here we go again...

i love marshall herskovitz and ed zwick. these two men are responsible for some of my all-time favourite television programs -- thirtysomething, my so-called life (brilliant brilliant brilliant!), Relativity and Once and Again (heartbreakingly good!) -- and are, therefore, also responsible for a great deal of TV-induced heartache for me. why? because they kept producing wonderful shows only to have ABC (the network with whom they were allied) repeatedly CANCEL THEM long before their time. with the exception of cultural phenomenon thirtysomething, all of those listed series were axed waaaay too soon...MSCL and Relativity barely lasted a season each.

perhaps you remember my little rant about this very subject almost a year ago, written in reaction to the alphabet net’s latest good-TV casualty. at the time, i wrote about how i couldn’t understand why ABC kept kicking the bedford falls team (and those of their ilk) to the curb, and i really couldn’t understand why herskovitz and zwick kept going back for more. it was like watching an abusive relationship...only with better writing.

imagine my cauldron of mixed emotions when word spread that the duo were creating another another series. “OMG! AMAZING! (pause) oh no,” i thought. “it’s going to be this wicked show, and i’m going to totally fall in love with it, and then ABC is going to yank it off the air just like they always do! bastards! (sob)”

well, guess what? this time, herskovitz and zwick’s newest baby will debut on NBC. (actually, it already debuted online last fall, but its *television* debut is tonight at 10pm on the peacock network.) now, NBC hasn’t exactly wowed me with its commitment to quality TV – much to my deep and profound chagrin, they were the ones who killed American Dreams, the best new drama in years – so it’s with some degree of cautious optimism that i await tonight’s premiere of quarterlife. it's an hourlong dramedy about a twentysomething blogger and her five twentysomething friends.

experience tells me it’s going to rock. everything H&Z churn out rocks, and i’m beyond excited to see their latest. but i swear to the ghost of rayanne graff that NBC had better get behind this series in a big way. if they can air crap like Bionic Woman or fifteen incarnations of Law & Order, they can spend a few bucks making sure that viewers tune in. that’s all it’ll take...because once they do, they’ll stay.

or, at least, i hope they do.

[edited to add: OMG! herskovitz and zwick WERE rejected by ABC again! seems they originally pitched the show to ABC, who said no! see? see?! ABC is mean.]