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Thursday, April 14, 2011

the end of a soapy era

one of the last remnants of my childhood is disappearing.  all my children has been canceled.

don't think i'm a SAHM who sits around watching soap operas eating bonbons.  i started rewatching AMC a couple years ago.

i watched AMC as a little girl.  i remember watching it with grams and my mom.  during the early to mid 80s,  my daily soap ritual started with ryan's hopelovingall my children, another world and santa barbara.

i will go as far as when i was 8 years old and my grandparents took me to hawaii for a week, i insisted that no activity interrupt  the airing of AMC becos it was the summer of jenny and greg, the teen super couple.


image courtesy of foreverafangirl.com


there was snooty phoebe wallingford and saintly myrtle fargate.  i remember when opal was played by dorothy lyman who went on to mama's family!  gotta love those bastards adam chandler, palmer cortlandt and david hayward.  everyone loves tad the cad!  and we can't remember the last original character of the show, erica kane.


image courtesy of groovyvic.mu.nu

AMC featured many groundbreaking storylines.  erica had the first legal abortion on television.  homosexuality, drug and alcohol addiction, rape, anorexia, and AIDS/HIV were important storylines.  bianca and reese became the first legally married same sex couple (and ironically, the first divorced same sex couple).


image courtesy of lesbiancrete.blogspot.com

AMC also pushed the envelope with really implausible storylines (erica's long lost daughter kendall, her "assumed to be aborted" son josh, not to mention bringing jesse back to life after being dead for 20 years).  a recent storyline featuring the stillbirth of a baby only to have it be replaced by an infant "given up" and left in a police squad car - i don't want to say how many shades of wrong that is - that's a rant for another day.

it's also somewhat amusing what "tragedy" befalls the residents of pine valley - i can't remember how many tornados, explosions and accidents one small village can endure.  and the strange maladies - SORAS being one of my favorites.  and i would LOVE the transportation system they had in pine valley.  need to be in new york for a meeting?  snap!  you're there in 5 minutes!  trip to california - snap!  you're there an hour later!


i stopped watching the show in the late 80s, when schoolwork and activities kept me busy, and i lost interest.  i missed pretty much all of the 90s and 00s.  i only started watching again a couple years ago when the show touted a highly technological tornado story arc.  shortly after was the bianca/reese nups and the reunion between jesse and angie, and i was hooked again.


over the past year or so, my interest waned.  the storylines were banal and i couldn't relate to many of the characters (newer, younger actors and characters).  some few juicy storylines (the return of brooke!) fizzled.  many of my favorites or originals either died (phoebe, palmer, myrtle) or retired (adam/stuart).  to save money, the show moved to the west coast, and many actors (including thorsten kaye, who played zach) chose not to relocate with the show.  the move out west really kicked off the demise of the show.

the show's final episode will air in september.  and so ends another piece of my childhood.

the network plans to air reality talk shows in the place of all my children and one life to live.  really now?  we need more inane talk shows?  no wonder america is becoming more stupid.  keep shoving more reality shows down our throats.  (not that soap operas were perfect for brain development, but they at least were entertaining.)  guess what ABC?  i won't be watching.  i can't stand talk shows. at least now i have 45 free minutes in my day due to your dumb decision.

rest in piece all my children.  you will be missed.

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