We sat down with Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton prior to her Conversations session at the SAG Foundation, and she dished what’s in store for the citizens of Dillon in season four, which kicks off production on Sept. 2.

When we left the Taylors at the end of season three, Coach (Kyle Chandler) was banished to the run-down East Dillon High School, while Tami remained principal of the Panthers. Could this split actually revive their marriage? “Wait, there’s nothing wrong with the marriage,” joked Connie. “Hello! The marriage doesn’t need reviving. How dare you?”

Actually the impact of the separate schools may “add a new dimension” to their relationship, Connie said. “It’s very hard to even grasp what it means—this whole new school that needs all this help that Coach is going to be going to, with redistricting and all that. I think it’s going to be more [about] us trying to figure out what our new roles are in these places than it’s going to be us at odds with each other. Maybe we’ll find a way to come together and help each other with our competitive schools.”

While the Taylors are adding a new spark to their marriage, little Julie (Aimee Teegarden) may be in for more trouble this season. “It’ll be much more interesting if she’s not a good girl, don’t you think? At the end of the day, I’m her mom, [and] I want her to be awesome,” Connie said. “Maybe she can have one more spell, and then I want her to pull it all together and get into a great school and live an awesome life.”

So what does this mean for Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and Julie? Connie told us, “At the end of last season it wasn’t like he was going to be gone.” However, Zach won’t be in many episodes this season, so it doesn’t seem like they could last. “Exactly!” exclaimed Connie. “I don’t know how that’s going to sort itself out.”

Speaking of doomed relationships, Taylor Kitsch recently told us he’s coming back for season four, but Minka Kelly is only back for a few episodes, which Connie teased is not good news for Lyla and Riggins fans: “Riggins is going to have to move on. The reality of the situation is he’s in Dillon; he’s never going to leave Dillon probably, and she is. She has a whole future, and I think it would be really interesting to see what that does to him. Maybe she’ll come back and do some episodes, and we’ll see where she’s gone off to and see the difference between the girl who gets out and the guy who doesn’t. Those old high school relationships where you think [you're] going to be forever together and then you’ve got your whole life ahead of you and everything changes. ”

TVGuide.com: I want you to know that my wife got hooked on Friday Night Lights this past season — and I think it’s largely due to the tactile and real performances given by you, Kyle Chandler, et al.
Connie Britton: Aw, that’s so awesome! That’s what I’m talking about, that’s what we need to do. 

TVGuide.com: Hey, every head counts. What was your favorite thing about playing Tami last year?
Britton: For me, it felt like a roller coaster. The whole aspect of being principal was really interesting, because when I first heard about that, I was heady with power! I was like, “This is the be-all and end-all,” Kyle was jealous. … It was fantastic. And then they were like, “Yeah, but you’re going to have a huge head-to-head issue with Buddy, and ultimately you’ll lose.” [Laughs] I was like, “No fair!” 

TVGuide.com: What are the odds that Tami and Eric will be working at rival Dillon high schools next season?
Britton: Knowing our writers, I bet that’s the way they’ll go, because that will be so interesting and challenging. And that’s how we do it at Friday Night Lights. 

TVGuide.com: Last season we said sad goodbyes to both Smash and Jason…
Britton: C’mon, admit it, you cried during those episodes. 

TVGuide.com: Maybe. Will Season 4 serve up anything similar for Matt (Zach Gilford), Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) or Lyla (Minka Kelly), all of whom could be heading off to college?
Britton: The writers just now are concocting their story ideas, but I would think they do a little arc for all those characters — or at least the ones they can. All these actors are going off and doing awesome movies and stuff. We are the farm team for Hollywood, with our actors, our writers, our director…. It’s crazy.

TVGuide.com: Executive producers Jason Katims and Jeffrey Reiner have gone off to do other projects (NBC’s Parenthood and Trauma, respectively). How might their absences affect the mood on the set?
Britton: I don’t think it will be different at all. We’ll have some different players on the team, but we also will have a lot of the same players. There’s Michael Waxman, who was our First [Assistant Director] for a long time before starting to direct some episodes, and we just love him. I think he’s going to be picking up some of the Jeff Reiner slack. 

