Monday, March 01, 1999
Remember to watch 'Any Day Now'
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Don't know about you, but I keep forgetting to watch one of the best shows on television.
Any Day Now, the excellent series about an African-American attorney (Lorraine Toussaint) and her Caucasian pal (Annie Potts) in the Deep South, appears on Lifetime, and I'm not in the habit of tuning to cable for original drama series.
Particularly at 9-10 p.m. Tuesday, when most viewing choices start with Spin City, Sports Night, Just Shoot Me or Felicity.
If Any Day Now were on a broadcast network — CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox — millions more would remember to watch. If it weren't on a cable channel targeted to women, it would have been hailed as a hit this season, along with Felicity or Providence.
Right? Maybe not.
“Personally, I love being where we are, says star Lorraine Toussaint. “There's a certain network pressure that doesn't exist at Lifetime.”
Ms. Toussaint, a Trinidad native who moved to New York as a teen-ager, has been burned by the big networks before.
• Leaving L.A., her 1997 spring ABC series set in the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, was canceled after three telecasts. Three episodes never aired.
• Where I Live, her 1993 sitcom with Doug E. Doug (Cosby), was pulled by ABC eight weeks into the fall season.
“No, I'd rather not be on a (broadcast) network. I don't know if we would be given a chance to develop our audience,” she says.
She remembers how I'll Fly Away, another drama set in the Deep South, bounced around the NBC schedule in 1991-93. Ms. Potts, her co-star, has scars from ABC's mistreatment of Dangerous Minds last season.
And while the big networks play Ping-Pong with programs, Lifetime has renewed Any Day Now for a full second season, to start in July. The first year of 22 originals ends March 9.
“This is a wonderful experience, the best in my career,” says Ms. Toussaint, whose film credits include Point of No Return and Hudson Hawk.
“It's great to be a woman working on a woman's network. It's so empowering to feel that when I say something, I'm contributing.”
Executive producer Nancy Miller, who also produced Leaving L.A., asked Ms. Toussaint to star in the show before writing the pilot about two contemporary women dealing with the impact of racism and the civil rights movement on their 1960s childhood in Birmingham, Ala.
At the heart of the show is the struggle by Renee (Ms. Toussaint) and Mary Elizabeth (Ms. Potts) to move past their differences to be friends today.
Those who have remembered to watch have found the black-white bond quite powerful.
“The show is not just based on entertainment, but on healing,” she says.
“America was built on the issue of race. We're just beginning to learn how to deal with it. I believe this show is a catalyst for a dialogue in the work place and the community.
“People who don't know how to approach each other, may end up talking about (race relations) around the water cooler after watching our show.”
On Tuesday, Delta Burke reprises her role as Mary Elizabeth's sister, who is visited in Los Angeles by Renee and Mary Elizabeth. On March 9, Renee meets her boyfriend's (Richard Biggs) children.
Any Day Now will end the first season averaging more than 1.4 million viewers. That's slightly less than Lifetime's prime-time average (1.6 million), and about one-third of the audience for the top-rated cable wrestling shows.
But Ms. Toussaint would rather be a moderate success on cable, than a casualty on a big network.
“Lifetime is very involved with this show. But ultimately, they trust Nancy Miller's vision,” she says.
“I don't think that would happen at a network. They would have futzed this thing into oblivion by now.”
So put a Post-It on the TV. Stick another on the fridge. Circle the TV Week listing in red ink for Any Day Now at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Except for May sweeps, the networks will air mostly reruns from March to September. And you've already seen Spin City, Felicity or Just Shoot Me.
Remind yourself to watch one of TV's best dramas. It's the chance of a Lifetime.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
ON THE AIR
›What: Any Day Now
›When: 9 p.m. Tuesday
›Where: Lifetime
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