No Susan Lucci: “All My Children” or Some of Them?
Jeff Kwatinetz’s Online Network announced today that “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” will begin production on February 25th. In the case of “OLTL,” most everyone is back among the key actors, and there are still negotiations over three who went to “General Hospital.”
But “All My Children” looks spotty at best from the Online press release. And glaringly missing still is any word on Susan Lucci, the nominal star of “AMC” since its debut in 1970. Lucci has been busy since the end of “AMC” on ABC, working on a lot of projects including Marc Cherry’s new “Devious Maids” series on Lifetime. So far, the cast announcements for “AMC” have carefully not mentioned Lucci at all, or any of the members of Erica Kane’s fictional family from the show.
Of course, the online versions of these soaps will be quite different than the network ones. The new soaps will be 30 minutes long and only run Monday-Thursday with recap days on Fridays. That means fewer of everything–characters, plots, storylines, and actors. To afford Lucci, Online would have to get her to agree to a sort of cameo situation. Hopefully it will get worked out, because it’s hard to have “AMC” without its central figure.
Meantime, two very key players seem to have been signed at last– Michael E. Knight and Cady McClain. It seems like they, along with Debi Morgan and Darnell Williams, will be the core of the new “AMC.”
PS “All My Children” issued a casting call for two villains today–seems like father and son Russia Mafia. Also seems like cartoon characters. The Russian Mafia in Pine Valley? Not when Erica Kane lived there.
I think we can adjust to new characters, even a new Erika. What I’m worried about is the writing. I believe these two soaps were unique in their writing, with comedy added in such a way that it didn’t distract from the story line. Just my opinion.
This is crazy. AMC without Tad or Erica Kane. All these disjointed unrelated charcters while OLTL has everyone basically. I can’t see how AMC will work; without Susan make cameos at least it really does not have the same branding. When PP invested in AMC they were counting or Erica Kane and Susan Lucci. A recast won’t probably go over well though Lucci’s name would at least get media attention. I am not sure she is the nominal star of AMC but whatever. AMC does not look ready for production at all – what the heck is Zach going to do without Kendal, Bianca and Erica. What does Opal have to do without Tad or Erica? Who is the town witch with a capital B????