As someone who wasn’t really a big watcher of most of the ABC soaps (but did tune in time to time to see them) I was still pretty disappointed and at times even outraged at the news following the months after hearing that both All My Children and One Life to Live were cancelled.
It’s for me mostly been outrageous because of the deception. I really did not like it when Les Moonves joked about As The World Turns’ cancellation the day the announcement was made, to an interview with Marie Masters’ son-in-law, no less. However, at least there was honesty in the decision to cancel it.
But this situation unfolded differently. We sat and watched as ABC daytime lied to their casts and crews; Susan Lucci was actually even on Wendy Williams as recently as a week before the official word came out saying the cancellation stories as far as she knew didn't come from ABC. Furthermore, have the All My Children people uproot and move cross-country from New York to Los Angeles in 2009 for nothing, and lie to your fans for over a year, calming their concerns about cancellation only to yank the rug out from under them like that. Several articles and stories came out denying the rumors (the most recent article came as late as March 22) which really swelled around the time World Turns ended. I've also never believed that that ABC would suddenly change their minds between March 22 and early last April to end Children and One Life. Particularly since they knew exactly what hosts and shows they were going to replace them with. Oh, and speaking of the replacements, The Chew and The Revolution? Really? Despite what ABC would like to say, these shows aren’t new to daytime at all and are found a dime a dozen elsewhere in the TV world, especially the former.
Then we saw the whole Prospect Park situation unfold. Fans were so happy when they thought their favorite shows were saved. You know, at this point, I don’t know if that company really wanted to put an honest attempt to save these shows or if this was just a ruse to keep fans quiet for a while because there was so much backlash behind the decision to kill these legendary shows.
I think it would have been sad to see a soap leave the air regardless. Even cancelling the shows themselves would have been one thing, but the lying and fake reassurance for as long as ABC did it is despicable.
1 comment:
When i was little, ABC had at least 5 soaps on (two were half hour), the other networks had at least 3 and their were those great night time soaps like Dallas and Dynasty. Fortunately we have access to the DVD sets now. Maybe someone should put some DVDS on morning soaps together; best of sets.
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