The Supporting Cast of ''Once and Again''

As nuzzling cuties Rick and Lily, Billy Campbell and Sela Ward are the visual lures of ABC's Once and Again, but their extended families lend the duo emotional heft. Their exes, played by Susanna Thompson (a fine paradox of brittleness and determination) and Jeffrey Nordling (he makes hollow bluster poignant), both fine-tune the nuances of rejection, bitterness, and resignation without being downers. As for the kids in this fractured-family saga, O&iA features TV's top teen tag team. On Rick's side: Shane West may be the series' designated hunk, but his Eli is a surprisingly pensive lunkhead. Evan Rachel Wood, as Jessie, carried the show's recent anorexia story line with a heartbreaking fragility. On Lily's side: Meredith Deane's Zoe is a squeezably quizzical moppet, while Julia Whelan plays Grace with — well, grace. She's prime time's only touchy, sullen adolescent we don't want to send to her room.