I first got hooked on Showtime's Soul Food, the hit five-season drama based on the 1997 movie of the same name about the personal and professional lives of three sisters in Chicago, when I was doing research for AfterEllen.com in 2003 on a potential lesbian story line. The lesbian story line never went anywhere, but I got sucked into the series, ordered the first season on DVD, and watched it all in one long weekend.

I had to wait four years for Paramount to release the second season on DVD, which they finally did earlier this month, but only a few minutes into the first disc, the feeling was definitely back.

What's so great about this series? I mean, besides the fantastic music and the fact that, as the first long-running and successful dramatic series on television to feature a predominantly African-American cast (it ran from 2000 to 2004), it was basically the black community's The L Word without all the lesbians, but with a much better theme song.

It's all about the sisters.

Three sisters, in particular: Teri, Bird, and Maxine, played by Nicole Ari Parker, Malinda Williams, and Vanessa A. Williams respectively. Their relationship is alternately supportive, meddlesome, and confrontational. When they're not laughing, crying, celebrating, or helping each other out of a jam, they're driving each other crazy, in big and small ways.

In other words, they remind me of my own relationship with my sister, except that we don't currently live in the same city, so we have to drive each other crazy using only the internet and the phone. My sister's favorite trick currently includes IM'ing from my mom's account pretending to be mom and trying to get me to complain about her (my sister), then laughing at me if I fall for it. Yes, she has too much free time for a grown woman with three kids, but what can I say — our relationship is pretty the same as it was when we were twelve.

But I digress. Here's a photo of the three actresses celebrating the series' success in 2004: … continue reading

I'll admit, I'm more than a little excited about the possible DVD release sometime soon of the last season of Once and Again — ABC's 1999-2002 drama about the daily trials and tribulations of a blended and extended family — and not just because of that season's fantastic exploration of two teen girls falling in love.

The tumultuous, grudge-riddled relationship between sisters Lily (Sela Ward) and Judy (Marin Hinkle) always reminds me of my own with my sister. Lily's efforts to embrace but not smother her children and boyfriend's children resonates with a lot of moms and stepmoms, I'm sure, as does Karen's (Susanna Thompson) heartbreaking struggle as a newly divorced mother to let go of her marriage and her attempt to control her children. The awkward, tentative friendship between quasi step-sisters Grace (Julia Whelan) and Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood) is familiar to all of us who've tried to make the best of a situation we didn't necessarily choose, and pre-teen Zoe's endless frustration at being left out of everything is like every annoying little sister you've ever known. And of course, Jessie's confusion about her feelings for classmate Katie (Mischa Barton) reminds me of more than one crush I had in high school.

The show had more in-depth, realistic, and complicated women in one episode than almost the entire primetime lineup does these days, and they were played by equally talented, interesting and relatable actresses.

Which has me wondering: now that it's been five years since the show ended, what are the women of Once and Again up to these days? So I did a little research, and a little then-and-now photoshopping, to catch us all up. … continue reading