All My Children Tribute Thread

[EricMontreal22]

I remember that well, and the entire storyline as well as Roscoe's upset with it all (funny enough at the time I had never seen him as Mitch, etc--I had only been watching soaps since 1991).  Funny, I knew him from The City, where he played nice guy Nick, so I didn't know that he was usually cast as a baddie...

I might be completely off time wise, but I think the story changed direction when McTavish came back to replace Broderick??  Anyone remember?  I actually liked an awful lot of 1997 AMC (Tanner Jordan and Jamaica Zombies aside) though it wasn't as strong as Broderick's 1996.  1997 AMC still had a lot of great stuff, and "felt" like Pine Valley.  ANd of course then we got McTavish 2.0.......

Tonya had just been in the famous Stephen Sondheim flop Merrily We Roll Along which mostly cast very young, inexperienced actors.  Looking at footage of her back then (it closed just at the end of 1981) I could totally picture her as Angie, and she would have been closer to the right age.  But of course I'm glad we got Debbi.

Ha, yes.  I believe Labine talks about this in her Welovesoaps interview.

Edited May 31, 2020 by EricMontreal22

[Jonathan]

 

Maybe I did know and I just forgot.  LOL.  It's a good movie.

[Khan]

 

That's my recollection as well (although, I could be wrong).  Regardless, there definitely was the feeling that TPTB had interfered with and changed the direction of the storyline.  Suddenly, Jim Thomasen went from being a kiddie pornographer to being a kiddie pornographer AND a terrorist AND an arsonist AND a drug pusher AND I could go on.

 

In retrospect, I think AMC was dumb to waste Roscoe Born (and David Forsyth) on such an irredeemable character.  He could've been put to much better use as a new rival and adversary of Adam's, or even a new love interest for Erica and romantic rival with Jack (or all three).

Edited May 31, 2020 by Khan

[DRW50]

 

Yeah, the character became much more of a cartoon after McTavish came in - I don't think the original plan was for him to have been responsible for the plane crash. I know at the time there was speculation Born left because of the change but looking back I think he may have had a breakdown, especially since he didn't work for a few years and when he did again it was in small P&G soap roles that seemed to be given to him as a kindness. 

 

I had a lot of problems with AMC in 1996 and 1997, but I did feel like James and Broderick were pulling the show together in late summer and early fall. 

 

I always had mixed feelings about McTavish, so I did give her a chance, and I didn't think the show really bottomed out until the Kit Fisher rape garbage, but I do wish they'd given Broderick more time. 

 

(I still don't know why they had Forsyth briefly appear as Jim's crippled twin brother...just another of those WTF moments that pop up in so much of McTavish's writing) 

[EricMontreal22]

Ha I don't remember the twin brother *at all*. 

Didn't Born at some point say that he had been promised that ultimately his character would prove not to have been the pornographer and be Brooke's love interest (which makes no sense from anything we saw)?  I hate to suggest it too, but you could be right about him having personal problems at the time--certainly he played vile stuff as Mitch. 

I always thought the Kit stuff with McTavish happened early on!  She did some good stuff--building up the Kiefers, etc.  But I believe her stint started with all that stuff with the "ghost" (who turned out to be another abused blonde woman set to torment Adam about his memories), the psychic tattoo, etc.  Of course considering some of what was to come--as much as it's useless to speak this way--it all somehow doesn't seem quite so bad, at least to me.  (As you know, though, I have a rep on here for being a McTavish defender which isn't really fair

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)

I appreciated that Broderick seemed keen on keeping some of the less showy stories, etc.  I've mentioned it before, but when I was working on my MA essay about homosexual soap storylines (etc) I spoke to one of her major writers who said how important it was to her to keep Kevin on the canvas and in a viable way (in 1997--while the network was still scared to give him a boyfriend though they were inching there--they had the whole storyline with Kelsey, which struck me as pretty realistic, the gay conversion storyline--a tv first!--etc).

[DRW50]

 

The Kit story started in July or August 1998, I think. Even though the actress was in over her head, I still gave the story a chance until the rape and the twist of her lying about Tad raping her (which even McTavish said was a mistake). So about 6-7 months into her second run. I know a lot of people hated her return from the start, which I understand (especially with the Camille and Lee Hawkins saga), but there were enough things I still enjoyed at that point, like Stuart and Marian, and early Ryan and Gillian, Opal leaving Palmer and the Adrian story, etc. (I'm also biased because she gave one of my favorite characters [Gloria] a good exit) It got just awful by fall 1998 though. I will say I still kept watching - it was only in 1999, with Page and whoever else, and stuff like the Martins hounding Dixie into a miscarriage that I finally had enough.

