Thursday, March 11, 1993

Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE

`HOMEFRONT' BANKING ON ITS FANS' LOYALTY
By Gary Lycan 1993, Orange County Register

ABC's "Homefront," the post-World War II romantic drama with one of the most loyal audiences in television, has suffered more interruptions than rained-out golf tournaments.

It returned at 9 p.m. Tuesday on ABC (Channel 2 locally) with the first of seven consecutive episodes. The ratings will determine whether it returns in the fall.

"Viewer mail has been incredible," according to Lynn Latham, one of two creators and executive producers of "Homefront." The other is her husband, Bernard Lechowick. Together, they worked for six years on CBS's "Knots Landing" before moving on to "Homefront."

"More than half of the people who watched almost every show in the first season told us they didn't know where we were in our second season. This amounts to almost our fifth move," Lechowick said.

"Every time we have been left alone, we have gone up in the ratings," he said. "It's hard to expect an audience to come back. You can't treat an audience casually with what amounts to disrespect and expect them to constantly show up."

"Homefront" debuted Sept. 24, 1991, in the 9 p.m. Tuesday slot. It seemed the perfect successor to "thirtysomething." In 1992, ABC moved it to 8 p.m. Thursday opposite NBC's "Cheers."

At first, that was no problem. ABC aired four consecutive episodes in September and October and the show climbed to a 9.8 rating/16 share in the Nielsen ratings (one rating point is equal to 931,000 homes).

Then ABC pre-empted it Oct. 15, Nov. 5, Nov. 19 and Dec. 10. It went on hiatus after the Dec. 17 show.

"The real question now is, will the viewers know we're back? Are they willing to start again?" Latham said.

"We hope it will succeed," ABC spokesman Jim Brochu said. "Its future will depend on how it performs on Tuesday nights."

"Homefront" boasts one of the finest acting ensembles on television. Set in the fictional town of River Run, Ohio, the series focuses on how families and friends face the timeless realities of postwar adjustment in the workplace and at home.

This season, the show moved into 1946-47 and the era of blacklisting, the baby boom, the suburbs, early television and yes, even the Fuller Brush Man.

In Tuesday's episode, "Signed, Crazy in Love," two storylines were fleshed out in a charming script that took its time to allow strong character development. In one story, Anne Metcalf Kahn (Wendy Phillips) learned the biggest obstacle to her recovery from polio is her pride.

The other story involves factory owner Mike Sloan (Ken Jenkins), who has had the hots for bartender Judy Owen (Kelly Rutherford). When his wife, the nasty Ruth Sloan (Mimi Kennedy), leaves town for a funeral, Sloan asks Owen to dinner.

The stage was set in an earlier episode when Sloan asked Owen to dance, saying "there is nothing wrong with a harmless turn on the dance floor."

Owen delivered a response reminiscent of classic Lauren Bacall. "Nothing we're doing tonight is harmless," she said.

What keeps "Homefront" humming is the writing and insights of co-creators Latham and Lechowick. The person who sparked the idea for the series was Jeannie Seniff, the mother of Latham's best friend.

Seniff was a Belgian war bride and Latham said, "I used to quiz her about the war."

Lechowick, 45, added, "The stories were always in the back of our mind. It was a distinctive time because of a million and a half war brides. These people were dispersed all over the country and instantly became related to Americans. Seniff went to live in a small town in Texas.

"What fascinated us is what America must have seemed like to them and for all the war brides. They came from a destroyed continent to a land of plenty. They couldn't get over the generosity. But there were so many cultural differences," he said.

Latham and Lechowick hired a researcher to work full time on the "Homefront" project during a five-month writers strike in 1988. Latham, 43, said: "We didn't take this project to anyone at the time. We didn't feel they would be receptive. We waited and picked our time. The reason we went to ABC was because it was airing `Twin Peaks' and `Cop Rock' and we thought they just might take some chances.

"Gary Levine, then the director of drama development at ABC, was a guiding force in the project. We got an order for 13, then 9, then two more, so we did 24 the first season."

"Homefront" audiences who loyally watched "Knots Landing" noticed the Latham-Lechowick touch in the ABC series. Their "signature" is creating so-called intercuts in which a character's dialogue in one scene is continued by another character in a different scene.

"They're very hard to write," Latham said.

Lechowick added, "The first time we did it was on `Knots.' Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford) was locked in a subterranean tunnel while Sumner (William Devane) and others were trying to figure out where he was. We decided the exposition was more watchable when two people were discussing the same thing from a different point of view."

"Homefront" offers the kinds of episodes that viewers talk about weeks later. Fans fondly recall the shows centered on "mental reservations" (strict Catholic Anne Metcalf's version of "little white lies"). Other highlights were the on-screen chemistry of the characters Ginger Szabo (Tammy Lauren) and Jeff Metcalf (Kyle Chandler) and the romance developed between Charlie Hailey (Harry O'Reilly) and Italian war bride Gina Sloan (Giuliana Santini).

This time around, look out for bartender Owen.

"We love the Judy character. Kelly brought a 1940s sensibility to the role, like Rosalind Russell or Gloria Grahame. She's really good," Latham said.

With the networks losing viewers to cable, supporters say the networks need mass-appeal shows such as "Homefront." Among the program's biggest boosters is Abigail Van Buren. She devoted an entire advice column to the show and regularly encourages readers to tune in.

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