'Once and Again' May Be Once and for All

By Verne Gay

'ONCE and Again," one of TV's most esteemed dramas, lands in a new time period tonight (at 10) the seventh since the show's 1999 premiere, and possibly its last.

Despite a frantic effort by ABC to draw viewers to the show, and an equally frantic effort by fans to keep it on, the drama is almost certainly facing cancellation when its current run ends in seven weeks.

Top network executives - who have championed the show since its premiere - were uncharacteristically silent last week about its fate. However, Marshall Herskovitz, who co-created "Once and Again" with Ed Zwick, said in an interview, "We're facing one of the realities of television, which is that ABC as a network is not doing as well as it was several years ago" and therefore is not able to effectively promote the show as it once had.

"The question is," he added, "whether any of the discussion of possibly ending the show will galvanize people to tune in."

Herskovitz said Susan Lyne, ABC's new entertainment president, supports the show, and one of her first duties when she got the job in January was to move the show back to Mondays, where it had once performed relatively well (the show most recently aired Fridays at 10). Speaking of ABC's frequent rescheduling of the show, Herskovitz said, "Yeah, it's really a lot, and I wouldn't use the word 'fair' or 'unfair' [referring to ABC's treatment of the show]. That implies motive, and their motives have always been the best. It's very hard to program a network and very hard to program a show that doesn't fit in with the normal criteria of the hour-drama genre. Programming a network is all about flow and what you're paired with, and this show doesn't necessarily fit well with other shows. It's always been a struggle."

But ABC also has reduced the show's episode order from 23 to 19. A cutback like this could scarcely be interpreted as a show of confidence, although ABC is also looking to save money.

A fan group, spearheaded by Massachusetts-based marketing executive Lynda Shulman, hopes to hand-deliver a petition with 10,000 signatures to Lyne's office today. Will it make a difference? It couldn't hurt, but consider this: A successful prime-time show draws about 10 million viewers; "Once and Again" has averaged a little more than 5 million this season. __ NY Newsday (March 4, 2002)

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