I’m not going to deny that I
was very skeptical about the idea of All My Children becoming an online soap
opera when the news of Prospect Park wanting to take the show, as well as One
Life to Live, online for a variety of reasons. For starters, the news that they
might be able save All My Children and One Life to Live from cancellation just
seemed too good to be true, so sadly I wasn’t all that surprised when Prospect
Park announced that they wouldn’t be able to go through with their plans to do
that. When Prospect Park announced their second attempt at reviving All My
Children and One Life To Live, I chose to remain skeptical just in case things
once again didn’t work out.
Even when it was announced
that things were indeed going to work after all with taking All My Children
online, I continued to feel rather skeptical about the whole thing, only this
time my skepticism was more about whether or not the quality of the writing and
over all production values for the online relaunch would be good since the
quality of online web series has often been hit, miss, or a mix of good and bad
in my experience. Given the fact that this relaunch features quite a few recasts
for the characters from the younger generation who have been SORASed, as well
as some completely new faces, I was also skeptical about of all these cast
changes. That being said, I’m very pleased to say that this is the best online
production that I’ve ever seen for a show.
With the exception of Eric
Nelsen who plays the now teenage AJ Chandler, I was immediately impressed with
all of the new cast members. Although, to be fair to Eric and his portrayal of
AJ, he did start to grow on me as the episode progressed. He especially started
grow on me once I got to his scenes with Denyse Tontz, who now plays Miranda,
who’s also a teenager now. As I was watching their scenes together, I got a
very strong feeling that AJ and Miranda will become a couple at some point, and
I’d like to see that happen since Eric Nelsen and Denyse Tontz definitely have
great chemistry together. It doesn’t look like they will be getting together
any time soon though since Miranda was obsessing over another guy right in
front of AJ. I have to say that I loved AJ’s reaction to Miranda fixating over
the guy she apparently has a crush on despite the fact that it sounds like that
the guy has pretty much only said hi to her at this point in time.
Given the fact that I’ve
watched a lot of teen dramas over the years, such as 90210 and Gossip Girl, I’ve
never been one to get too bent out of shape over the age of actors playing
teenagers or the age gap between the actors playing teenagers and the age of the
actors playing their parents. That being said, I found myself thinking that
Eric Nelsen is too old to play a teenager as I was watched this episode. As
soon as Eric first appeared, I was instantly reminded of David Hornsby, who’s a
writer for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and also plays the role of Rickety
Cricket on the show as well. Personally, I think that Eric Nelsen looks an
awful lot like David Hornsby, but I digress. Although, for the record, I don’t
know how old he is in real life, and I found myself not fixating on wondering
how old Eric is in real life as the episode progressed. That being said, based
on the preview for the next episode Eden Regal looks too young to be playing
the mother of a teenager, if you ask me. Instead it looked like Bianca and
Miranda were two sisters talking. I’ll try to reserve judgment about Eden playing
the mother of a teenager until I actually see some scenes between Bianca and
Miranda though.
Considering the fact that
there are quite a few actors who aren’t returning for All My Children’s online relaunch,
whether if it’s just for now due to scheduling conflicts, which is what I’ve
heard is the case with several of the former cast members, or perhaps they
simply aren’t being a part of the show in this new format, I think it was a
very smart move on writers’ part to do a five year jump because that’s more
than enough time to make it seem believable that characters like Krystal,
Greenlee, Ryan, Kendall and Erica aren’t around, at least for the moment. From
what I’ve heard, the show will be running on a six week schedule, where they
will be focusing on 10-12 characters at a time, so knowing that I suppose it’s
possible that the writers could leave things open with those characters where
they are still in Pine Valley, but the viewers would have at least somewhat of
an explanation as too why we might not see them for a while. If they had tried
to pick up right where they left off and had shown the immediate aftermath of
the shooting, that would probably have forced the producers to recast a lot of
characters, which I’m sure would have been very expensive. Plus, I simply think
it also makes it easier for the show to SORAS the kids and start fresh from a
storyline standpoint.
I know that some people want
Alicia Minshew to come back and appear on the show on a full-time basis, but
honestly I’m glad that she’s not a part of the show right now. I’ve always
thought that Alicia Minshew was absolutely terrible actress, and Kendall
constantly annoyed the hell out of me, so it’s definitely a huge relief to me
that she’s not around. It’s definitely going to help add to my enjoyment of the
show if neither Alicia nor Kendall is around.
Most of the time when I’ve
watched soap operas in the past, I’ve found myself not being interested in a
fair amount of the storylines, which led me to not always give soap operas my
full attention while I watched them and that was often times the case with All
My Children when it aired on TV. However, as I was watching the online
premiere, I was pleasantly surprised by the show’s ability to hold my attention
more than All My Children ever had in the past. I was instantly interested in
all of the storylines and new characters that were introduced in the online
premiere and paid complete attention during the entire episode.
One of the things that I
think really helped the writers accomplish that, at least with me, is the
strong sense of mystery that the show has right now thanks to the five year
jump, especially when they kept mentioning “That night”, which is obviously
referring to the shooting that happened at the very end of the All My
Children’s ABC finale when JR fired off a gun, but we never saw who ended up
getting shot. Considering the fact that this episode began with Brooke having a
nightmare about the shooting that was mostly very blurry footage, the sound of
people screaming and a gun being fired and the way the rest of this episode
played out, it’s obvious that quite a few people, especially Brooke, are still
very much dealing with the aftermath of that night even though five years have
passed since the shooting.
