“Once and Again,” the sensitive drama about a couple’s blended family, was officially canceled by ABC on Thursday. Its series finale will be at 9 p.m. April 15 on WLS-Ch. 7.
“The program has passionately devoted fans who deserve a fully realized conclusion to Rick and Lily’s story,” ABC Entertainment president Susan Lyne said. “And we owe it to [creators-executive producers] Marshall [Herskovitz] and Ed [Zwick]–and the phenomenal cast they assembled–to give the series a great send-off.”
“Once” stars Sela Ward, who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for playing Lily Manning, and Billy Campbell, who was nominated for a Golden Globe as her new husband, Rick Sammler.
Despite a loyal following and praise for intelligent portrayals of characters and situations, “Once” was never a huge ratings winner. ABC arguably never helped, constantly moving the show around the schedule during its three years on the air. It is averaging 6 1/2 million viewers, down from almost 11 million viewers last season.
NBC has been watching “Watching Ellie’s” ratings, and it thinks they warrant two additional airings of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus comedy next month.
“Ellie,” which has steadily lost viewers since it premiered Feb. 26 to 16.7 million people, was to end its run Tuesday.
But partly because last Tuesday’s show was seen by almost 10 million viewers–up from the previous week’s 9.5 million-viewer average–NBC has scheduled new episodes to air April 9 and April 16, both at 7:30 p.m. (on WMAQ-Ch. 5).
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The comedy, which follows, in real time, the former “Seinfeld” co-star as a lounge singer, was to have six episodes left, which will run next season should the show be renewed.