 

I do appreciate Broderick's efforts to keep Kevin on the canvas - I guess it isn't surprising he disappeared 5-6 months after she was fired. 

 

McTavish made a lot of terrible mistakes but I still think in her heart she did understand AMC in a way many other headwriters did not. She just had no self-control and no proper guidance for most of her tenures, especially when it came time for her fixations on sexual assault. But when she was good, to me she was very good, and some characters, like Kendall, just didn't really work without her. 

Edited May 31, 2020 by DRW50

[Khan]

 

I don't think so either.  IIRC, didn't the initial investigation into the crash prove that Adam through Chandler Enterprises, was responsible, due to faulty equipment or whatever?  Then, the next thing you know, there was a second investigation and -- voila! -- they found the explosives.

 

 

I do, lol!  Bob Thomasen was there to clarify that, yes, Jim was Snidely Whiplash.  But, I don't recall Bob being on for very long; and when he was on, he seemed to be a watered-down version of John Hudson (David Forsyth's character on AW) more than anything else.

 

 

IA.  There's no way the show could've ever sold Brooke being involved with the man who took pornographic pictures of her adopted daughter.  Not even if they had explained it away (it wasn't really Jim, he had a brain tumor, he was working undercover for the FBI's Sex Crimes Unit, whatever).

 

As it was, Jean Passanante tried pairing Brooke with a reformed Josh Waleski, and viewers lost their freaking minds (and rightly so).

 

I will admit I watched McTavish's second stint, if only briefly, because Lee and Camille's introductions, along with Mateo's psychic visions, were just so patently absurd that I was perversely fascinated as to where she was going with them. 

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Edited May 31, 2020 by Khan

[Darn]

 

That was one of the most mind-boggling story turns I've ever seen. Yes, let's pair the woman with the man who killed her daughter. No, no it's okay because he has a new face! And is a reverend now! How the hell did any of that get through story meetings or network approval? Ghastly.

 

This show did Brooke and Julia Barr such a disservice. Brooke was so hard for them to write after a point. They had a hard time writing for any woman over 40 that wasn't Erica.

[EricMontreal22]

You know, I hate to say it, but I suspect the Brooke and Elliot/Josh Waleski story was Agnes Nixon who was co-headwriter still (officially) when that story happened.  She does have misfires, and this story was WAY more Agnes Nixon's style than Jean's.  I know that period is often credited to Nixon handling the Bianca stuff (she came out two months after the Eliott story was wrapped up) and Jean doing the rest, but speaking to members of the writing team that wasn't remotely true (and you did notice a sharp shift shortly after Bianca came out in 2001 and Nixon left as official co-headwriter.  The whole speech from Becca (a failed Nixon character--I think she wanted a return to old school young heroines like Tara--remember she created Greenlee to be an Erica type foil to her) is VERY Agnes Nixon.  Thankfully, whether this was a late change in story or not, they never had Brooke fully forgive Elliot.

That era (Agnes Nixon was co-HW first briefly with Elizabeth Page, then with Passanante from Spring 1999 till the end ofJanuary 2001, according to the credits, but according to an interview with the show for AfterElton, Agnes Nixon mostly had mapped out the next few months and story beats of Bianca's story) was pretty schizo, but especially before the Bianca story got rolling, you did get a sense that Nixon was trying to restore a sense of community back to PV after McTavish's second run.  Characters interacted more, there was more of a small town vibe and intergeneration connections, and they had B stories that seemed her style like poor Marian trying desperate to be accepted into Enid Nelson's snobby society group.  I admit that, even with the shiplash in tones, I really did look forward to AMC every day back then.

Honestly though *hides* I liked aspects of the storyline and never quite get why it was hated as much as some other stories.  I think the execution was poor, but it does fit into a classic AMC theme of whether one can and should be forgiven for their actions and if they can ever redeem themselves through subsequent actions.  And I stand by my statement--Eliott was an Agnes story, and one we can't blame Jean for. 
 

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An earlier episode (I had completely forgotten Tina!) with the full writing credits:

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by EricMontreal22

[Darn]

A redemption arc is fine, building him up as a potential love interest is the real problem.

[ghfan89]

Wasn't Ryan Kit accused of rape? I think it happened around Halloween of that year. McTavish seemed to have a thing for women calling fake rape. She had done it years early with SMG Kendall trying to say Dimitri raped her.

