AMC Tribute Thread

[DemetriKane]

RIP Gil Rogers, I would say Ray was AMC’s scariest villain ever. He did a phenomenal job! Sometimes I wish Agnes actually paired Jesse and Jenny just so I could see Ray act a complete fool. 

Edited March 7, 2021 by cassistan

[ghfan89]

All here

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1987Jan-jul

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1987Aug-Dec

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1988JanThruMay10gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1988JunThruDec7.9Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1989JanThruAug1421.6Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19892AugThruDec18.5Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19901Jan02ThruAugust14-16.9Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19902Aug14ThruDec3116.9Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19911JanuaryThruJune

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19912JulyThruDecember21.5Gb

https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren199201JanThruMay16.8Gb

[KMan101]

A little behind in the discussion but I've been immersing myself in what I can of classic AMC on youtube and sigh .... so good and fun. I could go on for days and days.

 

I just had to watch the Lars/Palmer yacht fight (I couldn't imagine that with Robert Milli as Lars). You have gotta love it as they fight while an instrumental of "Anything Goes" plays in the background. I miss a well produced soap. Even when the stories were a bit ... yikes ... they sold the hell out of it.

 

Peter Bergman as a recast Jeff Martin would have been better than random Cliff Warner filling that spot, making Jeff irrelevant. Bergman can get on my nerves as Cliff but he's the "perfect" soap actor for the 80s. I can see why audiences loved him even though Miller acts circles around him. And my god, Heather Stanford as Nina? So so so sooooooo bad. Holy hell. I also didn't think I'd like Matt Connolly so much. I'd argue he and Nina had far more chemistry than she did with Cliff/Bergman by that point. Just saying. I died everytime he called Palmer "dad" and Palmer died inside.

 

Nina absolutely could have been a longer running character. I get she was played out by 1989, but they didn't let Cliff and Nina get away from their relationship. Even Miller seemed frustrated. Nina could have been paired with a slew of men. Edmund, Dimitri, Jackson. Jackson was 'working for' Palmer in 1988 while showing an interest in Natalie. 

 

It's also a shame Ellen, Mark, Ross, Julie couldn't be weaved in later. (I know Mark popped in of course, but he should have been recurring at the very least, if LaMura was interested; and I know Noone was on Beach and Passions of course but still ...). I guess there comes a point in time where it becomes harder to re-introduce them, but at the same time, is it *really* that much different than demanding the audience care about someone new when a built in character with history could fill that spot? The audience who didn't know them now will. It's just laziness.

 

In the 90s, Kelsey and Bobby felt like missed opportunities. TC Warner was incredibly likable, much like Melissa Hayden on GL. Shame they didn't keep them and develop them. But they were too 'plain' I'm assuming for what the soaps wanted to be by 1997.

 

I get the idea of developing Caleb in 2010 but when you have Ross and Nina ... why not weave them back in? I know the show was dead by then but still ... we wasted so much time on say, Krystal ... I thought once she could have been Ellen's daughter Devon. You know soaps loved to change names. Just like "Ally" should have been Emily Ann Sago in 1997/1998.

 

Missed opportunities galore but I can sometimes see why they went with a new character instead. You do have to have new characters but no one was allowed to thrive in the Kendall/Ryan/Greenlee/Zach/JR/Annie years of hell. Sidenote, crazy watching 1999 and seeing Ryan actually being likeable, even during the stupid Braden/Kit rape [!@#$%^&*] show. Gillian sure helped. Always was a mistake killing her.

 

Also in 1999 it was a shame the Erica/Dimitri/Brooke triangle fizzled out. That was fun.

Edited March 7, 2021 by KMan101

[titan1978]

I will never understand why they got rid of Kelsey, Bobby, and Kevin Sheffield.  What a waste of three characters that were actually working and had story to tell.

[All My Shadows]

I say it all the time, but this is the first time I say it in 2021 - Josh should have been Mark's long-lost son from a short-lived relationship just prior to his arrival in PV in 1976. No unabortion, and Mark (and maybe Ellen) back on the show with some solid purpose. Then go full-steam ahead with Josh as the male version of young Erica.

[FrenchBug82]

 

Can I point out that one reason this really works is not just the one-liners but because Barbara is actually right about the name? That's good writing where not everything is black and white and the antagonist can actually be the one that makes a reasonable point. That makes the scenes more interesting.
 

