“We inherited a show that had confused its mission and its audience,” Phillips said. “Working with some less-than-ideal time slots we’ve had some gratifying numbers, particularly in the larger markets. The people that can find the show like the show. They like where it’s going. And they appreciate our candor. We’re more interested in widening the viewers’ perspective and enjoyment of the movies than we are in yakking about trailers.”

Here in Chicago, the numbers are flat year-to-year even with the change. But Emily Barr, president and general manager of ABC-owned WLS-Ch. 7, where the show is recorded, said she tends not to pay much attention to the program’s ratings this time of year because ABC college football broadcasts routinely push the local first run of “At the Movies” out of its scheduled 10:35 p.m. Saturday slot.

The new hosts, Barr said, are “engaging” and “doing a fantastic, very credible job.”

“They’ve added a new energy to the show and have brought ‘At the Movies’ back to its roots,” she said.

Of course, the reason the show was yanked up from its roots in the first place was for new energy.

Ebert had selected fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper to take the seat across the aisle after Siskel’s death. And when health problems silenced Ebert, Phillips eventually became his regular substitute.

Rather than simply freshening up a decades-old format and show heading into the 2008-09 season, Disney exec Roni Selig, who has since moved on to CNN, decided to make the show more exciting and youthful and so many of those things entertainment executives do when they decide to put their own stamp on something.

Selig stamped it all right. Stamped it, crushed it and nearly took away its will to live.

There was the divorce with Ebert and Roeper and the theater-balcony set that had been a tradition dating to the show’s early days was ditched. Mankiewicz was brought in from Turner Classic Movies, Lyons from E! Entertainment Television. Not only would they kibitz about movies, they would engage other critics to shout their opinions at each other from remote locations.

It didn’t take long for the wheels to come off.

The college of critics was abandoned soon enough, but Lyons – whose infamous 2007 ad-ready appraisal of “I Am Legend” as “one of the greatest movies ever made” should have been a warning flare that perhaps he would be in over his head – just blithely kept tugging the program down.

Which is why Disney’s ABC Media Productions sent him and Mankiewicz packing and brought in Scott and Phillips for 2009-10, going decidedly bookish in an effort to restore credibility. It was a bid to not only save the franchise but, to a degree, the idea of serious entertainment criticism and discussion on television. It can’t all be merely puffball interviews, hype, celebrity gossip and weekly box office figures, right?

“We’re pleased with the critical insights and compelling reviews that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips have brought to ‘At the Movies,’” said Brian Frons, who oversees ABC Media Productions as president of daytime for the Disney-ABC Television Group. “Since they’ve been on air, they’ve been tremendously well received by the media and movie-lovers, everywhere.”

Roeper, a friend and one-time Sun-Times colleague, has just announced a deal to begin taping reviews for his Web site and cable’s Starz in December.