Hooked on Daytime TV---Part III
For “Hooked on Daytime TV”, Part I, click here; for “Hooked on Daytime TV”, Part II, click here!
“…Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery had clearly been through some changes…”
I dropped in on the Pine Valley crowd on “All My Children” a few years ago to see what, if anything, had changed since I’d tuned them out. My impressions:
1) The majority of the townswomen were underfed and overexposed, and viewers were expected to see these as desirable traits; 2) 20-year-olds were running every major manufacturing, retail, and media empire on the eastern seaboard; 3) Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery had clearly been through some changes, but was still “it’s-all-about-me” fabulous; and 4) Eileen Herlie, the Scottish actress who’s played Myrtle Lum Fargate since the Civil War, remained at the top of her game in every way. (She’s a swingin’ 88 years old now!)
Legal eagle Jackson Montgomery was still around and looking great; he seemed to be wooing/counseling Erica. A lot. There was a Chris Stamp in town, definitely wooing/crossing swords with Erica. A lot. Ruthless business tycoon Adam Chandler and nice-guy twin brother Stuart were still doing their thing, but with Adam’s cut-throat vibe somewhat softened now, perhaps. And Erica’s little tots, whom I’d never seen before, were now twenty-something captains of industry, by the look of it. There was an exotic European industrial double-agent running around from office to office, and bedroom to bedroom (it’s a tough job—not everybody’s cut out for the spy game, you know), and a new Utterly Evil Rich Clan by the name of Cambias had descended on Pine Valley—to what end, I couldn’t say.
It’s interesting: “Romantic” scenes in the soaps were getting increasingly graphic when I called it quits, but I guess I must have checked back during some sort of hormonal holiday in the Valley. I can’t remember what all they were doing, but it wasn’t that.
It was nifty seeing the old faces, but I probably won’t be going back anytime soon. I don’t know that even Moom, Grandma, or Aunt Nickie would’ve been able to hang with the new “starvation chic”, or other changes, for very long.
As I recall, they liked their daily melodrama with a little more meat—and a little more cloth—on its bones.
For “Hooked on Daytime TV”, Part I, click here!
For “Hooked on Daytime TV”, Part II, click here!
Have a great weekend!