'Once and Again' finale wraps things up By ALAN PERGAMENT
It was only a few weeks ago that ABC announced that the critically acclaimed series, "Once and Again" (10 p.m, Channel 7) was ending its three-year run tonight.
But executive producers Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick saw the handwriting on the wall weeks earlier, when ABC reduced its season order from the normal 22 episodes. After doing some math, they determined they needed 19 episodes to finish the stories they started.
"We understood that this was probably going to be the end of the series," said Herskovitz in a telephone interview late last week. "So our thinking was we would construct the 19th episode to function as a series ender or a season ender, depending on what happened."
"A series ender is really just a proper goodbye," added Herskovitz. "People go on with their lives. It is something that would be pleasing to know where these people are, where they are going."
As fans saw in the promo after the end of last Monday's program, Rick Sammler (Billy Campbell), his second wife Lily (Sela Ward) and their kids may be headed to Australia. They were arguing about it in the promoted scene.
The Australia story scared me more than it scared Lily. It seemed totally out of left field, suggesting that the finale might not be consistent with the show's realistic tone for three glorious seasons.
Indeed, the finale - which was written in early March - compresses many story lines. It centers on Rick and Lily, both of whom are given wonderful career opportunities that only one can realistically accept. It brings up the inevitable issue of whose career is more important, before concluding with the only romantic way that both can be happy.
It is the subplots that are abruptly handled. When Henry, the physical therapist played by D.B. Woodside, was introduced to treat Rick's depressed first wife, Karen (Susanna Thompson), after her accident, one could see romance down the road. It arrives, though the loss of three episodes clearly moves things along too fast.
Similarly, Jake's (Jeffrey Nordling) epiphany that he really loves Tiffany (Ever Carradine), the mother of his third daughter, seems a bit fast, too. But at least there had been clues planted during the season.
I won't reveal too much more, other than to say this episode has a season's worth of happy endings. Perhaps because of all the compression, the finale isn't as moving as usual, either.
"We had to combine several stories into one episode," said Herskovitz. "In terms of writing, we had to compact several stories the way we wouldn't normally do."
The finale's most moving part comes when all the actors - in the same staged black and white scenes used when characters spoke to the audience - express their feelings about each other and how sad it is that the series is ending.
"We wanted to do something at the end of the episode if this was going to be the end of the series," said Herskovitz. "We filmed that as a contingency. The day before the announcement I called (new ABC Entertainment President ) Susan Lyne and said, "We're about to lock this episode. I need to know whether to put these two minutes in or not.' She said, "Go ahead and put them in.' "
Fans are still hoping to save it. Herskovitz sees no reason for optimism, unless ABC's drama development is so poor than it becomes desperate for fall programming. If you look at ABC's recent development, that isn't entirely impossible. A case can be made to suggest that "Once and Again" is the victim of ABC's ratings slide. When it was riding high thanks to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," ABC could afford an intelligent, low-rated series that appealed to a younger audience that advertisers desire. Now that the show is in the ratings toilet, it can't.
"Your suggestion is right that when a network is in trouble it is harder to sustain shows that aren't big hits," said Herskovitz. "Interestingly, from every indication we got, the show was a profitable one for them. But they have larger issues dealing with market share and overall averages. In that sense, the show brought them down and was a problem for them.
"I think we also suffered because we were moved around so many times. And that is also a function of the network itself being in trouble. Every time slot was precious to them and they didn't have enough fire power to fill them. We were the ones that were moved around because we were expendable. That hurt.
"That being said, every move they made they consulted with us, asked our opinions, gave us fair warnings and most of the moves we actually thought would be good moves."
Ultimately, the moves and the fans' appeal to save the show didn't work. Not that fans weren't appreciated by Herskovitz.
"That's been the most gratifying part of it," said Herskovitz. "The kind of passion that people have shown for the show has really been kind of remarkable to us. In some way, everyone in the entertainment business is a frustrated entertainer. And you want that applause. How do you get it as the producer of a TV show? When people are going to such efforts to save your show, that's a pretty heady form of applause."
Rating: 3 stars out of 4 __ Buffalo News (April 15, 2002)
Home
2002 Review Archive Index
