Once and Again [TV Series] (1999)

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Created by thirtysomething's Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, the ABC drama series Once and Again starred Sela Ward as Lily Manning, who worked for a Chicago online company and who at the beginning of the series was in the process of divorcing her insensitive restauranteur husband, Jake (Jeffrey Nordling); and Billy Campbell as Rick Sammler, a prosperous Chicago architect who had long since divested himself of his troublesome wife, Karen (Susanna Thompson). Inevitably, Lily and Rick met and fell in love -- but wondered if entering into romance was a wise decision, after having had retained so much emotional baggage after their previous marriages. Even so -- and despite resistance from Lily's self-loathing older daughter, Grace (Julia Whalen), and resentful younger daughter, Zoe (Meredith Deane), and Rick's learning-disabled son, Eli (Shane West), and plain-spoken daughter, Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood) -- the couple was determined to make their relationship work. Throughout the series' three-season run, Lily and Rick were met with devastating personal and professional disasters at every turn, finding release of sorts by expressing their innermost thoughts directly to the camera in sporadic "confessionals," filmed in black-and-white. Also helping the couple weather their storms was Edward Zwick himself, who was cast in the role of marriage counselor Dr. Daniel Rosenfeld. Though Once and Again would have seemed more attuned to the angst-driven late '80s, the series actually ran from September 21, 1999, through April 15, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi