It had 22 episodes, but it really should have had more. Created, written, and produced by Glenn Gordon Caron (who would go on to create the popular Medium for NBC) in 2000, Now and Again concerned one Michael Wiseman as a re-built man (the Six Million Dollar Man for the new millennium, if you will), who is put to work by the U.S. Government under the close supervision of Dr. Theodore Morris (played by 24 and The Unit’s Dennis Haysbert). Originally a 40-something husband and father of one (played in cameos by John Goodman), Wiseman becomes a 26-year old, genetically modified superhuman man played by Eric Close (now with the hit show Without a Trace).

The show lasted only one year, and featured very strong sci-fi elements that it somehow made seem real. But what really made it pop for me wasn’t the sci-fi aspect, but the romance between Wiseman and his wife, Lisa (Margaret Colin, one of the stars of “Independence Day”), and his affection for his daughter, Heather (Heather Matarazzo). Of course, being re-built by the Government, Michael is forced to work for them doing odd jobs, and when he’s not working, he’s kept locked away, out of the public eye. But as the show’s opening narration states, being forced to forget about his past life is not an easy feat, because this six million dollar man is still very much in love with his wife and his daughter.

For 22 episodes, we watch as Michael Wiseman attempted to get used to his new life, while trying desperately to cling onto his old. On the home front, Lisa has to learn how to live without Michael, which gets a bit tricky since the two of them, thanks to the miracle of TV writing, keeps crossing paths. Will Lisa start to fall for this 26-year old handsome stranger, especially since he seems to keep popping up everywhere she is? Or will her love for her deceased husband keep her away from him? And how can Michael cling to his old life without endangering everyone in it?

Tricky business, but the writing on Now and Again was always strong, and the performances always pitch-perfect, and never too “fairy tale”-ish. At one point, Morris sends in an attractive female doctor to “work” with Michael, but is really trying to lure him away from his wife and onto someone else. The episode is written perfectly, and it takes us until the very end to realize what’s happening.

The show also featured a number of villains, but many of them are down-to-Earth. The show’s only real “supervillain” is a Japanese serial killer, the Eggman, who blackmails cities into paying or else he’ll unleash nerve gas. In some of the show’s more spectacular sequences, the Eggman proves himself to be very capable of his threats, and unleashes death on entire subways. But overall, the villains don’t make Now and Again, because it’s all about the characters — Michael, Morris, and Lisa.

The final, twenty-second episode of Now and Againo featured a cliffhanger, with Michael having rushed home to gather up his family, having finally decided to risk it all to save them, with Morris and the G-men in close pursuit. And yes, it is killing me that I’ll never see what happens next.

There were attempts by fans to force CBS to release the show’s first season on DVD, but that hasn’t come to fruition yet, and eight years later, the DVD, much less any hope of a TV movie to resolve the show’s cliffhanger, are all but dead, with the cast and crew having moved on to other things.

But for a while there, Now and Again had the best combination of romance, sci-fi, and human drama of any show. It’s too bad it just never caught an audience. In today’s climate, with Heroes and Lost introducing serial storytelling to a formerly ADD-addled TV viewing audience, Now and Again might have had a chance, if not on network TV, then at least on one of the cable networks. God knows it’s still, eight years later, light years better than some of the crap on TV right now.

Oh, what could have been…