A Reality Check for Lovesick Fans

People fall in love, a little bit anyway, with a favorite television show. You get to know characters who are usually more attractive (and less demanding) than the supporting players in your own personal drama and grow accustomed to their faces, which conveniently beam into the living room each week.

The late NBC programming guru Brandon Tartikoff once said that every series on TV should be someone’s favorite, and with so many narrowly focused channels available, that’s increasingly the case--so much so that certain viewers appear intent on finding a conspiracy, or someone to blame, when their program slips away. Thanks to the Internet, moreover, such people can find like-minded folks to convince them that they have lots of company.

As a result, campaigns spring up every year as people form small but cohesive groups dedicated to “saving” one TV show or another teetering on the brink of cancellation. In some instances, the camaraderie among these fans becomes an end in itself, with the coalitions continuing to fraternize long after the shows have departed.

The latest object of such online affection is “Once and Again,” ABC’s romantic drama about two dreamily beautiful divorced people (Sela Ward and Billy Campbell) who find love again, as well as the sundry kids and exes that crisscross their lives.

ABC brought the show back this month for a last-gasp run on Monday nights, but after three years of mediocre ratings the network’s passion is gone. After lackluster ratings two weeks ago, viewing of the show unexpectedly spiked upward on Monday, suggesting the series may yet have some life in it; still, unless that trend holds, “Once and Again” could easily be over and out when ABC announces next season’s lineup in May.

None of this is being taken lightly by die-hard fans, who seem to believe that everyone--ABC, rating service Nielsen Media Research, men flying black Army helicopters--is out to kill their show.

To be fair, many well-meaning, articulate and sincere people have written in urging me to help save the program, seeking media support to bolster their letter-writing and plate-passing to buy ads in Variety. These people should know that Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner does not take orders from me about how to run ABC, though based on the network’s recent track record--including its failed attempt to bring David Letterman over from CBS, leaving the studio scraping egg off its mouse ears--perhaps he should.

Amid the correspondence, however, have also been messages from people who simply won’t accept that “Once and Again” is one of the least-watched prime-time series on a ratings-starved network, with an estimated average audience of 6.3 million viewers a week.

Granted, 6 million of anything sounds pretty good, from album sales to ticket buyers for a movie’s opening weekend. Yet the sad reality of prime-time television is that that many people watching ABC, CBS or NBC will generally earn a show an unwanted vacation.

Still, that perspective is lost on a minority of the show’s supporters, who, given their own ardor, find it impossible to accept that “Once and Again” isn’t attracting “ER”-sized crowds. One wrote in citing “the 6 million-plus [viewers] and the millions more who are not counted” watching the series. Another asked why “ABC and the Nielsen people” insist on taking her program away: “It has a huge following, and many of us are protesting! We cannot understand why a show of this caliber is being overlooked in the ratings!! Are ABC and the Nielsen people listening to the public at all?”

Admittedly, I don’t share quite that level of exclamatory enthusiasm for the show, having exhausted my TV-viewing grief on an earlier drama from “Once and Again” producers Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, “My So-Called Life,” which ABC snuffed out after 19 episodes in 1994. I was nearly as fond of their next show, “Relativity,” which also lasted a single season on ABC. (One might assume the network or producers would learn from this history, which did include the more enduring “thirtysomething,” but then again, this is television.)

That said, it’s understandable that a loyal core audience would embrace the current series, which is classy, smart and earnest. What I can’t fathom is the venom directed at those who may cancel the show, or the need to concoct elaborate plots explaining why a low-rated series is heading to the big TV graveyard.

Don’t forget that “Once and Again” has already received multiple stabs at capturing an audience, in part because the show is produced by Disney, which owns the network. Indeed, the show even played a part in demonstrating the network’s diminished reverence toward its news stars, as ABC drew the public wrath of Barbara Walters by bumping “20/20” off its Friday perch last fall to provide the drama a better chance to succeed.

As for Nielsen, its methodology may well be flawed, but the ratings service has no interest in which programs survive so long as the networks’ checks clear, and everyone in television lives by the tyranny of its data--including TV executives themselves.

Network bureaucrats can be guilty of various sins, including cynical programming choices, reluctance to take creative risks and favoring programs that come from parent companies, sometimes at the expense of quality. Yet they also live a frenzied existence in which their next decision could render them ex-network executives, giving them scant incentive to blithely discard programs after spending millions to produce and promote them.

Far from wanting to scuttle shows people love, then, they desperately need to find such properties to maintain their car allowances and Hawaii-Aspen lifestyles, enduring their own kind of pain (albeit of the corporate variety) when they don’t.

What does this mean for those love-struck folks frantically sending outraged e-mails? Only that if a favorite show disappears, a share of the responsibility falls on friends and neighbors bypassing it for schlock on competing channels. Because rest assured, if another 6 million people tune in each week, you’ll get “Once and Again”--and plenty more smart, classy shows--not just once, but again and again and again.

Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.