ABC: ‘All My Children’: Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos Developing Primetime Version

[DemetriKane]

Just because it goes dark doesn't mean it loses it heart. The show went dark many times during the 90s but most fans still felt the heart. Whatever happens with it, i would hope it has a nice balance of both dark and light elements! What i don't wanna see is something that's so sugary sweet and fairytale light , which at times the show became and that was corny!

Edited February 14, 2022 by DemetriKane

[Khan]

I don't think Agnes Nixon would've wanted that either, lol.  But I DO think she'd want ANY new version of her creation to be something that, at the end of the day, honors the best in us and not the worst.

[Vee]

It's not like there are no genre or horror fans who watch soaps up til now, lol. I am a massive horror buff. I like plenty of dark shít. That doesn't mean I think attempting to reconceive AMC as an edgy Riverdale clone mired in murder mysteries and artificially forced, pre-packaged camp - and that could very easily be what this show is, if they're not careful - is worthwhile. When I think gothic horror, I think of other soaps first, I don't think "All My Children." It had many stories with that stuff because Agnes loved gothic, but the foundation was not built around it. That stuff was used by Agnes Nixon, etc. as a contrast to the rest of the fabric of the show.

I am willing to give Pine Valley a chance if it ends up existing, which I seriously doubt. But the state of network TV dramas today that aren't on streaming, their poor pacing, tonal issues, etc. make me very hesitant. I think AMC's best shot at revival is on a streaming service in a more dense serialized format, not trying to chase fading primetime sweeps periods that only hobble any intelligent and well-paced storytelling on many network dramas these days. So many of them are written and plotted seemingly on fast-forward at twice the speed, with scenes spun around the next moment that can be a GIF on Twitter vs. trying to build out. Riverdale is shít, even for a horror fan, and I'm just not interested in seeing AMC go out like that.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Vee

[DemetriKane]

TBH, I never seen more than 20 mins of Riverdale, And can not speak to what It's giving. What I do know though, Is AMC was at It's best when it had this oddball mix of themes going at once. I wouldn't say gothic horror, I would say a lot of storylines, and a few characters incorporated gothic elements with a "Hitchcockian" flair. There was even those Promos of the characters peeking through door key holes, like voyeurs. It's hard for me not to think of the gothic element being a major fabric of this show. When Its been touch on just as much as the Douglas Sirk element. They even touched on it in the Hulu reboot.

@Vee By the way, which shows you thick did the gothic storytelling better?

When I brought of Scream I wasn't necessarily speaking on the horror aspect, but more about a close knit town lead by legacy characters dealing with a family secret. Miranda and Sam(scream) could be the same character.

Edited February 14, 2022 by DemetriKane

[Vee]

Yeah, but Sam was boring as hell.

[DemetriKane]

Agreed.

[David_Vickers]

Looks like Pine Valley is no longer happening, since the new 2022-23 ABC Schedule was announced and still no mention of Pine Valley.   Maybe they should just develop this as an ALL MY CHILDREN sequel or AMC return for ABC daytime television instead. 

[DRW50]

It's not happening,  never will, sadly. I want to be more disappointed than I am. I have no desire to see Kelly Ripa  or Mark Consuelos in anything.

[Wendy]

Considering the fates of many prime time soaps of late - and the fact that there hasn't been a peep about this in a while - I think this is DOA, anyway. So worrying about a darker Pine Valley seems moot.

Trends come and go. Maybe down the road, someone will try reviving AMC or whichever defunct soap or make a new one again, and the masses will watch. Unfortunately, the current climate is not friendly to the genre.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Wendy

[Soapsuds]

Ouch!

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[All My Shadows]

I'm just going to stop having any kind of hope for anything like this to ever happen. It's been ten and a half years since the show left ABC and close to nine years since 2.0. The show gets some attention here and there, and it's great that it gets to enjoy a bit of the "classic TV" treatment that other shows get when they leave the air (and that most soaps never get!), but with each passing year, there is less and less reason anyone would want to bring it back. It gets some attention, but it isn't in reruns or streaming. TV shows get revived based on either fan support following cancellation (which we already had) or their enduring popularity and ability to gain new fans. AMC's got us and that's it, and we're all getting old.

Dark Shadows didn't become the big huge franchise it is just because it was a different kind of soap. It was regularly reran across the country for 25 years and then released in its entirety on TWO home video formats. Without any of that, there woudn't have been the 1991 series, the terrible Tim Burton movie, the 2004 pilot, the audio dramas, the books, the conventions, etc. Of course, it being different from the other soaps was influential in it becoming a rerun powerhouse.

Every other soap will be forever stuck in the daytime ghetto, and we will never ever see them given any kind of widespread respect or attention outside of a niche piece from time to time. AMC is lucky because its cast keeps on working, and that keeps bringing attention back to the show, but look at some of the others. As terrible as it sounds, ATWT has been on the radar lately solely because two of its cast members passed away. And the one who'd been an iconic part of the show for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS was still referred to as a "Star Trek actress" in some obituaries.

Guiding Light went off the air as the world' longest-running drama series. And today, only 13 years later, it is literally nowhere to be (officially) found....at all. Interest in it will only continue to decline, so you can bet on never seeing it anywhere ever again. It fcking sucks, but it's how our fave genre is going out.

Edited May 29, 2022 by All My Shadows

[Wilsoky]

Kelly talks 'Pine Valley' toward the end of this article.

https://abc7.com/kelly-ripa-generation-gap-all-my-children-game-show/12029263/

[ChitHappens]

Kelly has no idea where AMC is in the queue.  Meaning, there's no real commitment to the project and it's dead.  

[DRW50]

I do think there are some soaps that will always have more public recognition than others. AMC is one of them because of Erica Kane, and because for generations it was named as a premier soap (similar to DAYS, GH, Y&R). As the World Turns also had a lot of name value, but that was about it. The question is whether name value means anything in terms of a revival. 

I could see the name being used to eventually churn out some cheapie product down the line, but this project is clearly not going forward...and frankly I'm not too sorry, as I don't ever need to see Kelly Ripa or Mark Consuelos on my TV again.

[Wilsoky]

I wonder why she won't just say 'the project didn't pan out'. It's almost like they never got word from ABC that it is dead. Or they are being told it is in the queue somewhere.