Can Two Harts Win Friday Night’s Hand? : THE FIRST OF FOUR MYSTERY MOVIES ON NBC TESTS THE SPARKS

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines chemistry between individuals as “a strong mutual attraction, attachment or sympathy (matching personalties or some other special) or vibes to make the relationship click.”

Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, though, don’t want to analyze or try to define the undeniable chemistry between them. From 1979 to 1984, the two starred in the ABC mystery-adventure “Hart to Hart” as the sophisticated, rich, stylish supersleuths Jonathan and Jennifer Hart. From the outset, the actors were as comfortable together as a pair of old shoes. (Powers and Wagner had worked once before when she guest-starred on his late ‘60s series “It Takes a Thief.”)

For the last three years, Wagner and Powers have taken their act on the road, playing to SRO crowds in A.R. Gurney’s romantic play “Love Letters.”

“We love working together,” Wagner offers. “We have respect for each other. We can’t sort of push (the chemistry). I don’t know what it is.”

“Whatever makes us click is one of those incredibly lucky circumstances,” Powers says. “I don’t think either one of us wants to question it for fear that it might disappear if we analyze it too much. I wish I knew what was so attractive about (the Harts) which made them so beloved; then we would know exactly how never to put a foot wrong.”

Whatever it was, it’s back. Nine years after “Hart to Hart’s” cancellation, Wagner and Powers are back as Jonathan and Jennifer. The two are starring in four two-hour “Hart to Hart” movies this season as part of NBC’s new “Friday Mystery Movie.” The first, “Hart to Hart Returns,” premieres Friday.

And fear not, “Hart to Hart” fans! Lionel Stander, now 84, also is returning as Max, Jonathan and Jennifer’s loyal Man Friday. The only original cast member missing is the Hart pooch Freeway. “The original Freeway was 8 years old when we cast him,” says Wagner, who also is co-executive producer.

But now there is Freeway Jr., played by a 4-year-old scene-stealer named Harry. Actually, Harry is the second Freeway Jr. used for the movies. The first dog proved to be no thespian and was fired after half a day.

The updated “Hart to Hart” finds free-lance photojournalist Jennifer traveling the world doing stories and self-made Jonathan having problems with his company, Hart Industries. To make matters worse, the Harts are heartbroken when they lose their beautiful, beloved house in a fire.

This morning, the burned-down Castaways Restaurant in Burbank is doubling for the torched Hart home. The crew, including Freeway Jr., have to wear masks to guard against inhaling the ashes, soot and embers.

Time seems to have stood still for Wagner, 63, and Powers, 50. They don’t look a day older than they did a decade ago. Even Stander seems just as spry and feisty as ever.

ABC’s cancellation of the series in 1984 came as a surprise to Wagner and Powers. “It was syndicated in 87 countries and was really rolling,” says Wagner, glancing at the script on the table in his trailer. “We were shocked.”

Especially since they were already in pre-production for season six. “We had four scripts,” he says, offering an Evian to his visitor. “We had two ready to go. Stefanie was in Paris and we were going to do the first in Paris. We were ready to go and at the very last moment, they canceled us. I called her and she burst into tears.”

For a time, they tried to resurrect “Hart to Hart” for syndication. “It wouldn’t go,” Wagner says. “There were a lot of problems with making new shows; would that compete with the (repeats in) syndication?”

Over the years, various producers approached him about doing a reunion movie. But Wagner and Powers didn’t want to do just one. “I said, ‘If you want to do something, let’s do something that has value to it. Why don’t you make it four or six?’ When this situation came up at NBC, they made an arrangement with us to do a group of them. So that’s what we are doing. That’s what put us back together. And here we are on top of this mountain. I’m so happy to be doing this again. It’s a real gift.”

The Harts’ past and present intertwine in an early scene involving Max.

“It’s been 10 years and we want the audience to remember what we are like before this,” Wagner says. “This sequence where Lionel is sitting there with the dog and looking at the flames, the camera pushes in on him and it goes into a montage of us being in the house. You see through his eyes what we were like before.”

Wagner admits, though, that going home again is difficult. “It feels good to me to be back,” he says, “but it’s difficult to go back, so we pick these people up in the ‘90s. I don’t want to go back and do what we did. Times have changed. We have changed. We deal with all of that.”

Jonathan finds himself having to answer to a board of directors. Jennifer’s writing career is pulling her away from Jonathan. “We are going in different directions,” Wagner says. “We are not broken up or anything.” When the film opens, they’re attempting to “rekindle” their love. “We are lighting the flames of the romance,” he says.

So that’s why the house caught on fire.

Wagner laughs. “That’s good,” he says. Humor is very important to “Hart to Hart.” “We are trying to do wit, humor and not the digging at each other kind of humor,” he explains. “It’s not going to be hammered humor. This is a romantic adventure. It’s not a mystery. It’s not the ‘6 O’Clock News.’ ”

The two-hour format, he says, allows for more character development and less action. “We can really reveal more of us. We don’t have to chase around and shoot people.”

Wagner pauses. “Remember on the show, we had to wrap it up? Put her in jeopardy. Put him in jeopardy. Get her out of jeopardy in the third act. No one wanted to come to have dinner with the Harts because they were going to get killed. It got like Angela Lansbury (in “Murder, She Wrote”).

Cut to two weeks later. The production is spending the next to last day of the shoot at an estate in Mandeville Canyon that served as the exterior of the Hart house on the old series. The home was owned by the late Dick Powell and wife June Allyson and includes a stable and a lake.

After doing several takes involving Freeway Jr. tearing up the Harts’ morning newspaper, Powers suggests going to her trailer. “Let me get an apple first,” she says with a smile.

Powers, who is president of Kenya’s William Holden Wildlife Foundation, agrees with Wagner that it was necessary to make Jennifer and Jonathan contemporary, “while not destroying the integrity of the piece. What was relevant in those days seem to be very different now.”

Americans, she says, have endured a lot in the last decade and will be going through even more hardships. “We are entering a new consciousness,” she says, and people are feeling fragile. “I think they feel that some of their old values are being challenged, and indeed they are. I think the one prevailing thing, as we begin to progressively be more disenfranchised from the standard of living we once knew, is that we feel the need of some kind of emotional tie or some kind of nostalgia with the past. Otherwise, why would people be anxious to see so many things that were on the air 10 years ago?”

Powers and Wagner aren’t sure what people actually remember about the series. “But I think it was the relationship,” Powers says.

“The relationship was a very special one,” Wagner adds. “We were really in love with each other. She is her own woman and I am my own man.”

And Powers believes they were a couple who were ahead of their time. “Neither one of them had to vindicate themselves or validate their position on any level,” Powers says. “She didn’t have to prove herself to him or wrestle for position. He didn’t with her. They didn’t have to qualify anything about their choices to be with each other.”

“NBC Friday Mystery Movie: Hart to Hart R e turns” airs Friday at 9 p.m. on NBC .