Bad Reception

By Stephen Saito

The failure of critically acclaimed programs to reach desirable demographics and grab ratings results in this season's earliest casualties of spring cleaning in TV land

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln: You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all the people all of the time. And then, there are TV executives who please no one - especially in April.

It's because the cruelest April Fools' joke isn't pulled on April 1, but rather near the middle of the month, when die-hard fans of a particular show discover that network executives have canceled their beloved series. While the millions who tune in to Friends, ER and CSI on a regular basis have no such concern, there are few other shows that can afford their fans the same security.

Some shows, such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, were canceled after consistently reaching the top 20 in ratings, only to fail at reaching the demographic most coveted by advertisers - the 18- to 49-year-old audience. On the other hand, some shows, such as last year's high school satire Freaks and Geeks and the Claire Danes drama My So-Called Life, targeted that exact same demographic, garnering loads of critical acclaim and casts that have gone on to bigger and better things. Still, they were canceled after one season.

Such isn't the case with Once and Again, the recently axed third-year drama from the creators of My So-Called Life, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, but critics and fans alike are bemoaning the loss anyway. Concluding with an unceremonious departure from ABC's lineup next Monday, Once and Again will leave the TV landscape a little poorer, though during its three-year duration, the show set a new benchmark for domestic dramas. Once called "the best TV show you're not watching" by TV Guide, Once and Again sadly never had the chance to be seen at all. Constantly moving from a Tuesday night time-slot to the wasteland of Friday, then Monday night, anyone who wanted to keep up with the captivating romance between the middle-aged Rick and Lily, played with perfect ease by Billy Campbell and Sela Ward, and the lives of their immediate families, were left out in the cold.

Although show creators Zwick and Herskovitz aren't strangers to creating critically beloved but low-rated dramas since making a splash with thirtysomething, Once and Again wasn't only the best show the duo had created, but one of the best, most daring hour-long dramas on network television. Perhaps the show's fate was sealed with a kiss last month when one of the main characters, Rick's 15-year-old daughter, had her first lesbian experience with a classmate - a show that despite being beautifully handled, was considered too hot for TV by one ABC affiliate, which pulled the show. Another subplot revolved around a budding relationship between Lily's daughter, Grace, and her English teacher, played by Eric Stoltz.

But Once and Again's ability to tackle more risque topics was merely an outgrowth of its brilliant cast and the show's even more amazing connection to reality. The young women on the show, amazingly captured by Evan Rachel Wood, Julia Whelan and Meredith Deane, were never exploited, though the roles their characters played onscreen were easily corruptible. Instinctively, the show's creators wisely corrupted the main characters - the flighty, overbearing Lily and the emotionally shut-off Rick - who started off the show divorced from previous marriages and ended up in each other's arms. But by sharing a life together, the two ultimately created more problems by combining their families than they had the answers for. Not to mention the stellar work of supporting players, such as Marin Hinkle as Lily's often neglected sister, Jeffrey Nordling as Lily's handsome-but-daft ex-husband, Susanna Thompson as Rick's frigid, cunning ex-wife and Shane West as Rick's troubled son. Once and Again easily had the best ensemble work of any cast on TV outside of The Sopranos.

Yet, The Sopranos has HBO, a cable network that doesn't rely on commercials to turn a profit. As a result, year after year, smart one-hour shows that can't immediately find a niche get left off a network's fall schedule - a fate not restricted to 60-minute shows.

Fox's college sitcom, Undeclared, marks the second series from Freaks and Geeks creator Judd Apatow to be cut loose after only a year, despite early ratings success and universal praise. Just as frustrating for fans is the loss of Denis Leary's The Job, an edgy cop comedy that didn't need a laugh track to coax laughs from viewers, but nonetheless needed viewers. Animated shows, such as Fox's Family Guy and Futurama, have undetermined fates because of how the shows are developed long before their air date. In the case of Futurama, enough episodes have been animated to be aired through fall 2004, but whether more original episodes will be created is still up in the air. However, when the fates of the Jim Belushi sitcom, According to Jim, and CBS's talking-baby comedy, Baby Bob, end up on the other side of the fence (both have been renewed), the outlook for network TV keeps getting bleaker and bleaker.

While the two best new shows of the season, the CIA thrillers 24 and Alias, have both been brought back for a second season, some veteran dramas will be airing original episodes for the last time. In the most crushing blow to a fanbase, X-Files, the show Alias has displaced as the top-rated drama in the 8 p.m. time-slot, is ending its nine-year run, while the Wednesday WB staple Felicity will also be saying goodbye in May.

Roswell, the sci-fi teen drama transplanted from the WB to UPN last summer after being canceled, has also finally succumbed to the pressure of reaching a particular audience, but certainly not without a fight. In fact, Roswell's resurrection on UPN this season was the result of the burgeoning use of the Internet by fans to mobilize the show's core audience and employ grass-roots efforts to help avoid premature cancellation.

The campaigns waged by fans are often fierce and unrelenting: Fans threw parties after individual shows to unify their base; letter-writing campaigns to television executives were started (which, in Roswell's case, doubled as a massive shipment of Tabasco, the favorite beverage of the aliens in the show); fans even paid for full-page ads in industry trades like Variety and Hollywood Reporter. Fans of Once and Again and Felicity are still fighting the good fight online, but unfortunately, Roswell is the exception to the rule, with most shows still unable to overcome the finality of a network cancellation. Freaks and Geeks was given a three-original-episode reprieve during the summer - and even a brief syndication on the Fox (now ABC) Family Channel - due to the efforts led by fans to help the show. But it wasn't picked up by another network, which remains the last desperate hope for fans looking for a place to see their favorite show.

Of course, there are always other seasons. And most likely, new shows will unite fans of shows canceled this season. But as the cycle continues, the death of quality shows like Once and Again and the early-season guilty pleasure Pasadena only widen the gap of what is on TV and the potential of what could be. A soothsayer once warned Julius Caesar of the "ides of March." However, for anyone who appreciates the best television has to offer, the ides of April have become the days to watch out for. Plus, who knew more about betrayal than Caesar __ The Daily Texan (April 11, 2002)

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