David Hayward has apparently
spent some time in prison for manslaughter during the five years that passed,
and they didn’t really explain what he was in jail for. If I had to guess,
David somehow ended up in jail for the shooting, or maybe for his Orpheus
project that he was doing to bring people back from the dead towards the end of
All My Children’s run on ABC. He was also released from prison under pretty
mysterious circumstances. Given Adam’s line to Brooke about how much he trusts
her when he was having her sign some papers, apparently putting her in charge of
Chandler Enterprises and saying once again that he wants to marry her, I’m
thinking that Brooke is behind David being released from prison. I’m thinking
that she might have arranged to have him released from prison since she seems
to want to bring the Chandler family back together and it was pretty clear that
AJ has a lot of anger towards JR; although, we weren’t introduced to the new
actor playing JR in this episode. I have to wonder why Brooke would think
getting David Hayward released from prison would help accomplish that, if she’s
the one behind it. After all, David always seemed to hate the Chandler family,
especially JR. Maybe she wants him to use his Orpheus project to bring someone
who was killed during the shooting back to life. Regardless, it will definitely
be interesting to see how that plays out.
Given the fact Adam and
Brooke got engaged towards the end of the show’s ABC run and they’ve skipped
ahead five years for the online relaunch of All My Children, I have to wonder,
are Adam and Brooke taking a page from Rules of Engagement’s book by being
engaged for five years and yet they still aren’t even close to getting married?
That’s definitely a really long time to be engaged. Adam and Jennifer got
engaged at the beginning of the series, yet they are finally going to be
getting married soon even though Rules of Engagement is currently in its
seventh season, but I digress.
Another mystery that was
briefly touched upon was the fact that Cara and Griffin were checking on a coma
patient at the beginning of the episode, but they didn’t say who the patient
was. Given the fact Michael E. Knight isn’t appearing on the show at the
moment, I’m guessing that Tad is either the coma patient, or he’s dead. Given
the way Cara talked about the patient, I think it would make sense for the
patient to be Tad due to the fact that they were close. Plus, there was a scene
with Dixie looking at a picture of Tad that immediately before that scene. I
suppose it’s possible that the writers could have the identity of the coma
patient remain a mystery for a while in case Michael doesn’t come back at some
point, then they can have the patient be someone else that they’d like to bring
back down the road.
One thing I had forgotten
about until this morning when I was on a message board for All My Children was
the fact that Cara was pregnant with David’s baby when the show ended its run
on ABC, and she talked about there being something that she didn’t want David
to find out about. I’m guessing that she either aborted the baby, or gave the
child up for adoption after David went to prison. It will definitely be
interesting to learn more about that.
There’s also the mystery of
whose grave David visited at the end of the episode. I’m guessing that Marissa
ended up getting killed during the shooting due to what David said when he
visited the grave. Since Brooke asked Miranda how Bianca was doing at one point
in the episode, that would also gel with that theory a little bit since Bianca
and Marissa were a couple at the time of the shooting. Marissa being dead could
also serve as a motive for Krystal deciding to leave Pine Valley. Perhaps at
some point they will say something like Krystal left because it was too painful
for her to live in Pine Valley after Marissa was killed and she needed a fresh
start. I don’t know.
Opal asked Pete to come home
to Pine Valley in order to bring back their family’s company, Cortland
Electronics. Pete was initially against the idea, but after meeting a woman
named Celia and talking to her for all of thirty seconds, he told Opal that he
would stick around and try to bring Cortland Electronics back after all. What
is this some kind of male version of the TV show Felicity? Pete didn’t want to
stick around when his own mother asks him to, and yet he changes his mind after
talking to a woman who’s a complete and total stranger for only thirty seconds.
That’s just ridiculous, but then again, this is a soap opera. I have to say
that I loved Pete’s comment to someone on the phone about how people watch everything
online these days given the fact that All My Children now airs exclusively
online.
Given Cara’s fantasy or
flashback of having sex with David, whatever you want to call it, I think it’s
safe to say that All My Children is going to be a lot racier than it was when
it aired on TV. There’s also the fact that someone actually said “bullshit”
instead of shortening it to just B.S. like TV shows usually do, namely on
network TV. I’m not a prude when it comes to sex and cursing on TV, so I wasn’t
offended by it, I was simply surprised to hear them talk like that on All My
Children.
One last thing that I’d like
to comment on is that All My Children seems to have a very real feel to it now.
From the relatively simple scenes between Jesse and Angie spending time
together in the morning while they talked about Cassandra coming home, to
Miranda walking in on AJ playing the guitar wearing nothing but a towel to AJ
and Adam talking about playing video games together, the show felt much more
real than it used to. All the outdoor scenes and location shots also added to
that feeling, in my opinion.
All in all, I really was
pleasantly surprised by how good All My Children’s online relaunch is turning out
to be based on the first episode alone. I was pretty much instantly impressed
by all of the new cast members, with the exception of Eric Nelsen, who like I
said earlier is already starting to grow on me. The storylines all seem very
interesting to me, and I’m anxious to see how they play out. It will definitely
be interesting to watch the new online version of All My Children continue to
evolve and take shape.
That being said, I give the
online premiere of All My Children the rating of an A+.
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