IT'S ROMANTIC. IT'S INTELLIGENT. IT'S WELL-WRITTEN. AND IT'S NOT ABOUT TEENAGERS WHY `ONCE AND AGAIN' IS FALL'S BEST NEW SHOW

BYLINE: Kevin D. Thompson --
If I had to choose only one new show to watch this fall, my choice would be ridiculously easy.

Once and Again is the class of this year's crop.

End of discussion.

ABC's beautifully nuanced romantic drama is about - get this - grown- ups! Yeah, real, three-dimensional adults that Baby Boomers can identify with.

That said, Once and Again will probably get canceled in three weeks.

The series stars Sela Ward (Sisters) and Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer) as fortysomething divorced parents who begin a lovably awkward courtship. And they meet in a way most single, divorced parents do - while idling their pricey SUVs in a school carpool line.

Ward is Lily Manning, a ravishing, but somewhat neurotic mom with two daughters. Campbell is Rick Sammler, a schoolboy handsome, but somewhat insecure dad with a son and daughter.

Together, Ward and Campbell sizzle with a wonderfully earnest chemistry that's impossible to fake or manufacture. And they prove love can be better the second time around. But it's not what they say, it' s how they say it. When Rick calls Lily for the first time, he's like a lovestruck 13-year-old. He taps his feet, holds his head, and paces constantly before asking her out.

Meanwhile, Lily's eyes flutter and dance whenever she's around Rick. These are two people you'll like immediately. And that's an essential ingredient for any successful TV show.

Adding more depth to the characters are telling black-and-white scenes in which Rick and Lily talk to the camera to explain their true emotions. Yes, it's an overused device this fall, but it works here and offers much-needed insight into Rick and Lily's fragile psyches.

He: "The worst thing is when you get good at dating, like it's an art form instead of something real happening."

She: "I was more amazed by my body. I wanted him so much."

Once and Again is refreshingly adult, yet achingly sweet. It's about how life doesn't end at 40. Heck, it's often just beginning.

The 43-year-old Ward definitely thinks so. ``I don't think I've ever been happier,'' says the former model. ``I feel right. I feel yummy. I feel incredibly intelligent. And I have a lot of life experiences to offer.''

Viewers shouldn't be surprised that Once and Again is a winner. The executive producers are Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, the team that gave us thirtysomething, My So-Called Life and Relativity. I still haven't forgiven ABC for axing the beautifully written Relativity. In many ways, Herskovitz and Zwick are the real stars of Once and Again.

While they got into filmmaking for idealistic reasons (both have directed fine movies, such as Glory and Dangerous Beauty), they eventually discovered that those reasons were illusions.

"We thought that film could change the world,'' says Herskovitz. " But you spend two years of your time creating two hours of entertainment for people who are going to go home and forget about it. But when you create a television show, it stays in the culture, week after week, year after year if you're successful."

Herskovitz and Zwick have built a stellar reputation for writing heartfelt dialogue and poignantly capturing the voices of young adolescent girls. Zwick, 46, says it helps that both he and the 47-year-old Herskovitz have daughters.

But Herskovitz says their acute writing abilities go deeper than that. "We believe that we have everything inside us,'' he says. "You know, it's the human experience. And if you are empathetic and if you can hear other people and put yourself in another person's mind, then you can write their voice."

After Ward's and Campbell's palpable chemistry, it's the sharp writing that stands out on Once and Again. For instance, when Grace (the quietly brilliant Jill Whelan), Lily's older daughter, talks about being overweight and unattractive, her words linger long after they're spoken. She seems more real, more fleshed out than any other cardboard teen character you'll see this fall.

Rick also eloquently expresses the sentiments of many uprooted divorced parents when he says, "I've always had a map for my life. Now it's like I've walked off it entirely."

Since Herskovitz has two children and was divorced after a 15-year marriage, and Zwick's folks were divorced when he was 15, is Once and Again autobiographical?

``What we do is definitely personal,'' Herskovitz explains. ``It always has been. But personal doesn't necessarily mean autobiographical. The issues of divorce and of relationships have so many different vicissitudes that you don't have to draw upon the particular details of your life.''

Don't think Once and Again will appeal only to viewers who actually remember using rotary phones. With four young actors, Once and Again will also deal with issues of teens and young kids. But with Herskovitz and Zwick at the helm, you can expect them to be dealt with in a very un-Dawson's Creek-like way. For instance, Rick has to handle his teen son's (Shane West) raging hormones. And Lily is raising a daughter who is prone to panic attacks and isn't too happy about her mom dating.

"When we did My So-Called Life, it was very subjectively about the teenage experience, and that will be this to some degree,'' says Zwick. "It's also subjectively about the experience of love at this moment. It's also going to be about parenting and maybe that fulcrum that draws those two things together."

Ward and Campbell will certainly be together a lot. Already in the second episode you'll see Campbell's naked rear, a la NYPD Blue. And filming love scenes with the delectable Sela Ward would seem like the best job in the world.

Not quite, says Campbell. "We spent about 12 hours in bed naked, shooting this scene and I don't know if you know how much labor and time you put into doing a love scene, but I told Ed today I would never had guessed that being in bed with Sela Ward all day could be so tedious."

What's more tedious - and infuriating - is ABC's strategy for the show. The series debuts Tuesday in NYPD Blue's plum 10 p.m. time slot. The show will air in that slot until Blue returns Nov. 9. Then, curiously, Once and Again will disappear until January. It's a dumb strategy. While ABC defends it, it makes no sense to yank your best show for two months and hope that viewers find it again. ABC got lucky when it pulled the same silly stunt with The Practice. But will the risk work again?

Campbell's not so sure.

``It does seem kind of strange to have a hiccup in the middle of the show,'' he says. ``I don't know anything about that. People who are far smarter than I are in control of that stuff. Presumably they don' t have their heads up their (butts). Or maybe they do. That's why they're network people.''

Hopefully those same network people will give Once and Again, TV's best new show, a chance to live once and for all.

[rest of article deleted__The Palm Beach Post (September, 19 1999)