I have been watching this show again on Scifi. I have to say what a great show. It really sucked that it was cancelled. I heard it did pretty decent in the rating.
It was very solid, check out the star of the show now on Without a Trace, a pretty good show in its own right.
One of the things against that show was that it debuted with another show on ABC called "Once and Again", very confusing to have two shows that had two very similiar names but could not be more different.
The cast was top notch and the premise was fun, but CBS was still struggling to find there tone back then (now they are the CSI network!), and could not market the show correctly. If they debuted that show now it would have a chance to be a hit.
I don't know; I think sci-fi has just become too much of a niche market for the big three/four networks. I enjoyed it, but I also think it had a hard time finding an audience - it was pretty understated for its genre. The superhero action was minimal, and the family/relationship stuff was also pretty static. So I think a lot of people may have come out of an episode having enjoyed it, but with no great need to see what was going to happen next week.