The TV Column: Once and Again could become Never Again without help

Michael Storey --
Attention TV fans: Time to send out your annual SOS.

That's "Save Our Show," for those whose favorite program is on the bubble. As you read this, network suits are just beginning the arcane and complicated process of deciding what stays and what goes on the fall schedule.

They'll look at the ratings, the potential replacements, the possibility of writers' and actors' strikes, and the competition. They'll flip some coins, consult goat entrails and tea leaves, and make their decisions in May.

Meanwhile, any program -- no matter how good -- that's not pulling its weight is in danger of going down the tubes.

ABC's fine adult drama, Once and Again, is a prime example.

Once and Again, starring Billy Campbell and Sela Ward, has been treading water for two seasons trying to stay afloat. It hardly matters that the show has garnered a ton of awards and the Emmy-winning Ward is the darling of the romantic baby boomer crowd.

The show is struggling at No. 78 in the Nielsens and routinely loses a quarter of the audience that's watching its lead-in, Spin City. Awards or no, that lack of eyeballs doesn't impress the intransigent, bottom line ABC bean counters.

The network even pulled the series off the air during February sweeps. That's one of the red flags of impending doom.

To it's credit, ABC has done its best to find a suitable home for the show. The series had tryouts in three 10 p.m. slots over the last two seasons. Many a series has disappeared long before such measures were tried. Once and Again currently airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays.

That Once and Again struggles while drek like Temptation Island flourishes has to be discouraging for creators Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. This is the same duo who gave viewers the quality fare of thirtysomething and My So-Called Life.

Quality programming, especially programming with this level of wit and sophistication, needs to be encouraged or we'll get what the networks perceive we want -- babes in bikinis having whipped cream licked from their navels while pondering the depth of their commitments to their boyfriends, who are off being tempted at a luffa-fest of their own.

Once and Again fans need to write letters -- not e-mail -- to he who wields the ax:

Stu Bloomberg, co-chairman
ABC Entertainment,
2040 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, Calif. 90067

Tell Stu to either leave the show on the air or go ahead and put Regis on every night of the week and be done with it.

WRITE TODAY__Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (March 13, 2001)