For someone for whom this is a bit earlier than what I am familiar with, what drama are we talking about? And how do you see it spilling on-screen? 
 

I get the Krystal hate, I really do. But I don't think introducing another actress in that age range with no established ties was a bad idea. Injecting an outsider can sometimes help.
Of course, on the other hand, it is a real shame they completely lost the plot for Brooke for so long because she should have continued to be the other anchor of the show vs Erica. Julia Barr is a wonder and I will never understand what happened there.

Edited March 8, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[KMan101]

 

I can agree with that about Krystal. I go back and forth on her. I think some of it is I was salty they offed Macy on B&B (again) and Bobbie Eakes moved to AMC and they were pushing Krystal while shoving Dixie and Brooke off the canvas (and I'd much rather have had Bobbie as Macy but soaps are gonna do what they do). Kinda like how ATWT loved to hire ABC cast-offs and have them dominate airtime. Just an irritance. LOL.

 

But I do agree having non-connected characters IS needed.

 

I felt bad for Julia Barr and Jackie Zeman/GH around this time. They were clearly 'aged out' by terrible executives in charge (I also assume they had a very nice contract and salary by that point so they were expensive and 'easy' to axe). I blame Frons for Barr and Zeman, but Phelps had her share with Zeman. So many actresses have been treated like [!@#$%^&*] while their male stars are glorified.

Edited March 10, 2021 by KMan101

[Khan]

 

Is it any wonder why women, who were and are supposed to be the soaps' target demographic, continue to abandon these shows (and others) in droves?  Women (and women 18-34/49, in particular) continue to be the advertisers' biggest concern with network/cable/streaming series.  Yet, the people who produce and air these shows prove at every turn just how much they actually hate women.

[Forever8]

 

[DeliaIrisFan]

 

Thank you!

 

 

Wisner Washam and Lorraine Broderick were at the top of the writing credits (after Agnes Nixon) for most of 1991, so the de facto co–head writers, and Megan McTavish was an associate writer at that point.  Washam has since made very pointed comments about working with McTavish and implied the network pushed him out once and for all because they sided with her.  Broderick left AMC for several years around this same time, and McTavish subsequently became head writer.  McTavish has been unofficially credited with the Janet/Natalie story—and seemed to enjoy revisiting that history during her head-writing stints—although Broderick and Washam (and Nixon) were still credited above McTavish throughout Natalie being trapped in the well and Janet's capture.  In that same interview, Washam called himself a "realist," at least in comparison to Nixon, whom I have to assume generally favored more down-to-earth storytelling than McTavish.

 

I got the distinct impression that someone who was still officially in charge was openly making fun of the Janet story in the scripts from the summer of 1991.  The best example was when Janet laughed off Natalie's claim that that homeless guy had found her and was going to come back and get her out any time now.  Janet joked that if anyone was going to have some random man ride in on his white horse to save her, it would be Natalie given her history, and then Dimitri showed up in the very same episode to do just that.  There were other self-referential touches in Hayley and Brian's dialogue.

 

At the same time, there were humanizing details to how other characters began to tell Janet and Natalie apart, unlike in other evil-twin plots I've seen, including from later in McTavish's career.  Not to mention, there were more realistic stories happening in parallel—in one of the climactic episodes of the Janet story, Phoebe and Opal (and Enid Nelson!) were meanwhile discussing the Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water regulations.

 

My guess is McTavish pitched the Natalie-in-the-Well story and it either got greenlit over Washam (and Broderick's) objections, or they initially agreed to it but one or more grew to regret it as it played out/overtook the show.  In any case, they were all—not to mention Agnes Nixon, to whatever extent she was involved day to day—executing the story as a team, and it certainly gelled.  I can see why the show was successful, ratings-wise, and it was definitely more compelling to me than what I've seen of McTavish's official tenure(s).

 

I said before I could see how this wouldn't be sustainable for long, but I hadn't realized how quickly it came to an end until watching the subsequent episode that ghfan89 kindly linked—within weeks of Natalie being revealed to be alive, McTavish and Richard Culliton were now credited equal to Broderick (after Nixon), and Washam's name was completely gone.  I never realized Broderick and McTavish ever co–head wrote a show together, although I know Broderick joined GL's writing team within 3 months so that didn't last long either.  And I hadn't realized Culliton, who was not in the credits at all previously, was hired specifically to work with McTavish.

