Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 At this risk of getting bad looks, Megan McTavish was my favorite "All My Children" writer. She's part of the writing team that got me interested in AMC on my own steam when I was becoming a teenager and I fell in love with AMC again partially under her return in 2003. The previous team appealed to me too. She could go bad, very, very bad. But she also usually started out good and IMO very, very good. She also, IMO, never lost too much of the essences of AMC along the way such as strong, bitchy women and the community feel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EnglishTea Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 In the early 90s, Megan wasn't completely left to her own devices and she had a strong EP pulling her back when she went too out there in her storytelling. While I know many enjoyed Wildwind, I think it still missed the mark by not having Brooke/Edmund/Erica/Dimitri under the same roof. Toward the latter end of this run, she just lost steam, and stories seem to flounder - and the transition to LB was awkward with stories in stall for quite some time. 1998 for the most part was just bad all over the place. 2003 started off strong with the showing gaining focus, but then the focus was too narrow - too much Carey as newcomers, and too much Kane as the old guard, and not a whole lot of balance. Tad as a killer, killing off Dixie with pancakes, and Brooke's non-exit were the most notable blunders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 Thanks! I was gonna mention Days but couldn't think of specifics. He also seemed to have a thing for suggested/close to incest stories... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 I put Brooke's non-exit on Frons. McTavish always wrote for Brooke (for better or worse) when she was around before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 While McTavish was largely responsible for Wildwind Ihave no doubt, I suspect Nixon was involved in the early stages too. It had a lot of similarities, at least in tone, with the gothic storytelling Agnes sometimes loved--specificallyin this case the early days o Cortland Manor. (I loved it, but you have a point). Nixon was HW for a few months while it switched to LB, right? The Brooke thing I don't blame her for--she alwaysw wrote for Brooke, I'm pretty sure Frons wanted Julia Barr on recurring which Julia (quite rightly) refused, and I almost wonder if not having an exit was handed out as punishment for her leaving (stranger things have happened). But I think those are good points. By the last decade a lot of soaps had trouble with having too narrow a focus--I think that was created partly from relying on focus groups and seeing what characters they liked, so I'm not sure if it's all McT's fault, but I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 I'm guessing that must have been a pretty bad return noting how I gravitated "to" or "back to" AMC during her placements as writer and that time I didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 I liked some parts of 1998 (Stuart/Marian, and the Adrian story). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 By previous team do you mean Culliton (which had a lot of good stuff in it), or Rayfield? I still remember the first week McTavish was back in 2003--it was around July 4th, immediately Pine Valley felt more like Pine Valley than it had in ages. I admit that I fell for AMC in Fall 1991--just when she was starting to take over (I remember noticing the HW listing change from Nixon to McTavish not long after), so obviously her writing for that era is what I associate most with classic AMC as well. I get that some fans from before felt that the show started to lose some of its old school feel then, but all soaps did (mostly, anyway), and I think she kept enough of that while, with FMB, bringing it into the present--it's not too surprising that the show consistently was a very strong number two for that period. I liked most of LB's run following her, so wasn't too pressed at the turn over, but... She did do Stuart/Marian. But it was really built around just too many sensationalistic plots (including that bleeding tattoo and "ghost", etc). I still suspect that was encouraged for her--even LB, once DAYS had started to usurp AMC's ratings, was obviously encouraged to do more outlandish stories like the voodoo one, but she still managed to have a lot more grounded stories (Kevin Sheffield, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 I believe I mean Rayfield (and later Cascio) for the most part. I really started getting back into AMC around the fall of 2002. ETA: Was not feeling Broderick. I really wasn't feeling the last year of McTavish (the first go around) for that matter. Tad and Dixie had become boring. They barely ever had Erica and Kendall in scenes together which I now know wasn't McTavish's fault. I resented the Santos family and Broderick just ran with that and then there was a bunch of "new" teenagers on the side. They had Broderick doing DAYS-lite on top of all that which didn't work on AMC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Skin Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 I agree on Cascio& Rayfield being great, I think them and Culliton were probably the best writers to me from 2000 onward. I enjoyed the show the most then and I was really sucked in to the main drama surrounding Leo, Bianca, Greenlee, Kendell and Ryan at that point as well as the storylines featuring Maria, David, Dixie, Tad, Brooke and Edmund. I loved it all during that period. I remember really feeling the show kick off again after a lull during Micheal Cambias' arrival. I think AMC 2003 was really in an amazing place and there were so many great things happening for the show at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members All My Shadows Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 When McTavish was bad, she was horrible. But when she was good, she was easily the best HW on ABC Daytime. The first two years of her final stint was the best era of AMC's last ten years, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 Definitely, it was Rayfield & Cascio that lured me back in but it was that initial first year of McTavish that turned having to watch almost every single day into having to watch this show every single day and also having to record this show every single day to rewatch later. I'm not diminishing the bad things she did (and she did do a lot of big and bad things) but I forgive her due to all the good things she did. I don't think her second year of her final AMC stint was as good as her first year but it was still really entertaining soap opera drama and better than what any other writer did after. These scenes are fantabulous. ETA: I deleted the group of scenes I put before this (th episode or two before this) because these ones are more off the chain (3 posts due to being 14 clip long). Bianca being told about Miranada episode... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMG_Lvgdzdw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emimmQcKrJI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59TGq8VgzTc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZoxjLLQd-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9oCln9yS1g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcbr8934NWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGMCoWvJIww http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Qu5itNZ7I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPvhfAKKNag http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrM26Q5Jo_8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Angela Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ50v-QzlFc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQKFR0Fr-es http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRdSXaws6A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX6HXFVgI9k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dragonflies Posted July 7, 2012 Members Share Posted July 7, 2012 McTavish knew how to write good romance for couples, that was her forte IMO. I agree when she was good, she was good, when she was bad, she was horrendous. She's better when she does short stints, more than a year and a half and she gets burnt out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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