TVGuide.com: Plus you’re going into this transition as one of the business’ best-oiled machines.
Britton: I really do think that’s true. We’ve always attributed the success and greatness of Friday Night Lights to its process, and that involves every single person, from every department. 

TVGuide.com: What was the thinking behind a two-season pick-up? Was it financial?
Britton: I’m not involved in all those negotiations, but if I had to guess, the only reason somebody would do a two-season pick-up is if there’s a financial advantage. It impacts syndication, packaging…. 

TVGuide.com: So are you shooting Seasons 4 and 5 back-to-back? That’d be cost-effective.
Britton: No, I think there will be a little break between seasons, if for no other reason than to let the writers regroup. 

TVGuide.com: Did you have your hand slapped at all for telling EW.com that after these next two seasons, the show is done?
Britton: No! I don’t think I’m out of bounds in saying that. I think that is the intention. 

TVGuide.com: Hey, end dates are the new black — everybody is doing them.
Britton: Exactly, and we are all looking at it as an advantage. One of the things that’s so hard about TV is that time at the end of the season where it’s a guessing game of, “Will we ever see each other again?” That’s tough, man. So for us to have the luxury of knowing what we have in front of us and, frankly, knowing when we get to say goodbye, is great. Listen, if the show suddenly started making phenomenal amounts of money and gets phenomenal ratings and they’re like, “Let’s keep it going,” that would be great. But I have a feeling that this is a really good way to be really specific with stories.

Although FNL star Connie Britton recently said the original two-season pickup would likely be the end of the show, she told us, “You never know—if it does do really, really well, maybe they would go on for more seasons.”

So what do the possible final seasons hold for the Taylors and the rest of Dillon?

Connie teased bad news for the couples in Dillon in season four, which goes into production on Sept. 2. FNL veteran Peter Berg is directing the first episode, which will likely have a time lapse similar to season two. Said Connie, “I bet that they will do it from that three-month ending to the beginning of the new school season, which would be September.”

If Connie’s wish for a season six isn’t granted, that’s actually OK with her. “Everybody is really embracing the idea of having two seasons and being able to be really specific with these arcs and know where we’re going to end up,” she said. “That’s exciting to be able to do that on a TV show. I really do feel like these two seasons are going to be really strong. I think it’s going to be a lot of change, but I think it’s going to be really strong. Part of that is because they are thinking of it in terms of two seasons. In a way, it’s much more like a movie focus.”

So where would Connie want to see the Taylors end up if they must say goodbye in season five? Connie told us: “Julie would’ve graduated, so I’d love to see her off somewhere fantastic. I think it would be interesting to see [Coach and Tami] end up at the same school again, back to being on top a little bit, but even as I’m saying that I’m thinking, what if we end up moving away out of Dillon? That could be really interesting, too.”

Finally, with Emmy nominations just a few short weeks away, Connie isn’t stressing too much over it. “I’m so used to not being nominated that if I get nominated I’m really going to freak out,” she joked. “But it would be awesome. It would be so great.”

We second that. Regardless of an Emmy nom or not, Connie’s extremely pleased with the fan support that brought Friday Night Lights back from within an inch of death. “Our fans are so awesome. People who are watching this show are just so amazingly invested and passionate. It’s just a joy. Anytime I run into someone who watches this show, the investment is like a dream. It’s incredible. [It's] just so satisfying to work on something that people feel that strongly about, it’s the best.”

Inspired by the best-selling book and theatrical film of the same name, the show features a great ensemble cast led by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton and provides a heartfelt look at life, love and football in the small West Texas town of Dillon.

All 13 episodes of Season Three of Friday Night Lights will be featured on the four-disc set along with bonus features. Seasons Four and Five (2009-2010 and 2010-2011) will each contain 13 episodes as well, airing on DirecTV in the fall and NBC in spring.

If you want a poster child for why reality shows replaced traditional sitcoms at the turn of this century, look no further than Spin City. It was a show fueled by predictable jokes preceded by predictable set-ups, complex problems that can always be solved within 20-minutes without fail, story arcs that never last longer than two episodes, and conversations that could never be described as “authentic”. It’s no wonder that it got replaced by shows that where people eat bugs for money.

