SEE IT NOW by Skip Carrington
TV Guide's "The Best Show You're Not Watching" has become "The Best Show Almost Nobody's Watching." What happened to Once and Again?
I blame the downfall on the move of the series to a 10 pm/ET time slot on Friday, where it's getting walloped by NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Of course, the ratings through last May, when Once held the Wednesday at 10 spot (up against the original Law & Order), weren't very good either. Still, ABC apparently had enough faith in the family drama to bring it back for a third season.
(However, I prefer to believe a fabled rumor that goes like this: Network executives gave Once another go because of regrets over their quick cancellation of My So-Called Life, a critical favorite from 1994 produced by Once creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. It's nice to think that the folks making big bucks in the ivory towers have feelings.)
Feelings, maybe. Judgment? Questionable. What programmer in a sane frame of mind would think that a family — especially a household with teens the ages of the Manning and the Sammler kids — could gather the clan around a TV set on a Friday night? In my high-school days, revelry began right after dinner on Friday and ran up right until parental inflicted curfew. Can't imagine that has changed much.
Interestingly, though, despite the downturn in the Nielsens, this season's teleplays focusing on the teenage characters have consistently been among the series best: honest, poignant and telling storylines that illuminate stages of adolescence. The third-season opener, for example, revolved around the embattled Eli (Shane West), whose bust for marijuana possession explored the complexities of parental responsibility vis-à-vis Eli's relationships with his mom, dad and stepmom. Other episodes centered on the growing up of intransigent Grace (Julia Whelan), who learned about life and herself from a perceptive creative-writing teacher and acting coach (Eric Stoltz). And then there's shy, introspective Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood), whose prospective date with a 16-year-old hottie generated conflictive feelings in scenes that were warm and touching.
Tonight's show, however, returns attention to the adults. Specifically, it concerns sexual situations that discomfort Lily (Sela Ward) and Rick (Billy Campbell), who begin to feel unresponsive to one another, and situations that excite Lily's sister, Judy (Marin Hinkle), and her inconstant lover, Sam Blue (Steven Weber). The entry isn't on par with the earlier episodes, but selected scenes, which intersperse terse, taut dialogue with Bergmanesque silences, are haunting and evocative.
Being named "The Best Show You're Not Watching" surely helped make hits of Party of Five, Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Practice and 7th Heaven. If Once and Again doesn't make it — and that appears to be increasingly likely — it'll join Sports Night as the only other Best Show flop. Hey, four out of six ain't bad. In baseball, you'd be batting .666. __ TVguide.com
