Agreed. Clint and Nina really havent been relevant to AMC in over 2 decades despite her making a few brief appearances. I dont think having them on together would be a huge draw.

Clint on AMC? Clint was Viki's ex on OLTL, Cliff Warner was Nina's husband on AMC. I don't think they'd be as huge a draw now as they were 30 years ago either, but I'd love to see them at least make guest appearances, maybe to bring back Bobby Warner or their other son.

I love hearing everyone's ideas for the show, but honestly, I don't know that I want to see Jack and Erica yet again unless the new writing team has some sort of marvelous plan for them that has NOT been done before with them. We've seen them get together, fall for each other again, and then break up again over and over and over again, and NO writer on AMC has managed to bring them together and make it work. I've finally come to the conclusion that they don't work together long-term if the writers are being true to the characters.

I'd rather see Erica do something else or be with someone else. I'd love it if she found an alive Mike Roy (but only if played by Nick Surovy). I'd love it if Dimitri came back sans Alex and was interested in her. I'd love it if she got back together with David Hayward. I'd even be open to her having a romance with a Hollywood film mogul or something (not Kit Sterling) if he was played by a good actor, and the chemistry was there. I loved watching Erica and Edmund on screen together - have John Callahan grow a goatee or something and cast him as a new character. Just please, please, not another round of Erica attempting to be the happy homemaker wife Jack really wants and failing miserably at it.

As huge Jack/Erica fan, I have to agree. I'm tired of their constant makeups and breakups. I'd only want them back if the writers have a new story idea, otherwise Jack should be with Opal imo and Erica needs a new man, but not Mike Roy again or Caleb Cooney! I wish they'd left Mike dead and Caleb was just not a well-thought out character. An Erica/David/Cara triangle would be interesting...

I must admit. I was so dazzled by the DID s/l that much else going on in Llanview at the time has blurred with age. For me, DID carried the show and anything else I enjoyed was just icing. The thing is, you can't tell that story over and over again, you can only revisit and delineate/stretch a few things out, so I don't want to set myself up for disappointment if my Viki and Dorian as remembered and adored don't automatically return with SBH's presence. What I would really love to know are her reactions to the many developments on OLTL since her absence. I'm sure there's a lot of crap not to her taste. If we see a return of beautifully layered social issue stories, maybe even a visit from Miss Ellen Holly, I would probably shed a tear for soap victory.

Horgan's work had its peaks and valleys, but she was working with Michael Malone and still operating off the Gottlieb/Malone example which was, at the time, the gold standard and I thought very good. She was pretty candid about her mistakes in that period in an online radio interview from a few years ago - I think someone linked it in here somewhere. And bottom line, she was part of the team that gave me some of my favorite couples and some of the best soap I ever watched. I just adored Todd and Blair, Todd and Rebecca, Max and Luna, Patrick and Marty, Antonio and Andy. I loved the DID story and Viki and Dorian and Joey and the hospital rapist and all of that. I loved it - including, yes, Angel Square. No one writer gets everything right. We could do a lot worse.

I've said this before, but I really enjoyed what I saw of Marlene McPherson's work and I think she'd be well suited to work with Agnes or someone else at AMC. She had the feel of a place like Pine Valley, and she was applying it to Salem USA. At times it felt almost like a throwback to really old school soap to me - long conversations and characters. Of course it apparently went pear shaped later on, but I missed a lot of that and when Ken Corday is involved, I trust nothing.

I wouldn't expect Ellen Holly, though. I heard she turned down another invite sometime in the last couple years, probably 2011, and was recently referring to her time at OLTL after 1970 as being like "being a fire hydrant pissed on by junkyard dogs."

I was watching OLTL pretty regularly in the 1990s and I don't remember any other story Horgan did besides Viki's DID, which I think was mostly attributed to Michael Malone.

I thought those concepts were dynamite, and so was Evil Gay Will, the E.J./Sami ONS and the E.J. and Will thing. I thought it was clear they were taking a slow, long road to a more functional romance with Will and Sonny and I thought the build was healthy. I also loved seeing the bullshit perfect lives of Sami, Rafe (who I despise), Austin and Carrie blown up. And I thought what they did with John and Marlena as the elders, counseling in stories like Will's, was the best and most organic use of them since the mid-'90s.

I also admired that they were willing to take chances. Sami actually has to have a job, wants her own career. I loved her rapport with Sarah Brown as Madison, who I thought was great on the show. I dug her with Eric Martsolf. I liked seeing women have jobs and lives. I liked what they were doing early on with E.J. and Nicole reconnecting, and the political race. I liked that people sat down and talked and built on character, and actually sounded like human beings, a definite rarity on DAYS since around 1993.

Not every concept delivered the way it should have, no, and some of the stories were bad, and at least part of that is surely on McPherson and Thomas, but we've all watched Corday and Sony's DAYS long enough to know the issues with stories and pacing and choices cannot be all on the writers they keep hiring and firing in order to bring back Gary Tomlin, daytime's perennial Honorary Mention winner, as well as his second, Whitesell, who I can't say enough bad things about from OLTL. Gary's a nice guy and he was a pretty good EP at OLTL who truly loved the show, but his taste in writers and in, well, taste was off years ago. He helped turn OLTL into a quasi-DAYS at that time, and it didn't surprise me when he went back first to Reilly's PSSNS and then to DAYS itself. What I can say is that McPherson and Thomas's DAYS was the only one that had me consistently interested and intelligently engaged in over a decade, and it's not like Jim Reilly's '90s DAYS was ever written as anything other than a compulsively watchable cartoon, either.