Thanks to a lengthy run in syndication, and star Michael J. Fox’s well-known, tireless fight for stem cell research, Spin City has ascended in popularity and ubiquity beyond many comparable sitcoms during the era, including some that beat it at its own game (like NewsRadio and Sports Night). That fact has led to the show being picked for DVD distribution by Shout! Factory, which is now releasing the show’s second frame as a four-disc DVD set with virtually none of the extras that typically mark TV releases.

Spin City, at least for its first four seasons or so, was Michael J. Fox’s vehicle. It was his return to TV (following Family Ties) after a moderately successful run in movies like the Back to the Future trilogy, Teen Wolf, and Casualties of War. Fox stars as deputy mayor Mike Flaherty, an obsessive compulsive, self-absorbed narcissist who sees his role in New York government as that of the decision-maker.

Mike owes his power to the bumbling mayor, Randall Winston, played by Barry Bostwick, who is essentially a living version of one of the Three Stooges. Winston is a stuffed shirt who never reads his speeches before he goes out in front of the press corps, which often leads to notecard mistakes, among many other blunders that are too numerous to list. That anyone of such marginal intelligence could get elected would be unbelievable if it weren’t a real and sad fact of life.

The rest of the staff is rounded out by a barrel of ‘90s sitcom clichés. There’s the gay man (Carter, played by Michael Boatman) who is the voice of minorities on the staff; the creep who tries desperately to get laid by any woman anywhere (Stuart, played by the scene-stealing Alan Ruck); and the lonely single woman who is afraid of commitment (Nikki, played by Connie Britton). There’s also the rube from Wisconsin who is shocked that New York has crime (James, played by Alexander Chaplin); the loud, atonal, and horribly cheap press secretary (Paul, played by Richard Kind, who essentially is the same person in everything he’s in); and the tough girl from Brooklyn who apparently only knows about the mob and Catholicism (Stacey, played by Jennifer Esposito).

Every episode the staff must confront a new problem facing New York (rats, Native American relations, sex shops, male-only clubs, strikes, and um, Paul’s impending marriage) and set out to resolve it. Where other shows about the inner workings of government (like, say The West Wing) actually showed the amount of compromise that it takes to govern efficiently, Spin City coasts by on solving all the problems of the city in a slapstick manner in resolutions that wrap up incongruously and without proper explanation.

The supposedly monumental labor negotiations with striking city workers happens mostly off screen. A tenuous relationship with a group of Native Americans is resolved when both sides inexplicably decide the reason they can’t agree on land deals is that they’re all being too politically correct, which somehow leads to a resolution on both sides. Paul gets married. The male-only clubs are encouraged to integrate. Spin City never caught a governance problem that couldn’t be solved by a gay joke, a confrontation with two staff members, and a 30 second wrap-up.

Sure, it’s probably unfair to compare a breezy sitcom like Spin City to a show like West Wing, but the government angle is supposed to distinguish it from other workplace sitcoms of the time. In the end, it plays just like a simple work sitcom that happens to be in a mayor’s office. You could change the locale to a dentist’s office, a hairstylist’s, or a tax adjuster’s, and the show would be virtually unchanged.

But the more glaring problem is that Spin City’s jokes are rote—Stuart does a variation of the “That’s what she said”, Carter says something identifiably ‘gay-like’, Nikki says something about how she’s lonely, and Mike says something about how great he is. None of the exchanges even feel real, in any sense of the word, because everyone is essentially saying their established clichés with winking “Ain’t I a stinker” smiles one after another.

It even got to the point, as I neared the end of the second season’s 24 episodes, that I could yell out the jokes before the actors did, which is never a good thing. Besides from the easy ability for the show to be set up as a drinking game (a shot every time James says something about Wisconsin, or something similar) that will get you more than sufficiently sloppy, there’s not a whole lot comedic about Spin City.

If anything, Spin City was a rough dry run for co-creator Bill Lawrence, who would create a more lasting, less predictable, funnier, and all around better unconventional workplace drama with Scrubs after he left Spin City. Spin City would get a lot worse than its second season—it was after all, responsible for giving Charlie Sheen a career again—but that’s not such a difficult task.