So you thought time ran out on "As Time Goes By," the much lauded Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer Britcom that broke the hearts of many by ending its run last year?

Not so. It turned out the eighth season was the overture for the ninth and final season, which is returning Friday night in an extraordinary way.

WLIW/21 is running the whole final ninth season in one night - four half-hours, starting at 8 p.m.

But this is absolutely the end, BBC sources say. The curtain is down after 10 years and 64 episodes.

Except for the final, final episode, an hour-long grand finale, which ran on the BBC in August. PBS is holding that back until March.

All this must be very confusing for "ATGB" groupies, of which I am one. We have attended so many wakes, so often drowned our sorrows in cups of tea and custard tarts. I'm all mourned out for this show that has had more lives than a British cat.

But I've said it before, and I will say it again: "As Time Goes By" is one of the five best Britcoms ever, a show with no down seasons. It has been like the Nelson statue in Trafalgar Square, towering above the other British family comedies, most of which are as lame as American ones.

"ATGB" is not wildly funny, like "Fawlty Towers," or raucous, like "AbFab." It is a complex story of a romantic relationship between two people, who are no longer 18-to-49, and how it foundered and was rekindled 40 years later.

Dench and Palmer play Jean and Lionel Hardcastle. Jean had been a widow, running a secretarial service with her twice-divorced daughter, Judith (Moira Brooker). Jean was a student nurse who had a brief magical affair with Lionel, a soldier on his way to Korea in the 1950s. The love letter he sent home was never delivered. As time went by, Lionel went to Kenya. They meet again when he returns to London to finish his autobiography, "My Life as a Planter in Kenya." He needed a secretary. The rest is the Hardcastle Saga in 65 episodes.

Dench is marvelous as a British yenta who gets involved in everybody's life. She wants everybody to be happy and is always being scoffed at by Lionel. Palmer, amazingly, plays a curmudgeon who manages to be lovable.

Dench and Palmer are a prickly twosome, each quipping away with sly remarks. As performers, they are like those Olympic ice-dancing couples, their movements synchronized in masterpieces of comedy.

None of this would have been possible without the writing. The show is created and beautifully written by one man, Bob Larbey, who also did "Good Neighbors."

I won't ruin it by giving away what happens.

But I give the last season four of crabby old Lionel's beloved custard tarts.

Is this really the last of "ATGB"? I was at the taping of the so-called last episode at the end of season eight in 2000. At the wrap party, I asked Dame Judi if this was really it. She said, "We will see, won't we?"

This time, the word is they are really serious. The sets have been struck. Not so fast, I say. With such a huge following, in some way the BBC will persuade all involved they must carry on.

What they should do next is a spin-off. Lionel and Jean should sell the London house and continue the saga at Li's coffee plantation in Kenya. They should not say goodbye, but only au revoir.

Meanwhile, Ch. 21 is conducting an online auction of "ATGB" artifacts and memorabilia that will go live Sunday (at www.wliwauction.org). Bids will be accepted only online. The auction ends about midway through the marathon Friday.

I will be bidding for the kitchen table from Hardcastle House. Another money-making idea: Some smart publisher should put out Lionel's adventures taming the wild coffee bean, so Ch. 21 can offer autographed copies of "My Life as a Planter" as a membership premium.

This article appeared in the October 20, 2002 online edition of Newsday .

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