‘Almost’ New : ‘THE TORKELSONS’ REINCARNATED TAKES ON A NEW LIFE, AND STYLE

Who says TV can’t raise a phoenix from the ashes of a dead show?

NBC is trying to do just that Saturday night with a reincarnation of “The Torkelsons” as “Almost Home.”

Unlike the critically acclaimed “Brooklyn Bridge” on CBS and NBC’s “I’ll Fly Away,” there was no write-in campaign to bring back “The Torkelsons,” which bowed in the ‘91-92 season to mixed reviews. NBC had moved it from Saturdays to Sundays against “60 Minutes,” with numerous preemptions, and it sunk in the ratings. Its return can be credited to a full-court press from Disney, NBC executive vice president of series programming Perry Simon and producer-creator Michael Jacobs.

“The Torkelsons” focused on matriarch Millicent Torkelson’s struggle to raise her five kids in Pyramid Corners, Okla. Now, when we meet the Torkelsons in the “Almost Home” pilot, they’ve moved to urban Seattle. Millicent, played by Connie Ray, has somehow lost two kids along the way, but she’s got a new co-star in Perry King, who plays businessman Brian Morgan, who contributes two spoiled city kids to the mix. Ergo, conflict between urban and country folks, which producers hope will attract a more mainstream audience.

Even as they are working on “Almost Home,” the producers still seem dumbfounded by the fate of the original “Torkelsons.”

“For reasons that would mystify any observer,” says Dean Valentine, executive vice president of network television for Walt Disney Studios, “NBC felt (there) was too big of a drop-off” after “The Torkelsons’ ” “Golden Girls” lead-in and replaced it with the even shorter-lived “Walter and Emily.”

“This was even though the show was holding its own!” Valentine said. “NBC didn’t give it the time it needed to really develop an audience and got too nervous too quickly. So even if they liked it creatively, they moved it to Sunday, which is an awful time slot.”

Ted Frank, vice president of comedy and drama programming for NBC, says the network gave “The Torkelsons” a reasonable chance to develop an audience and contends that the network is keeping shows on “much longer than they have in the last 10 years.”

“Sunday was the death zone at the time and we couldn’t do anything about it,” producer Jacobs says. They (NBC) ended up with an even lesser share for their struggles.”

But with Simon leading the way, NBC agreed to bring back a reworked, renamed “Torkelsons.”

“The network would have canceled it if we didn’t change it,” Jacobs says. “You do everything you can do to save a show you believe in.”

“If you had a basket of apples and there was one beautiful apple no one ate, it’s pretty hard to convince them it’s still good,” Ray says in support of the show’s changes. “No one wants to risk biting it again. You need another apple or even a pomegranate.”

The conflict between “the city mice and country mice,” as Ray explains it, has Millicent and Morgan clashing on child-rearing and their teen daughters clashing on everything.

And no one seems too concerned about the unexplained disappearance of Millicent’s two middle children.

“They went into a black hole,” says Disney’s Valentine. “The show was doing an eight share and no one saw it anyway, so whether the kids are there or not, it’s not really relevant to new viewers.”

“As far as the new show goes, they never existed,” Jacobs says.

In fact, the network plans to promote “Almost Home” as if it were a brand-new show.

“That way, those viewers who know and liked (“The Torkelsons”) will pick up on that and those who didn’t know the show won’t feel left out,” Frank says.

“The Torkelsons” attempted more subtle humor than the “Almost Home” pilot, but Ray and Jacobs believe that once the new format is established, the show can concentrate on how Millicent and her brood can maintain their values in the city, evoking the sweetness of the original series.

“The Torkelsons” was most popular with young people and women, who seemed to like the chemistry between Ray and her on-screen daughter, Olivia Burnette. Ray believes that the addition of King and the more urban setting will draw more men to the show.

“The value of the writing and the characters is as it was within ‘The Torkelsons’,” Jacobs insists. “The lessons learned are still important; we’ve not diminished the story, and we’ve included more of a broad base for an audience to watch.”

What the producers and cast hope for is that this time around the network will give them a chance to build that base.

“I hope that the network realizes that what a quality half-hour they have . . . and don’t jockey the show about,” Jacobs adds.”If NBC has ponied up and keeps us on the air and keeps supporting us, we have a shot.”

“Almost Home” airs S a turday at 8 p.m. on NBC.