ALL MY CHILDREN celebrated the show's 40th anniversary on Tuesday with a special episode, done as a segment of Haley's TV show, which looked at life in Pine Valley, voted the Best Town in America. Did you enjoy the episode? Was this the best way to celebrate 40 years and the best way to use the actors who returned?
I didn't like it at all. The best anniversary episodes blend current story with history and have lots of flashbacks. See ATWT's 30th anniversary, AW's 25th annviersary, and AMC's 20th anniversary to see how it should be done.
ReplyDeleteThe good:
ReplyDeleteSeeing Brooke English again was a delight, even though we still don't know why she doesn't live in Pine Valley (seems to really like it there).
The outdoor shots were lovely, and can't be recreated in LA.
The Bad:
10 minutes on the tornado? It wasn't even the first tornado to hit Pine Valley, at least they could have mentioned the history of natural disasters.
Also, why would a city be named "the best" when it has been hit by so many natural catastrophes?
I thought it was great. I definitely choked up a few times, as well as laughed. The characters, even Adam, came off charming and a little self-deprecating... It was SO good to see Brooke, Lily, The Santos'!! and Bianca. It was a fresh way to do an anniversary special and I appreciated it.
ReplyDeleteIt was a nice trip down memory lane. Brought back some wonderful memories. Made me tear up several times.
ReplyDeleteBut, damn, it sure seemed heavy on clips from the past 20 years. Only a handful of 80s clips and barely anything from the 70s.
Wonderful to see Brooke back. Just made me want to see her again regularly. Also nice that Greg, Nina, Bianca, Maria, Lilly, Haley and Mateo were there.
But what about Chuck Tyler, Linc and Kelly, Donna Beck, Daisy Cortlandt, Benny Sago, Ellen Shepard, Mark Dalton, Dimitri Marek and so many others? All those characters are still alive. But I guess with only an hour, they had to be picky on who they invited back.
It was odd they chose to use clips of Amanda Baker as Babe rather than Alexa Havens. Alexa had a much longer run in the role and is far better remembered.
As far as anniversary celebrations, AMC's 25th in 1995 when everyone came back to celebrate Joe and Ruth's new house is still the gold standard. Not only did we get to see lots of clips, we also got to catch up with so many of the visiting characters too. And that celebration ran for 3 or 4 days!
I was kind of dissapointed. They didn't allow the clips to actually play, they just showed a bunch of still shots and it made no sense that some of these people were even being interviewed. and it was stupid to have all these vets on-screen and not interacting with one another. It would have been better if all week they showed Haylee filming it and then on Friday held a special screening where the whole town could gather together to watch it, perhaps that would be the first time viewers got to see it and then the following monday they could have the town reacting to the episode.
ReplyDeleteJulia Barr was fantastic it's always a joy to see her but i'd rather have had her on-screen fighting with Erica or something like that.
and i love Eva La Rue but that crying scene looked so forced. she seems to have forgotten how to act.
I applaud the creative style and it worked very well. I did, however, miss interaction of the old characters rather than being interviewed. Well done as usual, AMC!
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