Pamela Long: `Second Noah' Is Her `Alternate World'

Television producer Pamela K. Long, granddaughter of a Methodist minister, has two sons, four dogs and a writer-husband who helps her rescue animals in trouble.

When she created the Becketts of Tampa, Fla., for her new series, "Second Noah" (8 p.m. Monday, KOMO-TV), she was creating her ideal family.

"I wish I were more like them," Long said. "I've gotten to create my alternate world, my dream world. We would love to live like them - that would be our dream."

Her more immediate challenge is to keep the series on the air against "Melrose Place," "The Nanny," "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Star Trek: Voyager."

"Second Noah" premiered Feb. 5, drawing more children and rating better than the previous ABC occupant of that spot, "The Marshal." A network spokesman termed it "just about what we expected."

The series focuses on Jesse and Noah Beckett. She's chief veterinarian at Busch Gardens, which adjoins their home; he's trying to switch from coaching basketball to writing novels.

They have lots of adopted kids and lots of animals, some recovering from abuse elsewhere. There's apparently no end to those who can join the fold. So far, they've joined two by two, sort of: 17-year-old Ricky and his 3-year-old son, Ben; 17-year-old Roxanna and her little brother, Luis; 13-year-old twins Danny and Ranny; 7-year-old girls Bethany and Hannah.

Good family viewing

"Second Noah" is a series that parents and children can watch

together, like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," "The Waltons," "Little House on the Prairie," maybe even "Wild Kingdom." According to Long, ABC Entertainment chief Ted Harbert sees her show as a way to reclaim a family audience.

Long, who won two Emmy Awards and a Writer's Guild Award as a writer for the CBS daytime drama "Guiding Light," was head writer of NBC's "Santa Barbara" and a producer-writer for CBS's "Christy."

"Christy" did well in the Nielsen ratings, Long said. "But they were thinking that they wanted a young, urban-male audience, and they threw the audience away that loved that show."

After CBS killed "Christy," Long met with former NBC Entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff to come up with a new family series. Tartikoff, who recently adopted an infant daughter, suggested that they produce a series about parents who adopt children. Tartikoff's New World Entertainment company would produce it.

But "Second Noah" took some early hits from critics who found the show too saccharin. Long finds that view hard to understand.

"I think some people think that if it's a family show, and there's a sweetness that runs through it, a spirit that runs through it, they automatically try to draw horns on it," she said. "I don't get it. I mean I really don't get it. I think you have to look pretty hard to find something to attack in `Second Noah.' I don't know what you'd find to attack. It's all positive stuff."

While Long's co-executive producer, Sam Egan, spent more time in Tampa on the set, Long wrote the pilot, fine-tuned all the scripts and oversaw post-production of the first 12 episodes in Los Angeles.

Long and her husband, Steven J. Brackley, a writer on "Second Noah," share their Pacific Palisades home with sons C.J., 13, and Nicky, 10, plus four dogs and assorted foster animals. "One of us is always home with the kids," she said.

But like parents everywhere, they find bringing up the boys to be a challenge, and she turned to her church.

Church background

"My grandfather was a preacher, so I've been raised by a preacher's daughter," she said. "My husband is from Canada, and his grandfather was also a Methodist minister. We attend a Methodist church in Pacific Palisades.

"I was able to call back on the religion of my youth when I had children, because I just needed the help, the support. . . .

"The show's not about that," she said. "This family - the Becketts - they definitely believe in God. I couldn't tell you what church they attend, but I believe that they attend church."

Like the Becketts, the Brackleys are rescuers of animals.

"People know whom to call," said Long. "Recently in our town a dog was wounded, and they called my husband. She had a broken spine. He said, `I think we have to try to save her.' And we did. And she now is with a family that had never had an animal before."

Then there was the day Long almost stepped on a baby hummingbird in her own yard. "Once you see it, you can't say, `Let nature take its course.' You've got to intervene," she said. She located a specialist in helping hummingbirds, and the bird survived and was released in the Brackley yard.

For this show, animal-lover Long was able to audition animal actors as well as human ones. "When Eddie (who played the role of Caesar the chimp) put his arms around me and kissed me, he had the role," she recalled. "I was a goner."

Daniel Hugh Kelly and Betsy Brantley play Noah and Jesse Beckett, with Deirdre O'Connell as red-haired Shirley Crockmeyer, their almost-a-floozy housekeeper, who probably has her own story.