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I have been watching soaps since I can remember--I guess that would be 1966? I am sure if I could remember the first two years of my life that year would be 1964. Back then soaps were only 30 minutes long and you could watch more than 10 in a day, and mom and I did. Of the shows that remain on-air today, I remained most faithful to All My Children. I always watched it on school breaks, lunch hours, via VCR when that became available, and now TIVO. As annoyed as I have become with ABC in the past few years, I am still trying to remain faithful to “My Kids.” It has not been easy. My viewership of the other two show has been more sporadic until finally: · I completely gave up on OLTL. It was 3 or 4 years ago, something completely ridiculous happened with Nora, and I couldn’t take it anymore. It was right before Halloween and I switched to As The World Turns. Wow! Plots moved fast, there were lots of characters featured in different stories, the writing was great and I even remembered some characters with actors who played them when I was a kid. It did not take long for this show to become #1 on my Tivo. · A year or two later, during the summer when GH made AJ a stalker, I just couldn’t take it anymore and I switched to Y&R; a very traditional soap that is a bit slower moving, but well written, well acted, well produced and also focusing on a variety of characters, many of whom are veterans. It took a little longer, but this show is now the first or second that I watch. (As the World Turns has been a bit off since Hogan Sheffer left as Head Writer, hence its drop from #1, sometimes). I catch GH on sweeps months, but it just hasn’t changed enough for me to feel like I’m missing anything. I got sick of being mad at myself for wasting time watching crap with no end in sight. I like to enjoy my soaps, especially since I spend almost 3 hours a day on them. I was so much more fulfilled when I switched. I wondered, though, whether it was just the newness. Well, it has been a while now and it is not the newness. There are plenty of “bad” story lines or characters that I do not like on my CBS shows, but they are mixed in amongst so much other stuff that it doesn’t ruin the whole experience. Soaps are a genre that may be gone soon. While they are here, I want to enjoy them. That meant I had to switch. All My Children-There is some great acting on this show. Thank goodness because the way things have been going... Lets just say, if NCAA wasn’t pre-empting my CBS shows, I might give up on AMC too. Maybe it is just the HUGE letdown after the last month. I mean AMC has been the first show I watch each night since the week before the Mardi Gras Ball. Last Thursday’s episode that featured Janet and most of the veteran cast was purely amazing! The episode could be submitted for an Emmy. So could the two episodes with the explosion (the one that ended with it and the one that began with it). The acting, writing, direction and movement has just been great. Maybe that is why I dread going back this week to find: · JR and Adam groveling to the Carey girls · Dixie getting ready to muck up Di and Tad. Put her with someone else already—Jeez! · Ryan and Kendall--gag me. · Aidan and Erin—Zzzzzzz · Keep Jonathan and leave Janet behind bars—Come on!! · No focus on Simone, Dani or Reggie · Choking on Erica’s reason for her abortion. I gave in on the “rewrite” because at least it was something that hadn’t been done before and it did not change the fact that Erica chose to abort her child. But the episode where she said it was not her choice of career, but her anxiety attack because of the Kendall pregnancy that she did not remember at the time. Well—that is just cowardly and lazy. Plus it ruins any link of her past actions with Josh’s present actions regarding his career. I plan to keep watching AMC though it will be #3
By Marilyn
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