'Once' presents a real slice of life
By John Kiesewetter
Cincinnati Enquirer
We felt a bit like perverts, peeping through the bathroom window at Sela Ward and her TV daughter in their pajamas.
9 p.m. Wednesday, ABC KITV-4 (6 on Oceanic)
But that was the best vantage point for four TV critics who spent a day in January at ABC's "Once and Again," the best TV show you're not watching.
"Go to bed, baby. We'll talk in the morning," Ward's character, Lily Manning, says as the pair share some Victoria's Secret hand lotion.
"One more thing," says 15-year-old Grace (Julia Whelan). "You're a good sister, Mom. I just think you should know that before you go to sleep."
Again next Wednesday, "Once and Again" tackles tough family issues with sensitivity, wit and insight. These divorced families - Lily and her two kids; boyfriend Rick and his two kids; her ex-husband; his ex-wife - are the most realistic families on TV today.
But "Once and Again," filmed in the Century City area of Los Angeles, isn't just for families fractured by divorce. Every parent can relate to Lily and Rick constantly juggling their careers, their kids and their romance.
Any mother with a teen can relate to the contempt that the brooding Grace shows her mom by rolling her eyes. Any mother will love the bathroom bonding over hand cream scene in Wednesday's episode about Aaron (Patrick Dempsey), Lily's schizophrenic brother.
"Lily gets so caught up in her own life, and she completely misses the point that her daughter isn't mad at her. Her daughter just has a lot of stuff going on because she's older," says Whelan, 15, about her character.
It's Grace who first sees that Uncle Aaron isn't doing well.
"That's one of the things I noticed last year, this odd role-reversal when the parents are misbehaving and how the kids are the responsible ones," she says. "That's something that's so brilliant with these writers."
These writers, of course, are Emmy-winners Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, some of the best in show business. Their "Once and Again" fits about half-way on the spectrum between the whining young parents of their "thirtysomething"(1987-91) and the rebellious teenagers on their "My So-Called Life" (1994-95).
"When we set out to make this show, we wanted to talk about parenting, and the relationship between parents and children," says Herskovitz, 49, who has been divorced. "We couldn't really do that on "thirtysomething' because the children were too young."
On "Once and Again," they present a slice of our life each week. Sometimes it's so real that it's uncomfortable to watch. That's why Nielsen ranks the drama at No. 79 (out of 145 series); it tied in its second season with the now-canceled "Bette."
Unlike soap operas, with a crisis before every commercial, "Once and Again" tells much smaller, personal stories.
Explains Zwick: "We're tryingto give some imitation of life, and there is a great dilemma, which I could describe by saying: 'If you make too much ado about little, you appear to be whining. If you make too many things happen, you are reduced to melodrama.' We exist on that razor's edge between of those two things."
"I'm hoping the show is a catalyst that gets families talking about things that they hadn't talked about, or had been putting off talking about," Campbell says.
