All My Children Tribute Thread

[DRW50]

Thanks @EricMontreal22 for the Risa story projections. I remember some fans assuming McTavish didn't really want to write for Trevor and Janet, but I guess she did. This type of plot would mostly just work if they cast the right actress as Risa, and the casting at that time wasn't exactly good. 

This would explain why they wrote Tommy Michaels out (which I thought was a mistake), if they wanted an older recast.

[Contessa Donatella]

Evil Megan, Evil McT, the anti-Agnes, the woman who created the UnAbortion, take your pick ...Even Friend of Brian Frons, Daytine Destroyer!!!

[DRW50]

Reading through some now I see that she offers some praise to Lorraine Broderick (I wasn't sure what their relationship was as many fans used to pit them against each other) and Michele Val Jean, among others. 

Given that a writer worse than McTavish (Ron) was hired for BtG, maybe we should wait to see if Megan ever pops in...

I had to laugh when she suggested Kelly Ripa would promo her book. I am sure Kelly would be so thrilled. 

I burst out laughing when she said all the writers who undermined her and tried to get her fired can go to hell. Now this is camp, not all the vomiting up on Twitter and tiktok.

Edited March 16 by DRW50

[Vee]

She also gets in a sideways swipe at Robin Mattson which she doesn't elaborate on, but despite having distaste for both parties she clearly seemed willing to write for Janet and Trevor. Of course, it's all Megan's version of the story all the time here.

It was giving Erica's Woman of the Year.

Edited March 16 by Vee

[DRW50]

I'm going to have to stop soon but I'm howling at some of this...I can't believe she actually had people find out Agnes' real age and went on about how Agnes repeatedly rewrote her life. 

I will say she lists some positive points about Agnes as well and it's more interesting than the usual deified narratives.

[Vee]

As I said to Darn, it would not surprise me if a lot of what she said about Agnes (or many other people) is true. Agnes was absolutely a political animal and a shrewd businesswoman. But in the end, I just don't care that much. When it came down to what went onscreen re: social issues Agnes often did the right thing, we don't know her mind vs. Megan's perspective, and plus, she's dead.

[Maxim]

This is only the beginning

Please register in order to view this content

[Soaplovers]

What is this first draft was a spoof/satire and not actually the truth?   

[Vee]

This is Megan McTavish. It's not a satire.

[DRW50]

I don't really know about all that she is inferring, but in terms of just acting, I can see why Julia would have been upset. The problem is Jim was ruined from the outset. The only way Roscoe could have stayed is with a twin - I do wonder if they had originally intended to create a twin for Jim before Roscoe quit, which is why David Forsyth ended up playing that part for a day or two. 

Yeah it's a little hard to believe that Agnes was on the side of abortion being a lingering trauma, JER style. Maybe she just wanted to focus more on the depression that some women do have after abortions.

[Vee]

What's crazy is the claim that Roscoe abandoned not only the show, but his wife and baby lol.

[DRW50]

The part where McTavish claims to have stopped FMB from recasting Tad with Chris Lawford was a light bulb moment - not because I necessarily believe she alone did this, but because it finally explains just why Lawford was put into a role he was so unsuited to. He wouldn't have worked as Tad either, but at least physically I get the similarity a little more. He was also closer to Tad's age than Charlie's. 

[Khan]

I suspect it had something to do with what happened - or, more accurately, what DIDN'T happen - at Trevor and Laurel's wedding.

IIRC, Janet was supposed to blow up the church during the ceremony.  However, after Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Edward P. Murrah Federal Building in OKC, Mattson expressed her concerns over continuing the storyline as written to Felicia Minei Behr, who forced Megan McTavish and her writers to change course, turning Janet's bomb into a gun.  Mattson even taped a disclaimer that aired before the episode, I think, claiming that what was written was written before the real-life tragedy had occurred.

Unless I'm misremembering, too, it was at that same time that ABC had announced that McTavish was leaving AMC and that Hal Corley would be assuming HW'ing duties on a temporary basis.  (I actually remember watching when Corley took over briefly; and even though you could tell a lot of rewriting was being done, I thought it was the most watchable AMC had been since before McTavish had taken over, lol).

So, my guess?  Behr and Mattson asked for the rewrite; McTavish told them to go to hell; Behr finally had the ammunition she needed to get rid of McTavish ("and not a moment too soon," my sixteen-year-old self would say, lol).

The thing is, if McTavish had been allowed to tell the story the way she wanted, either Janet would've been killed in the bombing, or she would've been carted off to jail or to Oak Haven.  Either way, Robin Mattson would've been off the show.  So, perhaps, McTavish looks at that as one actor's successful attempt at using a real-life tragedy to keep her job?  Again, I could only guess.

[DRW50]

That makes a lot of sense. 

I would assume Robin, with Lorraine Broderick, must have also helped come up with some way to turn around the incredibly stupid choice to have Janet get plastic surgery to look like Brooke.

If so, it helps explain why Janet had such a strange, degrading exit story (complete with killing someone with a human-sized candy cane), if someone at ABC wanted to get their licks in. 

Unfair as some of these anecdotes are, and one-sided as they are, they do help put a lot of pieces together in why AMC was what it was in its last fifteen years. 

Now if only someone could write a book at the messy-ass mid '80s.

The stuff about Susan supposedly not wanting to work with younger women for long - I am trying to remember how often that was true for Erica. I had a vague memory of her being friendly with Cecily or Hilary.

I wonder if the reason Megan is so friendly toward Kelly in the book is just because she wanted to get on her show.

Edited March 16 by DRW50

[Khan]

For me, that was the greatest mind!@#$%^&*].  She's the Nancy Kerrigan to your Tonya Harding, and you're actually PRAISING her?  Don't play us cheap like that, Megan!

But she also praises Michele Val Jean, which proves my point: MVJ is just too damn good at what she does.

Edited March 16 by Khan