Buzz Off

By Ken Tucker

Which TV shows have heat -- and which don't? James Cameron steps in to save ''Dark Angel,'' but Ken Tucker wonders if anything can help ''Once & Again''

We love TV for its unpredictability in all areas except celebrity-boxing (that, apparently, is a sure eyeball-attractor). But nothing is as unpredictable as when a television series begins to lose its heat -- whether you define that as its hype or its esteemed reuputation, or both.

For instance, who'd have thought that the extraordinary ''Once & Again'' -- so poorly rated in its Fridays-at-10 time-period and an indavertant pawn in an ABC power-play when ABC decided to move Barbara Walters' long-running newsmagazine out of that spot, incurring the wrath of Baba her bad self -- should suddenly raise its profile by moving to Mondays at 10? In the past two weeks since its move, ''O&A'' has been scoring some of its highest ratings and even getting a little media buzz with last week's ''controversial'' kiss between two teenage-girl characters.

As anyone who watches this beautifully nuanced series knows, that subplot wasn't, like another Monday-night show ''Boston Public,'' doing something racy for the sake of ratings; it grew out of a long-running identity crisis that one of the young people in the show has been undergoing for more than a season now. ''Once & Again'' is still probably destined for cancellation; even with fresh heat, it doesn't attract big Nielsen numbers, but if more people watch one of the best-written and -acted shows in prime-time for however much longer it exists, jolly good for it. [rest snipped] __ EW.com (March 19, 2002)

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