 

Broderick had some out there stories too -- the hypnotist Dr Lazzare in the late 80's then that Voodoo stuff in Jamacia in the 90's -- but she did balance it with more real stuff like Michael Delaney and the Cindy AIDS story. I do think she wrote with more depth than McTavish. Mctavish was a bit more of a gimmick writer, but the show wasn't as depressing as it was under Broderick at times. A lot of times under McTavish I didn't understand character motivation, she had a gimmick or idea and would fit the characters to it, it seemed like, where as Lorraine was more of a character writer, go into their fears and desires, and wrote from that. Overall I preferred Broderick, but both had their good points and bad points. 

Edited June 1, 2020 by ghfan89

[EricMontreal22]

Oh, I agree.  In fact I think it could have been a fine story if they just felt a deep friendship or even (though I know Elliot would have been thirty or so) some sort of mentor/maternal relationship on Brooke's part.  It makes sense (at least by sane soap opera standards) that Eliott/Josh would want to see how Brooke's life ended up and try to make up for things.  Like I said, the problem was the execution.  And like I also said, totally an Agnes Nixon story--one of her big misfires 

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And one other particularly annoying thing about making Eliott a potential love interest is poor Brooke, one of my fave characters, had such an insulting track record with men in the 90s.  Some, like Tad and Edmund merely ended up with someone, I guess they loved more.  Then there was Pierce(s), then Jim, then Eliott, one after the other.

RIght, poor Kevin in the Holidays explosion.  I don't think he had ANY story under McTavish before hand either--just appearances.

OK a Page character during McTavish's run sounds familiar, but I can not place her and the Net isn't helping.  Who was she?  I do agree with you about the good parts of her run.  I also *completely* agree with your final paragraph, which is one reason I often defend McTavish (it may help that I got hooked on AMC during the period when McTavish first took over from Nixon.  ANd she definitely does need the right EP (which is true of many HWers, but particularly her).  Certainly she seemed to get AMC better than anything else, despite having worked as an actress on GL and briefly on that writing team (it was said when she was promoted that Agnes Nixon had been priming her for the job).  Unfortunately the writer I know who worked under her during that period and then was promoted under Broderick, refused to discuss McTavish (though, unlike some writers, I think he liked working with her, fine.)  And yes, soaps *still* rely on rape too much and handle it more often poorly, but McTavish is particularly egregious in this respect--I mean Bell (sometimes) was pretty bad in this case, and JER of course was far more irresponsible than anyone about rape stories, but...

Edited June 1, 2020 by EricMontreal22

[Pine Charles]

The Voodoo/Jamaica plot was apparently mandated by ABC (and wasn’t Broderick’s idea). 
I believe it was done to compete w/ the lowbrow (yet ratings’ successful) stories happening on DOOL at the time.

[EricMontreal22]

 

Yes, and it turned out it was Braden, of course, Ryan's handsome older brother (another terrible new actor).  Who of course memorably later would be a mummified corpse in Jonathan's hideaway. 

 

Good point.  By the end of AMC Broderick really did seem the only one (aside from Agnes Nixon, which wouldn't happen) who could save it, but it's easy to have blinders about all the errors in her runs--and her 90s run is a fave of mine (and yet, aside from Jamaica Voodoo, a story partly done to appease ABC I have it on good authority, to compete with DAYS at the time--and in a sort of give and take situation where such stories would allow them to get approval for controversial more realistic stories like continuing to tell Kevin's story).  She also wrote the horrible Tanner Jones story.  But I do think your take on the strengths of both writers at AMC is spot on.

Yes, this was what a writer told me.  He also, though, said that their goal with AMC, more than some other soaps, was always to try to have a wild mix of different types of stories and he felt they were trying that in this case (and to be fair, that *was* what AMC had a rep for whenever I read 70s and 80s reviews where it's either praised or criticized for, more than other soaps, completely running the gamut of types of stories, often in the same episode). 

[Pine Charles]

Well, I enjoyed how you could have high comedy and intense drama all in one episode on AMC.

But besides the playing of the Ouija board or a seance (I read an episode summary from the ‘70s that had little Tad trying to summon spirits w/ Grandma Kate; and we all know about Myra’s seances w/ Nina), I don’t want that lowbrow, lazy sci-fi crap in Pine Valley.

Those Real Housewives shows are truly most like AMC out of any soap (less interesting, of course).

Edited June 1, 2020 by Pine Charles