‘Trees’ gets a big transplant on ABC

The diminutive Anne Heche rules over the rainy Vancouver set of “Men in Trees” by the sheer speed of her movements, darting across the soundstage, chatting with the crew and drinking Red Bull, which she did not appear to need. And when she sat for an interview in her trailer, this declaration sounded like one word: “I had a dream, and my dream was to move after ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ ”

After an unpredictable fall season in network television, Heche’s show has indeed moved, at least for the time being, into the spot after “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC’s Thursday schedule, completing a trifecta of “Hey, Ladies!” television serials that begins with “Ugly Betty” at 8 p.m. The change came after “Men in Trees” -- in which Heche plays Marin Frist, a life coach and writer who moves to a tiny Alaska town after her fiance breaks her heart -- shored up a loyal viewership on ABC’s barren Friday nights.

This week’s episode will be the first real test of the show’s potential success on Thursdays at 10 p.m. because its previous two outings there occurred in the repeat-laden holiday doldrums. “Men in Trees” is booked to appear after “Grey’s Anatomy” through January: If it retains a good portion of the tremendously popular hospital soap opera’s audience, it is likely to stay there.

Jenny Bicks, the former “Sex and the City” writer who created “Men in Trees” and is the executive producer who runs the show, is anxious about the move to the most profitable, and therefore the most pressure-filled, night of prime-time television. “I felt like there was an audience on Friday nights that wasn’t being utilized,” Bicks said on a recent afternoon in her Hollywood office. “You always want to be the one that’s rewarded, given this plum spot, but at the same time, I was aware of what it would mean in terms of the exposure.”

Bicks sighed. “My third grade report card: ‘Jenny worries too much.’ ”

In a television season when new series like “Smith” and “The Nine” looked like action films, “Men in Trees’ ” simplicity -- lost woman goes to Alaska, finds self -- was somehow more puzzling than those intricate crime dramas. It seemed like a Meg Ryan romantic comedy movie from the ‘90s, or “Sex and the City” set in Alaska, or “Northern Exposure” with a female lead. But none of those descriptions sounded exciting, nor did they lend themselves to splashy marketing campaigns, and “Men in Trees” was largely overlooked by the press.

Bicks thought its under-the-radar status could work to the show’s advantage. As she watched elaborately plotted network series parade by, Bicks said: “I guess I felt like, ‘I’m glad I don’t have a serialized drama.’ I don’t know the first thing about that.”

As for Heche, she was confident in Bicks, she said. “You get in Jenny’s presence and you want to participate in a hopeful atmosphere.” The actress picked up steam and continued in her Katharine Hepburn-inflected voice: “We wanted entertainment! We wanted people to laugh! We’re in a chaotic, sad, complicated world. How do we exist as human beings in that, and how do we help each other in that, is what this show is about.”

Stephen McPherson, the entertainment president of ABC, said that he thought “Men in Trees” derived its strength from its “really romantic, wish-fulfillment” plot: Marin goes from a frenzied, ambitious New York City life to a bucolic, cozy one, where she is surrounded by warm new friends and a brooding, sort-of-unavailable love interest, Jack (James Tupper). “We feel like that’s been missing from television, and that’s why ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ has popped,” McPherson said in a phone interview.

McPherson took note of “Men in Trees’ ” promise during the fall, when it generated a disproportionate amount of interest at ABC’s audience phone line, a service in which operators field calls about the network’s shows. He said that questions and comments about “Men in Trees” made it the third most called-about series, behind only “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Lost,” and ahead of ABC’s other hits. “What we started to see was the reality that these fans were really dedicated and that it was kind of bubbling up as a sleeper on Fridays,” McPherson said.

Peter Roth, the president of Warner Bros. Television, the studio that produces “Men in Trees,” also called the show a sleeper. Warner Bros. has had a tough season with its new shows: “The Nine,” “Smith,” “Happy Hour” and “Justice” have disappeared from the networks’ schedules, and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “The Class” have underperformed in comparison to the high expectations projected onto them.

“Those suffered, to some degree, by virtue of the spotlight,” Roth said. “Now we have this quiet show, ‘Men in Trees,’ which is doing beautifully, thank you very much.”

Roth has been working with Heche for four years; he signed her to a development deal after what he called “a very memorable meeting.” She did stints on two Warner Bros. series, “Everwood” and “Nip/Tuck,” and starred in a comedy pilot for the studio that was not picked up. “She’s better in a drama,” Roth said. “She has a sense of humor, and that comes out, and she’s playful. But I think she’s best served in a role just like this.”

Of course, Heche has had a rocky path as a celebrity, and as a person, which she chronicled in her 2002 memoir, “Call Me Crazy.” Did the baggage Heche carries from, for example, her public meltdown and subsequent hospitalization in 2000, make McPherson hesitant to cast her?

“No question,” he said. “When her name was first brought up, that was the first thing that came to mind. She absolutely had no ego about it and wanted to read for the part. And, you know, she’s brilliant.”

McPherson added: “It’s not like she did anything bad to people. She didn’t do anything horrible, she just went astray.”

Or, as Heche put it: “I have fallen flat on my face in front of the entire planet. And everybody watched.”

Heche said her past troubles not only helped her play Marin, but she thought viewers believed in the character more because she’d been so forthcoming about her ups and downs. “People can watch Marin fall flat on her face, have a positive attitude, be joyous about her experience -- as difficult as it is -- and think she’s going to come out a winner in the end. Why do they trust that? Because they watched me do it.”

Bicks said that the show has found its way as she and the other writers have calmed the Marin character down. “Now that she’s a part of this world more, she’s less the New York girl spinning out of control, and she’s more the girl that’s warmer and relaxed.”

They’ve also developed that world -- the Elmo, Alaska, ensemble -- so that the other characters don’t merely serve as foils for Heche’s Marin. And they’ve added Justine Bateman as Jack’s former girlfriend -- the one that got away but has now come back -- to heighten the stakes of the Marin-Jack relationship, which provides the spine of the show.

Keeping the two characters apart, as the “Sex and the City” writers did for years with Carrie and Big, is “a challenge,” Bicks said. “They have such amazing chemistry. That’s been the best thing about the show.”

(For his part, the Nova Scotia-born Tupper, who is simply happy to have an acting job -- he was doing carpentry a year ago -- said he is mystified that he has become a sex symbol. Will it affect his life? “Maybe I’ll get invited to parties? I don’t know,” he said with a laugh.)

Of course, all of the tinkering, Bicks pointed out, took place in the low-impact confines of Friday night. “We were able to learn our show in private,” she said. “We didn’t have to put it out there in the first episode.”

But Heche is undauntedly enthusiastic about the larger platform of Thursdays. “We are trying to entertain in a way that nobody else is doing. So why not have a shot at another spot?”

kate.aurthur@latimes.com