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

[marceline]

Yeah. I think it's kind of a zero sum game. Some people would've tuned in for Erica. Others would've tuned out. Some would've tuned in for Rylee and Zendall. Others, like myself, would've considered that the kiss of death. The idea that this actor or that couple would guarantee ratings IMO has been disproven time and time again. And I say that as someone who has engaged in many a couple/actor flame war.

It seemed to me that there were people who were down for the experiment and others who simply weren't and PP spent time and money they didn't have trying to placate the people who simply weren't. I wish they'd had enough funding to really keep these shows going daily for a year or so. Then they would've found their audience and the haters could've just fallen away.

[Marco Dane]

Considering the ratings rebound of soaps, and the terrible ratings from their replacements, ABC would do well to reboot the shows at 30 minutes apiece. Their “General Hospital” is booming now.

I hope ABC bought the rights of General Hospital back!

[Vee]

The fact is that the audience for "Minx," Ryan, Greenlee that would consider any of them dealbreakers is extremely minimal. Those characters or couples simply don't make AMC. The show can even survive without Erica, as the new show proved. It wasn't the show that was lacking. It was financing.

The shady past of the PP guys is no secret, but it's also par for the course in Hollywood. There's no one clean. The question was whether they could keep the money flowing.

If ABCD wanted to simply transplant the shows with the existing production and teams back onto a slot in their schedule, sure, I'd be for it. But I'd be very concerned about what they'd say about some of the casting, storylines, etc. I said the other night there's so much in terms of casting, character beats, story focus that today's ABCD would never have signed off on. Frank Valentini's very good at many things, but he'd never have cast Eric Nelsen in such a key role. The Internet and streaming is still the new frontier, and I think it's where soaps need to end up going, right down to the freedom from restrictions and puritanical micromanagement based on network management's dim view of their audience base.

[Marco Dane]

Its obvious that a independent company cannot sustain a profit for a network daytime drama. A network is needed for OLTL and AMC period! It would be a different story if it was aired on a better network than OWN!

RAVEN IS PISSED! JUST LOOK AT HER!!!

[Vee]

They need either a network or simply a much stronger parent company/investor.

The problem is most of the traditional networks that generally deal in soaps today don't want to invest in new writers or ideas. So you get the same people breathing the same air who often have lost any kind of larger perspective, even when many of them are still very talented, still hard workers. And a big reason the new shows worked for me was because they took chances the way soaps used to, often in a lot more subtle ways - candor about sex or drugs, yes, but also just the ability for people to talk about life in a way that mimicked the character building on primetime drama (which in turn mimics the way soaps used to do character). You could've easily seen a lot of the stuff with Téa and Dani on OLTL, J.R. and A.J. and Miranda and Zach/Bianca on AMC, even Matthew and Destiny and Bo and Nora or Blair and Jack on a nighttime family/teen show. They pushed the envelope in those ways as opposed to just doing so by telling stories about sperm and rape and child molestation and someone's latest alter - all old hat by now on daytime.

Daytime today thinks "social issues" and "pushing the envelope" means retelling a crass story with a slightly different angle. As in, Jessica's crazy again but this time she just thinks she's her teenaged self looking to get her cherry popped by Cristian, or Lulu's gone wild because she was kidnapped and frozen by Frozen Stavros Cassadine. The new shows were the opposite of that.

[CBRVA83]

But AMC and OLTL were a success on Hulu, John! Both shows were in the top ten when both of them launched their second seasons, and both of them stayed in the top forty, thirty, or twenty shows throughout their first seasons' run! if the shows are going to be cancelled then, the blame shouldn't be placed entirely on us the viewers since we made both shows a success online!

[ellabelle]

It can survive without her? Um, you're talking about a short season of an hour a week and then nothing, and a probable cancellation. That's surviving? FWIW, I don't think Erica Kane was a make or break factor for the show as a whole, but you can't really claim the show can survive without her when in all likelihood it's over and gone.

Yes, it does seem obvious that the financing was lacking, but personally my friends and I found a lot lacking in this season. I realize that is an unpopular opinion here, but I know quite a few people who don't post on this board who were thrilled AMC was coming back, and who ended up disappointed in what was shown. In some ways, yes, it was an improvement over what ABC aired, but in others, I don't think it was.

As for what ABC would have done vs. what PP did, well, that's all speculative at this point, but IMHO the network that put a young Jesse McCartney as JR Chandler would have been likely to cast Eric Nelsen as AJ IF they'd done a 5 year jump. It's the five year jump I don't think ABC would have done. But Eric? Yes, I think he's absolutely the sort of person they'd have cast as AJ. It's Michael Nader as Dimitri I don't think ABC would have ever brought back.

[Vee]

Yes, you're exactly right; I'm saying AMC can absolutely survive without Erica Kane, and I'm pretty sure Susan Lucci would be the first to say so. I'd have loved to see her and I adore Susan, but it not only was surviving, it was thriving.

I know you don't like hearing it, but for a lot of people the show was excellent. It was the best that show has been in well over a decade, and probably well into sometime in the late '90s. The show didn't fail. The parent company and its financing did. This is about money.

And you know as well as I do that the network that hired Jesse McCartney is long gone. They also let him go.

[marceline]

It didn't survive WITH her either.

[John]

No doubt they were most watched but it seems like that wasnt enough. Scuttlebutt is that PP just broke even and they needed to make profit. plus the pay for ad space on the net is less than TV so they werent making TV money off the ads that were run.

[Dana]

I said quite a while ago that I didn't trust Jeff K. I can't help but feel PP lied about a lot of things and strung people along, plus they were way in over their heads from the start and couldn't get their act together.

[cassadine1991]

it's not like the execs of networks are squeaky clean, they also have skeletons in their closets

[Wizzerkat]

With soap audiences, sadly this is true IMO. I read so many people who just could not handle the show not being almost exactly like it was on the network(like it being "free," on channel 7. whatever). With the right people at the helm, this might have changed, who knows. PP did try and they were successful at some things-just not management and PR.

Sure, I can agree they don't owe fans a heck of a lot, but IMO they do owe the actors something at least. They still have had no official word and that is wrong. However, being straight with fans goes a long way in keeping them in good graces. Actors/celebs know they don't owe the fans anything but their best performance, but many of them still deal with fans, talk to them, even go out of their way at times when they don't need to. This keeps fans interested in them and their projects. PP needs some people/PR skills.

+1!

[SFK]

I wonder if the PP AMC/OLTL audience that did not follow each and every bit of news regarding these reboots had an overall more enjoyable viewing experience. There's a fine line between harmless pontification and neurotic obsession around these parts. The utterly pressed and obsessed investment in coverage of PP's every move was not a good look. I think it would have been better if one day out of the blue it was announced that 40 in the can episodes of both shows were now available for download/streaming. A second batch, unanticipated, unpromised.

[Vee]

I prefer the term 'neurotic pontification.'