It's also interesting that Gloria and the Steven Hamill character both debuted within days of McTavish's apparent promotion.

Edited March 16, 2021 by DeliaIrisFan

[Soaplovers]

I wonder Mctavish needed a more down to earth co writer to make her interesting ideas work.  

 

Janet/Hayley had some nice bonding scenes in summer of 1991..and how Janet seemed awkward at first until for fun she put on the blonde wig to pretend to be Natalie...and had self confidence so in her mind decided being Natalie was the answer.

 

It did seem like once Wisham left

.Janet became a caricature instead of an actual 3 D character.

 

When Mattson took over in 1994..did we see Janet become a character in her own right. 

[FrenchBug82]

 

I don't know enough about the writing team shenanigans (but thanks to DeliaIrisFan for this fascinating expose) to comment on the role the writing team had in what I am about to say but while the Natalie-in-the-well story had a lot going for it, I never thought Kate Collins - who was wonderful as Natalie both in her calculating days and in her kinder latter days - did Janet very well. It was always too broad and obvious a character for me when she played it, even when the backstory attempted to give her layers.
The latter returns of Janet (especially her killing Trevor) count to me as one of the vilest moments of late AMC (along with the unabortion and Dixie and the pancakes), but the MINUTE they said they were bringing back Janet but played by KC, I knew they were going to write her as the broad crazy stereotype rather than the layered complicated version of Robin Mattson.

 

[ghfan89]

Thanks for the analysis, DeliaIrisFan. One thing I did notice was how during the Well story, Hayley was one of the first to put together something was up with Natalie. That "Natalie" was not acting like herself. She put together she was Janet. Flashforward a few months, and Hayley has her head in the sand regarding Will, and the last to realize he's gone off the deep end.

I do remember an interview with McTavish from her 1998 return. Someone asked her why Janet and Trevor lacked storyline. She said there wasn't a whole lot she could do with a nice Janet. I got the impression she didn't like the humanization of the character Broderick did. IIRC, the last stuff McTavish had written for Janet before then was setting up a bomb at the Trevor and Laurel wedding, circa 1995? Eventually she did write Harold the dog dying.

Edited March 16, 2021 by ghfan89

[DRW50]

Broderick did seem to empathize with Janet a great deal. It was Broderick having a lot of story ideas for Janet that helped ABC listen to the fan backlash and decide not to go ahead with the incredibly stupid, Reilly-esque idea of Janet getting plastic surgery to look like Brooke.

[DemetriKane]

I mentioned before how the Natalie in the well story turned some viewers off from the show a few pages back. My grandfather (who only watched two soaps) loved AMC for 4 reasons the comedy, the beautiful STRONG women, the fast pace, and that it was the most unsoapy soap to him(his words not mine). He had a few buddies that also watched the show, and he has told me how all of them slowly but surely stopped watching before Erica even kidnaps Maria baby.

 

@All My ShadowsI love those ideas for Josh. I loved the character of Josh and adored the actor. These ideas would only intesify those feelings. 
 

@KMan101 I just wet to YouTube and type in Cliff and the first clip that comes up is a scene with him and Joe. The idea of him being Jeff just makes me sad as if the show is still on. Pairing Nina with the son of the working class family just makes all the sense to me now adds weight to that couple. So many what if’s? Are Going through my head as I write this. I don’t believe Nina was played out by ‘89 it was them as a couple so I agree she has much more life to live!

 

Don’t get me started on the treatment of Brooke. It upsets me me to no end to rewatch her scenes from the 90s because they didn’t know what to do with her. She got some powerful  moments, things could have panned out better for her  if they kept her in the wild wind/Erica orbit. A lot of the stories they gave to Maria had Brooke’s name written all over it. Maria definitely could have been brought in much later as a spoiler.

 

I remember loving Kelsey and the gang. Giving the Martins a black sheep was a genius move imo. This show works best with characters that have a underdog narrative.
 

If the TPTB didn’t work so hard to change this show into something it wasn’t. All the storylines write themselves and probably would still be on the air.

 

@FrenchBug82 Oh I adored Mattson’s Complex Janet but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t delightfully excited to watch Kate Collins 2006 return as Janet. It was something very Days of our lives about it, in a good way.