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.
