All My Children Tribute Thread

[amybrickwallace]

I know that Francesca James directed, produced and acted (not to mention sang) on AMC. Did she ever write for the show?

[You're Soaking in it]

 

She was never on the writing team - but as EP, she largely took credit for the ideas of Maria sleeping with Dimitri and the subsequent Erica's kidnapping Maria's baby. (Broderick was HW at the time.)

[amybrickwallace]

Thanks for clarifying, but if I was Francesca I would completely wash my hands of that plot. One of my teachers in high school was a big AMC fan and she HATED that story - hated it!! I think that was in 1997.

Edited March 20, 2018 by amybrickwallace

[You're Soaking in it]

 

Polarizing, to say the least. I give her credit for taking ownership. She described her own guiding of AMC as wanting to take characters and stories to their very edge. There were things I loved, and things I didn't. The whole tone of AMC became very dark under FJ.

 

I really disliked the Maria / Dimitri "grief sex." It just didn't ring true, and I thought even kind of gross. You had this very powerful scene of Edmund not letting Maria abscond with Sammy, and taking him from her arms to return him to Kelsey... Then the next episode, you see have Dimitri under the sheets with Maria, who kind of looked grossed-out herself. To me, it threw an unnecessary cliche over an otherwise well told story point.

 

I realized later, of course, that it was a means to an end: to have Maria miraculously be pregnant, and worry that the baby was Dimitri's. That was another means to an end - PPD-afflicted Erica, just having miscarried, takes the baby and makes it appear to Maria that she died. And in spite of my hating the actions, it was somehow riveting. The scenes of Erica confessing and returning the baby to Maria were amazingly well written & acted.

 

[BetterForgotten]

The dialogue and breakdown staff was largely great in McTavish's first stint. Even when the plots were absurd as hell, much of the day to day writing was excellent in the early/mid 90's. 

[amybrickwallace]

Wasn't Erica a bit old to get pregnant by that time? Of course, Susan Lucci is a few years older than Erica Kane (who was a high school student at the outset, and SL was 23 or so when AMC began). 

[Vee]

I just remembered how every time Dimitri and Edmund got mad at each other Dimitri would start running around shouting "STABLE BOY!!!" God, that used to crack me up. What cheese. Goodnight, everybody!

Edited March 20, 2018 by Vee

[Khan]

 

A perfect opportunity, I thought, to tell a story about how a woman like Erica Kane, who has always been about youth and vitality and beauty, copes with menopause.  Her late(r)-in-life pregnancy could have been a "false positive" or even a chance to deal dramatically with all the challenges in giving birth to and raising a "change-of-life baby."  We could have had, too, some wonderful scenes of Erica bonding with Ruth Martin, who would have known a thing or two about carrying a child at that point in a woman's life.  But, no, let's just use Erica's pregnancy and miscarriage as some thin motivation for Erica to steal another woman's baby down the road.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Khan

[DRW50]

 

I thought Dimitri preyed on Maria. Given that he became the big bad not long after, maybe that was the point.

 

Didn't Agnes Nixon say she did the baby kidnapping story to have Erica mature, or something? I can't remember.

 

The baby kidnapping story itself was much more interesting than it should have been. 

 

I also really liked the actress who played Esther, even if they ruined the character later on.

Edited March 20, 2018 by DRW50

[Khan]

To me, it's a testament to Susan Lucci's appeal as an entertainer that Erica could do something as heinous as kidnap a child (even if she were under the mistaken impression that the baby's mother didn't want her) and emerge relatively unscathed from the whole ordeal.  But, compulsively watchable or not, I could have done without that illogical story.

[DRW50]

 

I think those 2-3 years, from the pill addiction to Bianca's eating disorder, were Susan's best acting work. She really did deserve that Emmy.

 

In the case of the kidnapping it helped that Erica did go to jail for a while. Of course it wasn't long, but still - it's more than many soap characters faced.

Edited March 20, 2018 by DRW50

[Dax7000]

I felt bad for Erica in the baby kidnapping story. It was the one that ultimately made me forever dislike Dimitri. The woman was clearly mentally unwell, having suffered a miscarriage and had to help deliver his supposed love child. Not that her behavior was correct in any way, but, just as when she had that mental episode and stabbed him, he was out for blood. Didn't matter that her behavior was insanity caused by trauma, grief, whatever. 

[Soaplovers]

I recall the story... she had investigated and found out that the baby was alive and found out that Esther was keeping the baby for herself.  She actually got the baby back with the intention of returning her to those involved.. but that right before she did so, she overheard Dimitri and someone else talking about the baby.. and they agree that it was probably better that the baby had not lived because of all the anguish the baby would have been exposed too.  So Erica flashed back to feeling abandoned by her father.. and decided that she would raise the baby because she'd lost her baby.  

 

In an odd sense.. it made sense and she was punished and shunned by almost everyone except for Janet (which helped them repair their fractured friendship because Janet knew of the one night stand between Maria and Dimitri but didn't tell Erica).  In an odd way, it was well written and kind of made sense for Erica to do this.

[All My Shadows]

I'm currently making my way through the big compilation of episodes/scenes from 1985 centering on Zach Grayson's murder and Erica/Adam working at Tempo, and as much as I'm loving my nightly visits to PV, how awful that they had to tell this story with the terrible Nina recast and, though I know he's done better work elsewhere, poor Hugo Napier as Mike Roy. They just don't fit.

Meanwhile, does it really get any better than Palmer and Daisy scenes highlighted with that slow, dopey version of Bicycle Built for Two?

[Dax7000]

Did Erica ever actually work as an actress? I know she tried with Raising Kane, but I wasn't sure if she ever actually had acting as one of her careers. I think it was listed as one of her jobs in the Having It All book.