Once and Again' ...again
ABC's poignant family drama returns tonight in fine form, but quality - and the show's cultlike following - may not be enough to save itBy KEN PARISH PERKINS
It's truly possible that many TV viewers simply can't or don't want to grasp what the makers of Once and Again are trying to do. The ABC drama, with its subtlety, sentimentality, gut-check realism and slow-as-growing-grass rhythm, just hasn't connected with audiences. In fact, most have chosen to avoid it like a fungus.
And that's why, as the critically acclaimed hour about love, loss, divorce and an ever-growing blended family returns tonight, this must be considered its last gasp. The show has been off the air for nearly two months, and it's been on three different nights and seven different time slots since its 1999 debut. ABC will surely cancel the series soon if it fails to deliver bigger ratings.
The mere mention of cancellation worries and infuriates the small but loyal band of Once and Again fans, a lot so cultish and organized they raised $6,245 to buy full-page plea ads in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, build Web sites, start petitions, and send e-mails to critics, advertisers and network programmers.
But the cruel truth is that television, like most industries, is built on the bottom line. And while ABC Chairman Lloyd Braun may list Once and Again as his favorite hour on the tube, he won't think twice about axing it.
The broadcast networks in general have given up on programming that has any sense of narrative or emotional complexity. It may attract the average critic, but it rarely grabs those armed with Nielsen boxes.
In their quest for instant ratings, the networks mercilessly yank shows that need time to find their audience, such as James Earl Jones' family drama Under One Roof. If they don't cancel the shows, they shuffle them to various days and times, forcing viewers to wander like gypsies in the night. (Monday is a new night for O&A, by the way.)Once and Again 9 p.m. tonight on WFAA/Channel 8 But this viewer-challenge syndrome points to something deeper.
Once and Again, which stars Sela Ward and Billy Campbell as two divorced people looking for love a second time around, comes from the team of Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. They have a rep for creating shows that get under the skins of their characters and their audience.
Zwick and Herskovitz - why don't we just call them Z&H - staunchly resist television's standard dramatic devices. Instead, they rely almost totally on intricate writing. Their shows savor the messy wonder of real life and the tangled dynamics of extended and broken families. And they do it with poignancy and, yes, humor.
All this is done without television's dramatic safety net, a familiar backdrop such as the police precinct on NYPD Blue or the hospital on ER. On Once and Again, characters and story lines are built around abstract undercurrents of ambivalence and doubt, not the show's setting. You must be willing to have your emotions tugged and your mind blurred.
When Karen (Susanna Thompson) demands that her daughter Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood) eat something beyond a cookie in tonight's episode, her insistence adds another element to the ongoing story line about the teen-ager's eating disorder.
The dramatic purpose of Z&H's work isn't to solve everything in a single scene or single episode but to, over time, hold a mirror up to the characters', and some viewers', lives. For a prospective viewer, this is not always the most comfortable experience.
Which might explain why Z&H have been in this do-or-die position before with Relativity, and before that My So-Called Life, and before that thirtysomething - all shows exploring the uncomfortable emotional paradoxes of human relationships.
Relativity (1996) was about a couple whose chance meeting in Rome leads to a love affair. But when the relationship returns home, conflict and family intrusions collide. It lasted several episodes. My So-Called Life (1994), about a confused, soulful teen-age girl, was so dead-on in showing modern teen angst that some parents said it was simply too unnerving. It expired after 19 episodes.
Thirtysomething was the most successful Z&H creation, running four years, but it was also the most-often bashed. Set around a close-knit group of middle-class friends and lovers, it's still used today as a cultural reference for whiny, self-absorbed, middle-class yuppie television. Nearly every story about Z&H has the phrase "navel gazing."
The same charge has been leveled at Once and Again, partly because of its propensity for awkward silences, talky scenes and an ongoing narration device in which cast members sit and reveal their inner-most thoughts to the camera.
Ever since thirtysomething, Z&H have denied that their shows are less accessible to the average viewer. But Herskovitz said in a recent interview that there ought to be a place on TV to look at these issues of relationships and family life "in a way that was penetrating and demanding." Like their loyal fans, Herskovitz says that "if people talk about [the show] and are engaged by it, you'd think there would be a place for something like that."
But Once and Again has little leverage with the network. It does command a premium from advertisers seeking the show's desirable and devoted female following. It also attracts a large percentage of high-income, well-educated viewers, according to ABC. But there are other factors at play, including pressure from affiliates to deliver larger ratings to lead-in to the late local news. Also, as with many serialized dramas, the show's repeats score poorly.
In creative terms, Once and Again is as strong as ever. Tonight picks up where the show left off in January, dealing with the fallout from Karen's accident. The usually sweet Jessie blows up at her brother, Eli (Shane West), for caring too little about her mother, and at Lily (Ward) for caring in a superficial way. When she screams at Lily, "You're not my mother, you'll never be my mother," the scene is so well-acted and so startling that it gives a different poignancy to a line that has been used zillions of times.
Once and Again may have its genesis in the dissolution of two marriages, but its ripple effects on the children is what has given it a dramatic foundation that few, if any, series can match. The dialogue is often at its best when it involves the teen-age characters, whether it's the wayward Eli, or Grace (Julia Whelan), still so uncertain of herself that her self-deprecating wit is a sure sign of a girl in search of an identity.
Next week's pivotal episode is startling, and, without giving too much away, involves Jessie and an emerging sexuality that has been ever-so-slightly hinted at in previous episodes.
The prospect of losing these characters is what drives Once and Again followers to lobby so hard to keep the show on the air. The question now is whether people will tune in on Monday nights. Or will ABC continue to see the show as a "a labor of love"?
Hate to be pessimistic, but in this numbers-crunching climate, it doesn't look promising __ Ft. Worth Star Telegram (March 4, 2002)
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