Television series

Once and Again

Name: Once and Again
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
Released: 1999
Cast: Sela Ward, Billy Campbell, Julia Whelan, Meredith Deane, Evan Rachel Wood

Once and Again follows two newly separated Chicago parents, Lily and Rick, falling for each other while their exes, kids and finances complicate everything. Shot with intimate handheld close-ups and black-and-white confessional interludes, it treats adult heartbreak and teenage confusion with equal seriousness. A quiet, character-driven relationship drama for anyone who wants grown-up problems handled with patience rather than plot twists.

TVMaze rating

7.8

If you liked this

This Is Us2016

If you want the emotional intensity of Once and Again scaled up to soap-opera size, This Is Us delivers big generational reveals and the same commitment to messy, ordinary family pain.

But It leans hard into tearjerker mechanics and timeline tricks that Once and Again's quieter realism deliberately avoids.

Parenthood2010

Jason Katims, who wrote for Once and Again, built this sprawling Braverman family saga on the same overlapping-dialogue naturalism and hard-won emotional payoffs.

But Six seasons and a huge cast mean less focus on any single relationship than Once and Again gives Lily and Rick.

Brothers & Sisters2006

A big, warm, argumentative ensemble family drama with the same interest in how adult siblings and parents wound each other without meaning to.

But Glossier and more plot-driven, with political intrigue subplots that pull it further from Once and Again's low-key domestic focus.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Scener ur ett äktenskap1973

Once and Again's handheld close-ups and confessional interludes are reaching for what Bergman did first and starker: the idea that a marriage's dissolution deserves the same scrutiny as its beginning.

Bergman's six-part Swedish miniseries strips the blended-family drama down to its studs: two people, one marriage, and the unbearable honesty of watching it end in real time.

But It's subtitled, theatrical, and almost entirely two people talking in rooms — no ensemble, no subplot, nowhere to hide.

Six Feet Under2001

Takes the unflinching look at grief, divorce and family dysfunction that Once and Again started and pushes it further into darkness, absurdity and mortality.

But Considerably bleaker and stranger, with dream sequences and death as a running motif some viewers will find exhausting.

Friday Night Lights2006

Same handheld intimacy and lived-in marriages, transplanted to a Texas football town, with a similar gift for making ordinary conversations feel like the whole story.

But The football framework and small-town setting are a real tonal shift if you came to Once and Again for its urban, therapy-adjacent vibe.

Judging Amy1999

A contemporaneous single-mother drama with the same interest in balancing work, ex-spouses and teenage kids, filtered through a family-court lens.

But The courtroom cases-of-the-week give it more procedural structure than Once and Again's loose, relationship-first storytelling.

Everwood2002

A widower doctor uprooting his kids to a small town shares Once and Again's patience with grief, awkward new relationships, and teenagers figuring themselves out.

But Set in a much smaller, gentler world, without the specifically urban, post-divorce texture that defines Once and Again.

My So-Called Life1994

From the same creators, this earlier teen drama shares Once and Again's handheld naturalism and its refusal to condescend to adolescent feelings.

But Cancelled after one season, so you're signing up for something even more truncated and unresolved than Once and Again.

Gilmore Girls2000

A different register entirely, but the same fascination with a single mother, a sharp teenage daughter, and the messy adults orbiting them.

But Rapid-fire quippy dialogue and small-town whimsy are about as far from Once and Again's hushed realism as network TV gets.

thirtysomething1987

Same creators, Herskovitz and Zwick, working the same naturalistic, close-up-heavy grammar — this is Once and Again's own ancestor, made when its characters were a decade younger.

The show Once and Again's own creators made a decade earlier, following a tight group of Baby Boomer friends through marriage, ambition, and creeping disappointment with the same intimate camera style.

But Its yuppie-angst preoccupations and eighties signifiers now feel dated in ways Once and Again mostly avoided.

Stepmom1998no page yet

Same blended-family, custody-and-resentment engine as Once and Again, just recast as a two-hour star vehicle instead of a patient serialized drama — a good gauge of how much restraint the show actually has.

The glossy, big-star Hollywood version of exactly Once and Again's premise: a new partner, resentful kids, and an ex-wife all forced into the same orbit, played for maximum tears.

But Where Once and Again earns its emotion slowly, this hits every beat with swelling music and movie-star close-ups — subtlety is not the point.