As real as it gets By Paul Povse
There may never again be another "Once and Again"
When a book gets under your skin, really under your skin, and the characters become real, you can always retrieve it from the bookshelf and reread it. When a particular movie grabs some part of you, you can always revisit it in the theater or on video.
But when a television show ingratiates itself into your life--when you find yourself thinking about it later, when you think of the actors by their characters' names, not their own-- separation, disappointment and occasionally even heartbreak are inevitable.
Someday, inevitably, that show will run its course, and unless you've been taping furiously or syndication is an eventuality, the people you've grown attached to and who seem so real will fade from your viewing nightlife.
So it is I find myself slowly making peace with the immutable passing Monday of ABC's sterling family drama "Once and Again."
Oh, I expect to see Sela Ward in some thriller or another Sprint commercial someday. And Billy Campbell will be seen opposite Jennifer Lopez in the upcoming "Enough." As for Julia Whelan and Evan Rachel Wood, the absolute embodiments of what so many teenage girls face today .. . well, their burgeoning acting talents dictate that they soon will be chasing the parts offered to their prototypes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Claire Danes.
But no matter what else she finds to do, Ward, to me, somehow will always be Lily Sammler, the romantic but grounded-in-reality 40-something Chicago divorcee who was enough of a peacemaker to forge together two diverse, post-divorce families.
Somehow, too, Whelan and Wood will always be Grace, the brilliant, tempestuous young writer, and Jesse, the lovely, sensitive younger stepsister with the beautiful voice, the borderline eating disorder and - surprise - the girlfriend.
Such is the way of "Once and Again," an Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz creation that traded on elements from its predecessors "thirtysomething" and "My So-Called Life" and emerged as an even stronger program, with uncanny insights into many aspects of the modern human condition.
As the program gasps its last breaths at the conclusion of the third year, there have been divorces and marriages, business crises, disease, deaths, tempests, misunderstandings, reconciliations and always, ultimately, the balming bond of what has sprung up from quite an extended family. "Just like real life" is the phrase that comes up most often about the show on its ABC message board.
"I love 'Once and Again' because it is very realistic," says a colleague. "Having grown up with divorced parents, I find many of the scenarios really resonate with me."
So, has there been too much resonance, or not enough? Maybe it's that the show too often hits too close to the bone, that the ups and downs of the lives of its large canvas of characters simply make some people who tried the show uncomfortable. When a show is consistently this well-written and well-acted, there are times we may recognize ourselves. And we may not like it.
Other fans and I have puzzled over why a program that offers so much for both adult and teen audiences never caught on in a bigger way. The conventional wisdom has been that ABC has moved the show around too often - seven times - and there have been droughts when it disappeared altogether.
Still, its fans continued to beat the drum for a last-minute reprieve. Virtually every newspaper and magazine in the country has written about "Once and Again" glowingly, and there have been industry awards as well as endorsements from professionals such as psychologists, teachers and marriage counselors. A Newsday columnist this week wrote that just when "the show is having its most glorious season .. . it should be on the way to the Hall of the Greatest Dramas; instead it's going to the glue factory, a victim of network insecurity and stupidity."
One of the program's strengths has been how it virtually cannot go wrong, no matter what plot line or character it settles on. Early in the series, there was some grumbling that there was too much smoochy stuff between Ward's Lily and her eventual husband Rick, played by Campbell. So, the writers said, well, death to smooching - they had the couple marry! And then they focused increasingly on the kids. A fan of the young female persuasion at my house will hang black crepe in her room when Shane West's Eli plays the last note on his air guitar.
Only a few other series - and there have been good ones I missed - have taken personal hold with this much grip: "St. Elsewhere," "I'll Fly Away" and "Homicide: Life on the Street."
All of those have something in common with "Once and Again" in that they were revered by critics and mustered a ferociously loyal audience but didn't make Neilsen's temperature soar high enough.
Even though "Homicide" did wheeze along on life support for seven years, to this day, I miss Richard Belzer's Detective John Munch. When I hear Andre Braugher's voice on a commercial, a part of my brain asks, "Hey, I wonder who Frank Pembleton's got in the box today." And I still miss Lily (Regina Taylor), the housekeeper from "I'll Fly Away," and her relationship with her boss, Sam Waterston. No matter where else I see William Daniels, I think of the arrogant Dr. Mark Craig of "St. Elsewhere."
The "Once and Again" Web site and message board is awash in pleading for a renewal of the show, and a protest is scheduled to take place in front of ABC offices in Burbank, Calif. Alas, TV is driven less by Emmys and Golden Globe nominations than by numbers and demographics.
So we're not going to find out if Lily and Rick have a child of their own, whether Jake ever settles down, how Karen (Susanna Thompson) recovers from her auto accident, whether Lily's luckless-in-love sister Judy ever finds happiness. After all, this is a network that dallied with the notion of replacing Ted Koppel with David Letterman in an ill-conceived hustle for younger, hipper viewers.
When the "Once and Again" characters do disappear, it's going to feel a little like losing a relative or seeing a dear friend move across the country.
I commend the professionalism of the show's creative team, yet harbor an appreciative grudge that they had no right to produce something this insightful, yet funny and entertaining, too, about the complexities and contradictions of modern life. And where did they come up with so many charismatic players to play such beautifully flawed fellow human beings? They shouldn't have gotten us this involved, then left us high and dry joined by too few true believers.
I have, though, been prudent enough to preserve a few "O & A's" on videotape. And I plan to keep them for a good, long while, up there in a safe spot on a shelf, a preserve where Grace and Jessie and Zoe and Eli can remain forever young. __ The (IL) Stage Register (April 11, 2002)
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