All My Children Tribute Thread

[quartermainefan]

New York lasted quite a long time because remember, Jenny had to go on the run in NY, and then had to embark on a modeling career up until the year she died, 1984? Erica was in NY all that time. Brandon Kingsley and Sensuelle were in NY, but so were the Bogardes much later, and there are even clips online from when Jane Elliot was on the show at the NY hot spot "Nexus".

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah for a while they went back and forth between NY a lot--and actually for the most part it didn't seem to hurt the show, the way sometimes it does when they do that on soaps. But I do think Erica still went back to NYC didn't she? initially of course she was still with Tom.

[EricMontreal22]

There's a week of Dec '87 episodes online I've posted before (in very good quality) and they're pretty great, although it does feel like there were almost too many different, and not too interconnected, stories going on, which is one complaint I heard about AMC until 1989 when it was restructured under DePriest and Behr (ABC seemed to have a lot of faith in DePriest--immediatelyafter she went to OLTL to, I assume, also kinda restructure the show where she seems to have had less success).

[DRW50]

I just wonder if fans at the time complained or if the show managed to flit between both worlds effortlessly. If you think about it, it makes a lot more sense than the more recent efforts to turn Pine Valley into some big cosmopolitan setting, which got worse thanks to Fusion.

[quartermainefan]

It worked just fine. I don't remember ever feeling the show felt awkward, but admittedly this is when I first started watching so that was the status quo I knew. Erica was in NY because she was Erica and would always find a reason to come back to PV.

[EricMontreal22]

No, in fact I always got the sense (obviously this is more just an impression than based on actual observation) that fans really enjoyed many of those stories--of course Jesse and Jenny's Summer in New York *was* a beloved storyline.

AMC used to do better with that in general--they also used Center City whenever they needed to show a pimp, or that slum Foxy's where Opal made Jenny work, etc--since much of that wouldn't exist in Pine Valley.

[quartermainefan]

I felt the different locales enhanced the show because NYC and Center City embellished and enhanced Pine Valley by showing what it was not. You used to have a real sense of place with AMC, you could picture the town in your head. This is where the show went bad in the very early 90s, when suddenly it was all towns to all people with gothic mansions on one street, and the hippest of night clubs on the next. No one knows what Pine Valley is anymore.

[DRW50]

That's what soaps don't know how to do now - everything is so generic. It's like hey, we need Pine Valley to keep remaking Sex and the City! Come on already. At the very least have Enid Nelson show up and tell them to get the f*** outta there.

[Jonathan]

Yes, and that's just real life. People go back and forth between cities. It worked well for the show.

[EricMontreal22]

Yes, totally agreed. Agnes tried (somewhat) to bring back that small, fairly well off, town society in 1999 but it was pretty much lost by the 90s. To be fair, nearly all the soaps had problems with this--lots of it happening in the 80s when soaps felt they had to glam it up to Dynasty levels, in some ways AMC held onto it longer than some others.

[DRW50]

That's why it's so important to keep "normal" characters like the Martins. I truly think the damage done to that family was AMC's biggest failing.

[EricMontreal22]

Right, and particularly with Agnes setting her soaps where she did--on the Main line, essentially suburbs (I got the impression Pine Valley was a more domestic and richer suburb than Llanview), where New York is a quick train ride away.

[Jonathan]

Yes, and that's why I thought it was ridiculous how a while back Frankie was complaining about David cutting his hours at the hospital. Uh, you have a car, drive to the next city and get a job there.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree. I miss the Tylers, but in a way their role was filled with the Cortlands, the Chandlers, even to a much lesser degree the Merricks (who in some ways were a replacement for the once Gothic, and less and less so Cortlands). It makes sense to have one or two welathy families moving out by Pine Valley in an estate--it doesn't make sense to have three huge companies based in downtown Pine Valley though at all... Even having a campy small disco like Erica's makes some sense (by 1980 discos were showing up in suburban strip malls--which is why 'true" disco fans said they knew disco had officially died lol).

Again to be fair, AMC held on to the Martins well for a while, again better than on some other soaps--and there were extents later on to build them--having Kelsey live with Ruth and Joe, etc, but more thought should have gone into it.

[DRW50]

Beyond letting so many leave, I think what they did to Tad and Jake (so self-righteous and unpleasant) also damaged the family. There was no real warmth there as time passed.