I haven't been watching DAYS regularly, but I did tune in a little on SoapNet when MarDar first took over and I liked how they were at least attempting to write a multigenerational show and use the vets. From what I'm reading in this thread, I'm more optimistic than most other posters about her, especially knowing that Agnes Nixon will be working closely with her. I can't wait to find out who her co-writer will be (hoping for either Lorraine Broderick or Richard Culliton)!

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Soap-Stars-All-My-Children-One-Life-to-Live-1059071.aspx

Soap stars react to AMC & OLTL revivals

Edited January 14, 201312 yr by John

I feel like TV Guide just wasted an article. LOL.

TFP.

It was nice to hear more from Irizarry and Morgan.

I don't know Racina's work--though as mentioned there was that joint audio article with them--so clearly they get on.

It seems like his work may be more campy and over the top than Horgan--more like 80s OLTL, so maybe they're a good fit. Horgen had a clear vision for the show--from her solo audio interview--and also seems well aware of what worked and didn't (for those who haven't listened--while wiki says she was at OLTL in the late 80s, she basically says she was brought in under Gottlieb as part of the writing staff when Malone started because Gottlieb felt he needed someone on his team with traditional soap knowled--a reason Josh Griffith soon became co-HW. She also says that Gottlieb personally then picked her to take over as EP, and she admits that when Griffith left on his own, she became a defacto co-HW in his place with Malone as well as remaining EP, and that in hindsight she thinks that was a conflict of interest which is why the show started to suffer pretty quickly. Anyway, I'm thrilled with the choices...

A bit more concerned about AMC now, but we'll see. It sounds like Broderick is in no rush to break her contract on DAYS, but...

Thom Racina, I think, will match some of what RC used to do, in terms of Ron's attempts at old fashioned adventure stories - except Racina is the king of that. He has so much of the glory days of soaps under his belt, and I think if his type of work can meld with Horgan, who came up under Gottlieb's regime of storytelling, there's nothing they can't do. Assuming, of course, this isn't a cheap money grab or bargain basement production being masterminded by incompetents.

Edited January 14, 201312 yr by Vee

Completely agree--it sounds like he might be able to do well to keep some of the style and element of RCs show, which if balanced out, is fine by me.

(You mean he has 80s GH glory days under his belt right, not OLTL? Or was he there too?)

They should ask Joe about Jacqui Courtney...

Why not? It isn't as if JC can come back now and tweet how he was lying and how she had to fake all those orgasms to keep from falling asleep.

Yeah, I edited it. I meant his work at GH and DAYS, where he did L&L, the Ice Princess, Bo and Hope, Patch and Kayla and on and on.

Why not? It isn't as if JC can come back now and tweet how he was lying and how she had to fake all those orgasms to keep from falling asleep.

Really, Khan? Really?

Oh, you know she would! And Robin Strasser would tweet back, saying, "Girlfriend, please, Reinholt and I STILL laugh about what Rauch said about yo' basic ass!"

Edited January 14, 201312 yr by Khan

I'm just going to let this flu shot knock me out.

Yeah, I edited it. I meant his work at GH and DAYS, where he did L&L, the Ice Princess, Bo and Hope, Patch and Kayla and on and on.

Right--and while I've always prefered the more socially relevant OLTL, I recognize that that more campy style, which GH had at the time, is also a huge part of the show's legacy--so if they can manage a mix it would be ideal.

Well, Racina is openly gay and lives in Palm Springs and is older. Carlivati is openly gay, younger and in his 40s...It will be interesting to see Racina's version of Llandview camp. He's more Dynasty meets 80s GH/DOOL.

Horgan, we'll have to wait and see.

Marlene McPherson is very bright and trained under James Reilly. That's why she's in the running. She worked with some very good writers both on Passions and DOOL. She brought back some high quality writers, including Betsy Snyder, Pete T. Rich and Nancy Watts. The last two worked on AMC at some point. I can see some or all of them going with her to AMC. She cannot be judged by DOOL. DOOL makes most writers look lame; it's the budget, the sets, lightening, filming so far in advance and huge interference from Sony and NBC. Let's give her a chance.

I though that this was pretty interesting. It is what Anges Nixon told the man writing the new OLTL book about how she felt about the show's decision to turn the guy into a sleazebag....

One Life to Live creator Agnes Nixon on her thoughts regarding the decision to make Viki's split personality, Niki, the result of incestuous sexual abuse by Viki's father, Victor Lord:

"I had a very, very difficult father, and I based my Victor Lord on him -- and he didn’t abuse me. [Laughs] He was very unpleasant, and he spent four years of my college life telling me I had no talent as a writer, and that I had to take over his business when I graduated. I just didn’t think the abuse story was a good idea. A father’s domination of a girl child is profound -- I know it personally. I don’t think the sex aspect...well, anyway."

http://www.facebook.com/oltlbook

Susan Bedsow Horgan told a different story on her podcast interview a while back. She said when they went to Agnes for advice and her blessing on the 1995 DID story, she was enthusiastic and very positive about it, agreed to consult, agreed with the abuse angle and did consult on story points at least early on.

I guess Agnes was just cashing the check. But I happen to think they were right to do it. That's where DID comes from.