All My Children Tribute Thread

[Maxim]

Nothing like them both. She is her own woman. As I recall she is Eric Kane's child with another woman. Insecure, shy, full of doubts and self-criticism, at first glance a complete mouse compared to Erica... But all of this will take a turn towards the dark side as the episodes progress and her desperation to keep her relationship... evolves into obsession.  You'll see.

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[Maxim]

Natalie killed Silver in self defense. Oh my God. I'm shook.

[Maxim]

Watched couple of episodes last night before falling asleep and forgot to write my commentary. Let's do it quickly.

Palmer, the male Stephanie Forrester was gaslighting Natalie and trying to use the accidental killing of Silver to his advantage. Of course he would do that. I'm sure Natalie will take the bait very soon. She will probably go and live with him. Palmer is so obsessive and controlling. The darkest energy in town. And let's not forget he was the one charging Silver's mania and giving her false hope and dangerous advice. He instigated all of this.

I love this storyline. It's giving me 50s film noir thriller vibes. I imagine Joan Crawford playing the Natalie role and Anne Baxter the Silver role.

On one hand, I'm disappointed that Silver is gone. I believe there was a lot more bread in that character... But I also...  liked her tragic demise. Now she is going to be forever engraved in my mind as this fatal turn to darkness personage. It made her spiral more legendary than if she did not die and just ended up in jail or in the sanatorium.

I wonder if they planned to do this with the character from the beginning or it was a Strike-rewrite. 

I'm officially in May 1988 territory.

[EricMontreal22]

Someone (I'm sorry I forget who) asked what Wisner Washam said about Megan McTavish.  I found the interview and... it doesn't say much. 

We Love Soaps: So you left the show at one point in the '80s?
Wisner Washam: Sometimes I shared credit with Lorraine. I saw a crawl last night on YouTube and my name was underneath Lorraine's. That was during a transition period when I was about to given the gate. She had been there for a long time and knew the show and was my right hand. I never had any feeling of resentment toward her as far as taking over my job.

We Love Soaps: After some time away, you returned to ALL MY CHILDREN then left again for good. What led you to leaving?
Wisner Washam: Megan McTavish.

We Love Soaps: Interesting you say that. Among fans online, she is very unpopular writer in ALL MY CHILDREN history.
Wisner Washam: She wasn't a pleasant person to be with every day, I'll tell you that. She drove me away.

We Love Soaps: What was her role at that point on the staff?
Wisner Washam: She was one of the outline writers. But she has a big mouth. And a very domineering personality.

I actually thought Wisner had passed away since the interview, but happy to see he's still alive (as is his wife, early AMC/AW/etc star Judith Barcroft.)  

The three part interview (which is a great, if all too short, read) starts here: https://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/02/wisner-washam-interview-part-1-of-3.html

[Maxim]

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[Contessa Donatella]

I have been secretly in love with Wisner ever since he described the focus group experience and asked why they should replace their judgment with the opinions of a dozen housewives from Nebraska. That is not verbatim but close. I laughed so hard at his description.

[EricMontreal22]

I loved that too.  It really was a point that marked the slow beginning of the end for soaps--and shows why you need creative people in charge of the fate of these shows, not network execs.  As is pointed out, these focus groups would often be women pulled off the street who were immediately meant to give their opinion on each character they saw on screen.  And never mind that if they hated a character, that would be a warning sign to the execs who didn't seem to realize that you're not meant to like every character.

[Jonathan]

I was the one who brought up Wisner, Megan, and Lorraine—how dare you forget! Triple slaps Eric, Erica Kane-style.

[Contessa Donatella]

I was at a con & met a guy who did statistics for NBC Daytime & heard horror stories! My favorite was so simple just being asked if they liked two people together going by nothing but b&w head shots!!! 

[DRW50]

I don't know but I've always assumed this was a strike story...maybe they did plan to write Silver out but the way they did it doesn't feel typical of what you'd expect from this era of AMC, not to mention this was Erica Kane's sister. That's the part that I think made the whole thing a mistake, especially in later years when Erica had clearly run out of storyline.

[Soaplovers]

The Silver/Natalie story went off the rails due to the strike.  I kind of liked the Jack/Jeremy/Silver/Natalie quad that was starting up before the strike.

Plus, the Erica/Travis/Pamela story was promising...given Erica was the other woman in Pamela's parents marriage so I liked the potential of Pamela deciding to settle the score...and would be a reminder of why Mark and Ellen broke up before.

I think the 1988 writer strike derailed the momentum of the show long term..imho

[Maxim]

Thank you for the opinions, guys. I am feeling the same way. I am already disappointed that the Pamela storyline did not go the way I wanted it to, it just lost steam and direction. And I really REALLY miss Silver. This was one of the characters I bonded the most with. 

There is a clear shift somewhere around mid to late-May... it just became apparent it's not the same writer anymore... Now I'm entering into August, believe it or not, since May, June and July were mostly compilations and recaps videos. I went though them like hot bread yesterday and some of it I skipped due to horrible quality and just read written recaps.

The rest of the 1988 is going to be like this - 4-5 hours of compilations and recaps a month... and the really full months and years start with March 1989. I checked in my hard drive, so I'm happy that it's not going to be like this for long.

Anything I feel like it's not covered in the episode compilations I have... I try to find as written recaps and so far I don't feel like I've missed anything that important. But yes, I want to go past this recap-period as fast as I can, so I can go back to enjoying complete episodes. 

 

[Maxim]

Nealy finishing up the August compilations and recaps - Brooke and Adam's marriage is just the most toxic relationship I've seen in my life. Why does Brooke demean herself with tolerating this beast of a husband.

This month has the least material... so I'm continuing with September. 

 

[Maxim]

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[DRW50]

Never mind - those Chip Albers clips are already in the 1988 stuff available on Archive.

Edited February 11 by DRW50