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One more time for American Dreams

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published July 30, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Fans left cold by the vague end in May of NBC's family drama American Dreams, starring Tampa native Brittany Snow, will get some closure.

Executive producer Jonathan Prince, talking Friday with a handful of critics at the close of the Television Critics Association summer meeting, said NBC has agreed to air a revamped series finale for the show that was canceled in May. A broadcast of the re-edited one-hour finale can be expected sometime in August or early September and will include 12 minutes of new footage that will wrap up the series, Prince said.

Snow, who has gone on to a movie career and is filming in Vancouver, Canada, will figure prominently in the new ending. The new segments pick up three years after viewers last saw Snow heading to Berkeley, Calif. in 1966. She has changed, but she is ready to go home, Prince said.

The extra minutes will conclude the series properly, he said. Still undetermined is where and exactly when the finale will air, whether it will be on NBC or on a sister station such as cable outlet Bravo. Prince said the episode is complete, although some music fees have to be paid for songs he has never used on the series.

"I promise you, there will be weeping," Prince said. "It is a beautiful and sad thing to watch."

Prince said Dreams drew advertising dollars well throughout its run and had broad critical support, but it never got the viewership numbers it needed to keep NBC executives satisfied. The network was getting "creamed" on Sunday nights, and the entire evening had to be revamped from the network's standpoint, he said.

It was actually canceled in December, Prince said. As producer, he told no one, and instead forged deals with Kraft foods to incorporate Kraft cheese and Oreo cookies in two episodes, for a fee, that ensured the show would finish out the season. Viewers who remember the scene where a child makes a cheese mask out of his slice can now know the shot was bought and paid for.

By March, as the shooting wrapped up, Prince said he had a bad feeling. On the last days of shooting, he shot an extra 12 minutes, without explaining to Snow or the others why they were going to have to wear different clothes than they normally wore. It took a day and a half to prepare, and then Prince said he put it aside.

It was his secret. He said he didn't want to let on to network executives because there was still a chance the show could be saved for a whole new season.

"I smelled a rat," Prince said. "I just sort of smelled the low ratings."

[Last modified July 30, 2005, 06:48:24]