Graceful wrap for 'Once'

BY PHIL ROSENTHAL TELEVISION CRITIC

A few too many life-changing events pile on top of one another in the final hour for it to be a truly fitting finale for what so often has been an achingly truthful series of emotional epiphanies.

But it's over and out for ABC's "Once and Again'' at 9 tonight on WLS-Channel 7.

And knowing there would be this once-and-never-again opportunity to wrap things up, series creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick attempt to bring closure to their beautifully written and acted drama, a TV show that reveled for three seasons in the open-ended uncertainties of love and life at the likely expense of the kind of mass acceptance that might have extended its network run.

We get a possible wedding, possible new romance, possible new jobs and a possible move across the world all thrown at us in the last *** episode of what has, for the most part, been a restrained if under-watched **** series.

So many possibilities are crammed into so little time in fact that, until the very end, there isn't even time for anyone on the show to reflect through the trademark black-and-white confessional segments that usually punctuate each episode.

It's not Herskovitz and Zwick's fault. While seasoned pros at first-rate TV drama, they're new at this.

Whether it was "thirtysomething,'' "My So-Called Life'' or even "Relativity,'' they've never had the chance to do one of these big-deal finales before because the fate of those series was still unsettled when what turned out to be the last episodes were written and filmed.

They, like their fans, were left clinging each time to the hope they still might get more time to spin their tales of coping with life's ambiguities, contradictions and ironies, and their story threads of how youngsters sound like adults and adults act like youngsters were left dangling.

ABC at least gave them plenty of warning that "Once and Again'' was airing on borrowed time, and you can't really blame ABC for giving up on the program, though letter-writing devotees always will.

Sure, the network moved the show from time slot to time slot, desperately trying to find a place where it might catch hold. But it also kept "Once and Again'' on the air for three seasons when the series was drawing ratings that hardly made renewals automatic, or even likely, regardless of the quality.

So this was not one of the series' better episodes. So what. It's the quality of "Once and Again'' that needs to be remembered, cherished and celebrated--because it's all too rare. It could have degenerated into soap opera and melodrama, but it always resisted the simplicity that might have made it more popular and easier to digest but less respected and worthwhile.

Billy Campbell and Sela Ward were terrific as Rick and Lily, the divorced single parents at the center of the show. They re-entered the dating scene, eventually got married to each other and merged their struggling families, becoming stronger despite their flaws.

But it's the supporting characters that lifted the show beyond the pale and opened up the series to touchy issues it would handle with aplomb.

Particularly strong were Julie Whelan as Grace, the insecure bookworm daughter who found both confidence and heartbreak through her teacher (Eric Stoltz), and Evan Rachel Wood as stepsister Jessie, who convincingly battled anorexia and confronted her own identity along the way.

Jeffrey Nordling was patently unafraid to play the heel hoping for and perhaps even headed toward redemption as Lily's ex-husband and Susanna Thompson got to play that TV and movie rarity, an ex-wife with whom you could actually empathize and sympathize.

Characters laid themselves bare in the black and white segments, exposing raw, untempered feelings and thoughts they would hardly tell anyone else and sometimes would have had trouble admitting to themselves.

Some initially wrote this off as a gimmick, owing to a trend of so many TV characters talking directly to the audience in recent years. But Herskovitz and Zwick and their writers took it to a new level, using the introspective device to shade and inform their players, letting the viewers know just how vulnerable and human each was by sharing their innermost thoughts, hopes and fears.

It made us a part of their family, co-conspirators as it were, and by the time we get through the black and white segments at the end of tonight's finale, those of us who have gone along on this three-year journey with Campbell, Ward and the rest of them will feel like it's been our struggle as well. __ Chicago Sun Times (4/15/2002)

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