As the temperature — and humidity — climb, the only real escape is the local multiplex, which offers industrial strength doses of air conditioning and the kind of nostalgia only Steven Spielberg can deliver.  My fellow Gen-Xers and I have been keyed up for Super 8 for what seems like an eternity: it debuted at #1 and critics grant it "succeeds marvelously ... with 12,000 watts of gut-rumbling Dolby sound.”

But I will avoid the most anticipated movie of the summer to stay true to one man: Eric Taylor.

Taylor is a small-town Texas high school football coach and the hero of NBC’s Friday Night Lights.  The show is a television drama filmed like a documentary — shaky shots captured from odd angles make you feel like you’re eavesdropping on a small town’s dysfunctional relationship with the sport.  That the actors are for the most part unknowns only confirms this illusion.

Then, in a preview for Super 8, I caught a glimpse of Coach Taylor in an unfamiliar uniform.  He had the same furrowed brow and piercing hazel eyes I’ve come to know well, but he was wearing a sheriff deputy’s badge.  Hold on, why would Coach be moonlighting as law enforcement?  This is a guy I’ve watched get his players out of jail.  I’ve seen him spar with referees, despair after a rough game, hold his baby daughter. Now I find out he’s got a son and lives in Ohio?  Like Harry Potter performing on Broadway in his birthday suit, it just ain’t right.

I know, get real. The man's name is Kyle Chandler (a fact that I grudgingly checked for this post) and he is an actor. But for me and for now, Friday Night Lights achieves those elusive goals all TV shows chase: it’s brought me inside a family and made me invested in its fate.  That’s a relationship worth protecting.  Although the series has wrapped, most of us are catching the final season airing on NBC through July 15.  And I pledge to suspend my disbelief until the last possible second.

More Friday Night Lights: Listen to Kurt Andersen's interview with Kyle Chandler's co-star Connie Britton.