All My Children AMC: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[Angela]

That is probably the case.

Some upset Tweeter concerning Walt & Bobbie not being asked back...

Debbi Morgan ‏@damedebbi920

Trust me I understand U all want 2 C ur faves back but know the show is now 30mins & overcrowded canvas compromises stories.

So after that somebody mentioned that a lot of new people were hired. Then the very valid point was brought up that everybody except Walt Willey, most of the newbies from the last years, and possibly Bobbie Eakes were asked back, and if they had all said "yes" immediately...

Debbi Morgan ‏@damedebbi920

Not sure how & why the choices were made. All I do know is that there was no way to call back everyone...

[Jonathan]

Yeah, Debbi is LEFT of center. Pine Charles, don't make me Erica Kane slap you.

[jfung79]

I think every character who is a well-written, interesting character is gray. As in life, no one is all good or all bad.

An out and out "heroine" who does not recognize her flaws, and an out and out "hero" like Ryan who doesn't recognize his, who is projected as a heroine or hero, is still flawed - but hypocritical - and the writers just pretend they don't have flaws or moral dilemmas. That is what makes a character uninteresting and hard to root for.

Just a simple example ... Anna is not above doing a little breaking and entering to investigate someone, agree? Even if it is against the law. That is grayness right there. Someone like Ryan might do that too and justify it to himself. Anna would call it what it is.

Anna was not Dixie. She was willing to accept David for who he was, to a point, rather than disliking everything about him. She was also on to his deceptions instead of being fooled by him. That is what I was going for. Unlike Dixie, she wasn't projected as the innocent force of goodness incarnate corrupted by David. She was not duped by David in any way, she was with David every step of the way. David was also not written as dark and mastermind villainous during Richard Culliton's time. The two characters were in similar moral positions. David was part of Leo's family, the main gray but rootable focus of the show, allied against Vanessa.

[John]

Can fans just be happy that AMC i back. Bitch Bitch Bitch

[Angela]

People are free to their opinions even if we don't like the negativity or, on the other hand, the positivity. Also, unlike deciding you hate a character or actor before the show airs, it makes sense to have issues with your favorite(s) not being asked back as long as you don't harp on it until the end of time.

BTW, that was posted to show that PC maybe had a point ;P

Are you complaining about people debating center, too? LOL (BTW, I have to go with Jill as well)

I agree. Anna, IMO, was more gray than pure heroine and it really worked well with David. Dixie was more of a pure-heart heroine despite sleeping with and falling for a married man (Adam). When they try to change that formula for Dixie it just feels all types of wrong, at least for me.

[jfung79]

Greenlee wouldn't have to be with David for her to work on the canvas should Rebecca Budig ever choose to return. The point was just that I think there can be story for her because she's a morally ambiguous character with layers and history. The character is not spent in the same way that one-dimensional Ryan is spent (though I believe good writing can turn any character around -- it would just be much harder with Ryan).

Angela, glad we agree about David and Anna. I'm not sure how I feel about when Dixie works best though. I'm waiting to see what Prospect Park does with Dixie; maybe they can do something different while true to the core of the character that will work for me.

I also want to clarify, I don't mean that Anna is like Greenlee in the sense of delighting in seeing enemies suffer as Greenlee sometimes will. Anna's grayness that I felt is of a different kind. The similarity was in how I felt Anna and Greenlee were people who knew they weren't perfect, who weren't judging David, even if Anna was investigating him and would have turned him in if he was Proteus. Greenlee wasn't judging David, but then the show (probably really Frons) decided she had to be with Ryan and that's when David's increasingly desperate deceptions and Greenlee's poor me, Ryan help story developed

[Cheap21]

It would be awful to go back to David and Greenlee. They had potential yes but was completely ruined with the way she used him and threw him aside and then all that awful stuff he did to her in retaliation. For their own sakes, both characters deserve better.

[Angela]

Dixie? or Anna?

Dixie? I no longer like Dixie after the past few returns but hopefully 2.0 will change that. Anna? Yeah, I agree. Anna is a heroine, no question, but she's also really kick-butt when written well unlike regular basic heroines.

I didn't like their pairing in 2010? 2010, right? Too much shades of David & Dixie which I also didn't like. He was too obsessive. Greenlee was too angry and bitter for it to seem real on her side. Frons was still there and pushing for his Rylee. It would have been perfect to do them in the mid-2000s. In 2004, instead of making David an accessory to kidnapping and moving along with trying to paint Ryan and Greenlee as true loves, they should have done a Kendall/David/Ryan/Greenlee quad with Kendall & David working together to split up Ryan and Greenlee. That was the perfect timing and while I didn't hate AMC in 2004 this would have been the better story for all 4 of these characters.

[marceline]

Sad but true. David/Greenlee was the first time in years I didn't loathe the mere sight of Greenlee on my screen. IMO, that pairing made sense from a purely character standpoint and that's sadly rare for most current soap couples. That said, I personally feel that it is in the best interest of AMC2 to stay far away from the stuff that damaged the show so much in its last years: Rylee, Zendall, David is God/Everybody Hates Hayward, Bianca the sapphic sexless saint, etc...

[Cheap21]

Maybe they can stick him with this Jane woman and later it come out that she's his twin sister. That's never been done before on daytime so maybe the internet could push those boundaries

[jfung79]

I meant Anna in that quote, but I edited it out of my message because I saw that I was confusing some thoughts together when I wrote it. I agree with you about both Dixie and Anna.

[Winchester91]

Weren't 15 iterations of that already done in B&B (and especially Passions)?

[jfung79]

LOL, gross. Stick who? David? I would prefer David and Cara to be together as the show starts.

I think if Greenlee ever came back, they could pair her with a returned Trey Kenyon (which would also mean more famiily for David, and for Kendall or Kendall's kids if they are on). I could see her in a "cougar"-type relationship with one of the younger characters on the show too. I see a lot more potential with Greenlee than others here do, and plenty of chances for fresh starts while remaining true to the character. She has a whole sketched background with her family that could still be mined as well. Maybe Mary could have a health scare and Greenlee could have closure on her relationship with her mom.

[Cheap21]

Nope, twins never hooked up before

[Steve]

ITA, I'm so glad ABC is no longer able to micromanage and I hope Agnes' influence on both shows will mean the stories are character driven. I'd hate for AMC to go back to the Rylee, Zendull, Evil David versus Everyone crap that drove down the ratings in the first place!