama ratchets up to extremes that may disappoint longtime fans.

It's difficult to describe one particularly sensational plot without giving too much away, but viewers who watch "FNL" regularly will know it when they see it. The series veers in a crime story direction that threatens to spoil the show.

That possible misstep aside, "FNL" retains most of its hallmark elements in season two, including the role of the community in the lives of high school football players and the realistic relationship between coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his strong-willed guidance counselor wife, Tami (Connie Britton).

Eight months have passed since the end of last season, when Coach Taylor took a job working with a college football team, leaving the state champion Dillon Panthers to soldier on without him in a new fall season. The pregnant Tami refused to move to Austin with Eric; she and daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) remain in Dillon, and the long-distance relationship causes the whole family an undue amount of stress.

Julie, in particular, is acting out, becoming distant from football quarterback boyfriend Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and flirting with another lifeguard at the pool where she spent the summer working.

Titled "Last Days of Summer," tonight's season premiere has the feel of a more conventional teen drama with scads of bare skin on display in the pool scenes, but "FNL" retains the little moments that made it a gem last year.

One subtle scene in particular finds Coach Taylor, back in Dillon, encountering Matt at the grocery store. Matt tells him all the changes the new Panthers coach (Chris Mulkey, "Twin Peaks") has implemented. Coach Taylor says nothing but conveys his ample displeasure with the new tactics.

These deft touches seem less frequent in season two. The new coach is depicted with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It was a given that the newcomer would pale in comparison to the disciplined, well-meaning Coach Taylor, but does he have to be so nasty? Nicknamed "the Tennessee Tyrant," the new coach is particularly objectionable in an upcoming episode when he refers to wheelchair-bound player-turned-coach Jason Street (Scott Porter) as the "team mascot."

Among the other characters, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) is drinking again, Lyla (Minka Kelly) has found religion (at least temporarily) and Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) continues to hang out with Landry (Jesse Plemons, last season's comic relief), who tries out for the football team.

Even if Landry makes the team, viewers may not see him make many plays.

"We may not play quite as many full-out games as we did last year," said executive producer Jason Katims at a July press conference. "But it will be the same idea."

A reduction in football screen time may be one way to address the show's biggest hurdle -- drawing female fans.

"It's been a challenge for women to know that they would like the show because of the football thing," Katims said. "That's the thing that we're trying to sort of overcome."

Star Chandler said even his wife's female friends avoided "FNL," thinking it was "a football show," but they tuned in and realized the series can't be fully described with that brief description.

"To me the show is about this marriage [between Coach Taylor and his wife], and the show is about relationships, and the show is about parents trying to figure out how to raise their kids, and their teenagers figuring out sexuality and issues about race and class," Katims said.

The new season finds Coach Taylor and his wife struggling because of the distance between them. She gives birth to a daughter in tonight's premiere, but soon after he's flying back to Austin for his job.

"Over the course of the next several episodes it's really the story about this decision [to be apart] and whether or not they made a mistake, and if they did make a mistake, what they can do about it," Katims said, noting that the separation will be a story arc and won't comprise the entire second season.

Chandler said he enjoys the obstacles the coach and his wife face, "the bigger the better."

"The obstacles they give us remind us what the strength of the relationship is that we've built," Britton said. "We have this foundation."

In addition to football and relationships, "FNL" also conveys a real sense of small-town community life, from the mayor attending pep rallies to a church's embrace of one of its own.

"The community is what makes the show," said actor Gaius Charles. He recently went to church with a college friend in Staunton, Va., and it reminded him of the world depicted on "FNL." "We went to church on Sunday morning and everybody in town was in this one spot. It was surreal. I play it on TV, I don't live it, but to see somebody living it was kind of cool."

The new also season finds Lyla being baptized.

"A lot of shows would use that to poke fun at it," said executive producer Jeffrey Reiner, "but I find that I meet the preachers and I meet people somebody might call kind of weird or zealous, but they're not. We just end up meeting them as people."

As a fan, I hope that allegiance to humane, realistic characters and stories will continue in season two, but I have my fears that in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience, "FNL" may be in danger of getting dumbed down.

'Cupid' resurrected

Daily Variety reported this week that ABC is taking the unusual step of reviving a low-rated, critically acclaimed series from its past. The network has made a deal with executive producer Rob Thomas ("Veronica Mars") to redo his 1998-99 series "Cupid," which starred Jeremy Piven as a guy who thinks he has been charged with uniting soulmates.

Piven, who is otherwise engaged on HBO's "Entourage," won't be back, and the setting will move from Chicago to Los Angeles, but the concept remains the same. Thomas told Daily Variety he had been in talks with ABC about developing a new anthological romance similar to "Cupid" or "Love Boat," and the network suggested it simply give "Cupid" a do-over.

Channel surfing

Diane Sawyer of ABC's "20/20" was in Pittsburgh this week to follow a day in the life of 46-year-old Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch, who has incurable pancreatic cancer. An air date for her report has not been set. ... This week Comcast added TBS HD on Channel 198 and CNN HD on Channel 197 on 80 percent of its Western Pennsylvania systems (some perpetually HD-deprived North Hills residents remain out of luck). ... Armstrong has added ESPNU to its America's Television Plus 40 tier as Channel 468. ... A Mother Teresa conference being held at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe this weekend will be covered by Catholic channel EWTN at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday. ... Showtime, benefiting from a free weekend, saw original series "Dexter" score with its second-season premiere, drawing more than 1 million viewers, the network's highest tune-in for a first-run episode. ... Comedy Central has canceled "The Showbiz Show with David Spade." ... HBO has renewed "Tell Me You Love Me" for a second season. ... The second season premiere of BBC America's "Wild at Heart," which is referenced in Sunday's TV Week cover story, has been postponed. No new premiere date has been set.

CBS reporter lectures here

CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, who was injured while reporting from Iraq, will be the featured speaker at the fifth Marie Torre Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. Nov. 3 in the Kresge Theatre inside Grace Library at Carlow University.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To reserve seats, call 412-578-2091.

TV Q&A

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Dirt," "Scrubs" in HD and Comcast, Comcast, Comcast. Read it online at post-gazette.com/tv.