NBC renews ‘Friday Night’

NBC is keeping the lights on for “Friday Night Lights.”

The acclaimed series has been renewed for two more 13-episode runs and will air through the 2010-’11 season, the network announced this week.

The Texas football-and-family drama starring Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, airing Fridays at 9 p.m., has struggled in the ratings but has been a critical bright spot for NBC, drawing consistently good reviews and Emmy and Peabody nominations and awards.

The new seasons will play on DirecTV before their network broadcasts, a continuation of the deal NBC struck this season to make the production financially viable.

Wanda rejoins Fox

Tart-tongued Wanda Sykes is returning to Fox TV with a late-night series offering a comedic look at current events.

The program, as yet untitled, will air on Saturdays starting this fall, the network said.

It likely will fill the 11 p.m. to midnight slot now held by the sketch comedy series “MadTV,” which wraps its 14-season run in May.

Sykes’ short-lived comedy series “Wanda At Large” aired on Fox in 2003. She co-stars in the CBS sitcom “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

Morgan goes cosmic

Actor Morgan Freeman is teaming with the Science Channel to make a series on space exploration that is expected to air on the cable network early next year.

Titled “Through the Wormhole,” the series will look into such topics as the possibility of life beyond Earth, future expeditions to Mars and problems caused by the sun.

Freeman, an astronomy enthusiast who unsuccessfully tried a space-oriented Web site several years ago, will narrate.

Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg is working on a science-oriented game due to launch on Science Channel in October.

Lifetime lands ‘Runway’

After months in limbo, “Project Runway” has a new home at Lifetime.

The popular design-competition series that aired for five seasons on the Bravo network had been mired in a legal struggle involving NBC Universal, which owns both Bravo and Lifetime. That dispute now has been settled.

The show’s sixth season – which has already been taped – will air this summer on Lifetime.

Bravo will launch its new sartorial series “The Fashion Show,” with judges Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland, on May 7.