Thanks for the great covers.

Susan Blanchard looks like Carol Burnett.

Nowadays,Carol Burnett doesn't look like Carol Burnett!

What were some of the biggest storylines (good or bad) from 1993-2003 (up until the McTavish in July 2003)?

Kendall's torture of her mother Erica, leading to the return of Richard Fields, Kendall's rapist father, Erica stabbing Dimtri when she hallucinated that he was Fields, Kendall realizing that Richard truly was the monster Erica made him out to be, Mona leaving Richard to die.

Janet Green getting experimental plastic surgery and turning into Jane Cox, who married Trevor but their wedding was interrupted by Harold the Dog.

Erica's pill addiction story

The Tad/Liza one night stand and how this was the final nail in his marriage to Dixie

Michael Delaney's coming out, leading to his sister's murder on live TV

Edmund and Maria getting Sam Grey through a surrogacy deal with Kelsey Warner, only for Kelsey to change her mind for a few months, leading Maria to have a big breakdown and have sex with Dimitri, leading to...

Erica stealing Maria's baby and passing it off as her child.

Jim Thomasen causing the plane crash that "killed" Maria, and being Laura's exploiter, ending in Brooke killing him and being put on trial.

Psycho Lee Hawkins and his vendetta against the Chandlers, leading to him blowing up Holidays and killing his daughter Camille in the process.

There are some others I will list later if no one else does.

The tornado (1994)

Bianca comes out (2000)

Proteus (2002)

Dixie's death (2002)

Thanks, Carl and AMS!

I guess the better question is: if you had a chance to ask someone who worked on those storylines, what would you ask? I never really watched AMC, so I'm going to need some help.

Thanks, Carl and AMS!

I guess the better question is: if you had a chance to ask someone who worked on those storylines, what would you ask? I never really watched AMC, so I'm going to need some help.

Are you doing an interview with Frederick Johnson!?

Did they notice any difference behind the scenes after Disney took over in 1996? What about when Frons took over in 2003?

Any funny stories or nice moments backstage.

What were the most expensive stunts or set pieces?

I liked Maureen mostly because of her relationship with Aidan, and because it meant they weren't going back to the long-suffering, weepy, sanctimonious lady of Wildwind. Unfortunately the stories for Maureen/Maria pretty much sucked.

They never should have put her back with Edmund, even after she did get her memory back. They could have found a new love interest for her.

Agreed. What was so wrong about that too, was it was clear that the show had given up on Edmund by that point. Wich is too bad, but... Of course under Rayfield we had Edmund suddenly lock up and try to drug maureen to force her to remember Maria, which really won him over. And then Edmund got in the accident--I mean did they even have more than one second of being happy as a couple when Maureen did become Maria again? What a poorly toild story (and then Edmund was killed for a reason I still can enver remember by jonathan... ugh)

Ouch! Deb was not holding back. The general consensus was that AMC was a little uneven in its first years but surely not as bad as she makes out.

That article is amazing! But the thing is, throughout the 70s there's a marked resentment about AMC, and to a lesser extent OLTL from the soap press. I have a number of books that clearly have an agenda against them. It seems that part of it is a love for old school soaps like ATWT, and I think there was some resentment about the fame Agnes got from the press for "updating" soaps, making them socially relevent, etc. It's too bad cuz in the pieces Agnes did write to the NYT and elsewhere defending soaps, she's VERY clear to point out good stuff happening on the other soaps as well--at no time does she come off as bragging about how great her own shows are compared to the others. But still, I honestly think a lot of it is jealousy. Kinda ironic that now AMC looks like perhaps the most traditional soap on the air...

I guess it also shows up the difference in a little older soap press and some of the "new" soap press, like SOD, which seemed to have neutral coverage on the soaps and gave AMC a good amount of coverage.

The implosion of so many other soaps in the late 70's and early 80's may have also cased the critics to take another look at AMC.

It is commonly felt too, to be fair, that AMC came into its own in the second half of the 70s--although All Her Children was written in 1975, and it's clear it was already attracting a group of soap fans who would never normally have been attracted to soaps.

Still the very title of her piece gives me the impression she was thinking "You think you're so great and sophisticated, AMC, but let me tell you you're not, so THERE!"

Edited July 17, 201114 yr by EricMontreal22

I just get the feel she simply didn't get the show. Agnes' strength has always been to use soap tropes like amnesia, etc, but in intelligent ways. Reading the story for other soaps at the time, particularly Irna Phillips late stuff, I simply don't buy what Deborah is saying in her first two paragraphs (only with Harding Lemay's work I suppose, where he did consciously set out to avoid soap melodrama cliches). She doesn't really give many examples of where these other soaps avoid the cliches. It is true though, again that many vet soap fans were thrown by the mix of story styles in AMC, from broad comedy, to slightly cliche love stories, etc, and it sounds like Agnes, Washam and crew, didn't really find a way to make these styles mesh better together till later on.

She mentions how interracial concerns are of importance, and MC didn't touch much on them early on, though of course OLTL did, but I don't see other soaps of the time doing much with them either. Even Lemay's AW was more about intereconomical issues. And I don't agree that intereconimcal (or I'd just say class issues) ever truly became irelevent to modern Americans, even today. In fact I wish soaps would deal more with them now, where everyone seems rich, or at least very comfortable.

Edited July 17, 201114 yr by EricMontreal22

The most interesting part for me was her very lengthy criticism of the show's overacting. I guess this was toned down later on, although the comedy characters seemed to be what helped draw people into the show (Phoebe, later Opal, etc.)