2 weeks. 11 show days to be exact. 23 September 2011 and life as I've know it since the summer I was 15-years-old will end. And w/everything else that's going on....I find that really quite upsetting. In good times and bad, I could always count on the problems, issues and pathos of Pine Valley to distract me for at least an hour a day. And unless I was screwed up setting the VCR, or it didn't record for some reason I watched it every day. You see I'm one of those fans who is basically blindly loyal. We suffer through the bad writing and ridiculous story lines; the outlandish leaps-over-the-shark; all of the attempts from the Powers-that-be to kill it. And we may bitch about it and wonder when it will get better and wish and hope and pray for change; but we don't leave. We've stuck it out and come that day, I don't know what decision I'll make going forward regarding the online show. For me All My Children is ABC, 12:00 noon; yes, even though I tape it (and yes, I still tape it...don't get me started!). But watching these last shows, now that the writing has been taken over by Ms. Brodderick, et. al. and we're getting character driven stories I feel a fresh wave of rage directed at Brian Frons and the other f*#kweasels at ABC Daytime who have uprooted so many lives w/promises of "new life" for the show w/the move to Los Angeles less than a year ago.
All My Children is being allowed to do what they have always done and done so well. All My Children has long been at the forefront in commenting on political and social issues. They were the first "entertainment" outlet to have a position on the Vietnam war when Ruth protested it (winning the first Daytime Emmy given to a performer); when Erica married Dr. Jeff Martin and found herself pregnant but wanted a "career," she had television's first ever abortion; the first lesbian relationship w/Devon and her therapist; honestly dealing w/alcohol and prescription drug addition. All My Children was one of, if not the first show of it's kind to deal w/anorexia nervosa in a realistic and truthful way. And even now as they're going out, it's w/two important stories. Mixed in w/the requisite baby-switch and raising people from the dead we have 1) Amanda, a young woman in the prime of her life who's contracted HPV, developed uterine cancer and experienced a hysterectomy and now is going through menopause and 2) Marissa has realized her bisexuality, begun a relationship w/Bianca and is establishing a home w/their respective children. They're now dealing w/JR's (surprising) bigotry that rearing it's ugly head, though his decent back into alcoholism is probably fueling this. Both of these stories are socially relevant, have strong acting, and have the ability to change and impact people's lives...just what television is intended to do; or should.
That's something else. The actors and actresses of Daytime don't get the credit they deserve for the work they put in. They are (or were) television's "workhorses", memorizing pages and pages and pages of dialogue and then having changes handed to them and having to incorporate them the day of taping. I've always thought Susan Lucci has never gotten the respect she deserves. Her performance arc in the anorexia storyline is pretty much seared into my brain; that final confrontation she has w/Bianca where Binx finally admits her problem. We don't see the over-the-top-telling-of-a-bear-in-the-woods Erica Kane; no, we see the Mother, desperate to save her child and desperate to reach her. This was a woman who was able to tap into very real feeling bring them out in a genuine and authentic way. I was sure that would be her year at the Daytime Emmys, but no. It would be another couple. The other performance that stays w/me all these years later is One Life To Live's Karen Wolek as portrayed by Judith Light. She was a doctor's wife in Llanview but being forced to turn tricks by Marco Dane, a man from her past who ends up dead. TV Guide named her "Karen Wolek on the Stand" performance as one of its "100 Most Memorable Moments on Television" and the performance is so emotional, so raw and gut wrenching and real that it is still used in acting classes today. Here's the talent we might have missed out on w/out "soaps":
- Kevin Bacon - Guiding Light
- James Earl Jones - As The World Turns
- Marsia Tomei - As The World Turns
- Julianne Moore - Edge of Night (1 Episode); As The World Turns
- Meg Ryan - As The World Turns
- Leonardo DiCaprio - Santa Barbara
- Martin Sheen - As The World Turns
- Brad Pitt - Another World
- Susan Sarandon - A World Apart
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