'Once & Again' won't be back By Virginia Rohan
As they were writing the 63rd episode of their critically acclaimed "Once and Again," Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick didn't know if it would wind up being the third-season finale or the series finale.
Suspecting the latter, the longtime creative partners - whose television credits include "thirtysomething," "My So-Called Life," and "Relativity" - shot a two-minute segment of the cast reminiscing, to be used if "Once and Again" got the ax.
On March 27, the producers were about to "lock" the final edit of that episode. Herskovitz called ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne to ask if they should tack on that farewell sequence.
"She said, 'Go ahead and put it in,'" Herskovitz recalls. "That was their way of saying that we were being canceled." (ABC made the official announcement the next day.)
And so, barring the miraculous reprieve fans still hope for, ABC's "Once and Again" will end its exquisite but turbulent run at 10 Monday night - the latest in a long line of high-quality programs that have died prematurely, despite heroic grass-roots rescue efforts.
While these viewer campaigns have had some successes - "Cagney & Lacey" most notably - and are increasingly easier to mobilize because of the Internet, they generally fail more often than they succeed.
Nielsen ratings are the bottom line.
"The networks don't sell how much people like a show. They sell a set of numbers," says Robert Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television.
The numbers for "Once and Again'' slid from a marginal average of 10.9 million viewers its first season to 6.7 million this season. By comparison, MTV's hot new series "The Osbournes'' drew 6 million viewers last week. "When MTV starts beating a major network,'' Thompson says, "all the letter-writing campaigns in the world aren't going to stop the inevitable.''
Says Herskovitz: "I do know that [ABC's] decision to cancel the show has been very complex. They're not losing money on the show, but, because they're in such trouble as a network, they desperately need to raise the numbers, because of ad rates."
The ABC family drama is about two parents, Lily (Sela Ward) and Rick (Billy Campbell), who'd failed at their first marriages but found love again with each other and took on the challenge of blending their families while peacefully coexisting with ex-spouses. It clearly struck a chord with many viewers. But it became increasingly difficult to keep track of where it was. In its not quite three full seasons, "Once and Again" had seven time slots (a TV record, Herskovitz believes).
And yet, through all the disruptions, preemptions, and rescheduling, the show retained a core audience of highly passionate fans, who were touched by its realism and superior writing and acting - but especially by its heart and soul.
This season, when Herskovitz believes the series hits its stride creatively, several "Once and Again" fan Web sites banded together. Fans also issued a challenge to ABC executives in ads they placed in Hollywood trade papers. They wanted a renewal, a good and stable time slot, and more aggressive promotion of the show.
"Once and Again" fans have also sent lilies to ABC's Lyne (in honor of the Lily Sammler character), and gardenias (after the title of a favorite episode). They have bombarded the network and news media with calls, letters, and e-mails, and devised an online petition that, as of Thursday, had collected more than 30,000 signatures.
Marc Levenson, one of the fans spearheading the campaign to save the show, said, "I don't think we're going to give up until May 14," when ABC's new fall schedule is announced.
A 37-year-old single father and Fort Worth business owner, Levenson was among those who, in early February, founded the Web site www.saveoanda.com specifically to mobilize fans, raise money for the ads, and circulate that petition.
Among its signers was Pamela Casey of Bergenfield.
"It's one of the few shows on network TV there is to watch," Casey says. "It's so well-written, and all the characters are so true to life."
Its devotees plan to keep fighting. The fan sites provide information about a protest planned at ABC headquarters in Burbank Monday.
But is there still a chance? Herskovitz isn't hopeful.
"When they say it's going to be the last show, they usually mean it," he says. "There's nothing that would prevent [ABC] from ordering more episodes. They haven't released anybody from their contracts. But that's something they wouldn't do anyway until they announce their schedules in May."
Casey, the Bergenfield fan, is hoping another network, perhaps cable, might pick up the series. But again, Herskovitz thinks that's not likely. "This is an expensive show to make," he says. "In order to do it on a cable outlet, we would literally have to cut it [the cost] in half. I don't know how you can ask people to work for half as much money."
Dorothy Swanson, founder of the famed (now disbanded) Viewers for Quality Television, which claimed some notable victories during its 17-year history, says that historically these viewer campaigns have "hardly ever" been successful. While she believes that fans should still fight to save or at least prolong the life of their favorite shows, Swanson says victory has become even more elusive in recent years as corporate conglomerates have absorbed the networks and hewn to the bottom line.
While Thompson of Syracuse University believes that today's fans, thanks to the Internet, are able to affect the content of their favorite programs - producers, writers, and even stars now routinely visit the fan sites to gauge reactions to depictions and story lines - they are far less successful at reversing network-issued death sentences, he says.
"In many ways, I think these campaigns are more akin to attending a funeral than anything else, and of course,, the funeral is for the survivors," Thompson says. "They get together, they talk about it, people of like mind all mourning the same loss. In the end, that relative is still in that casket in the front of the room."__ NorthJersey.com (April 14, 2002)
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