AMC: I Love Lucci Marathon

SoapNet aired a five-hour marathon with complete episodes of All My Children called I Love Lucci on Saturday, September 17, 2011. Here are my thoughts and a summary of the first episode from over 30 years ago.

The first episode was from November 27, 1979. The main story was about Tom (Richard Shoberg) confronting Erica (Susan Lucci) about taking birth control pills. Since they were married, Tom believed Erica wanted to have children with him, and she had not disabused him of that notion. He found the pills in the back of her drawer, and then saw how many were left. Tom tells Erica that this is the end of their marriage as every time she took a pill, she was lying to him. Then he tells her that she has to move out of his apartment. Erica comes to Mona’s workplace and blames her and Mark (who is off screen) about the end of her marriage. She convinces Mona to talk to Tom after threatening to kill herself. Charles gets in Erica’s face over how she criticizes her mother. Mona goes to Tom, and he tells her that he would lose his self-respect if he took Erica back again as this isn't the first time they've had issues. On her way out the door, Tom and Mona hug. He’s heartbroken over the loss of his dream of a family. He puts his head on his desk and cries. These days the idea of a woman wanting to work isn’t seen as big of a deal, so the fact that Tom can’t deal with coming second to Erica having a disco was an interesting concept.

Phoebe (Ruth Warrick) and Langley (Louis Edmonds) are together talking about Kelly and Linc. At this time, Langley and Phoebe are involved and engaged, but she is still married to Charles Tyler. Myrtle (Eileen Herlie) knew Langley from their past as carnies, which was something that Langley didn’t want Phoebe to know. There was a flashback scene with Eddie Durance (Warren Burton) and Langley chatting about Langley and Myrtle’s past. Langley had stolen Myrt’s purse and she attacked him. Paul Martin (William Mooney) shows up at the boutique and wants to invite Ellen (Kathleen Noone) to lunch. This was after Ann fell apart and went into long-term mental treatment. Langley then goes to confront Myrtle, and acts like they didn’t know each other. Myrtle knows that he is bluffing, but can’t recall the history. We see a short bit with Kelly (Francesca James) and Linc also, where he tells her that she cannot be Eddie’s murderer.

Due to the age of the episode, I am not sure how much (if anything) was cut out by SoapNet. Unlike the other shows in the marathon, this was before I watched All My Children. I may write about the other episodes later, but this was the one I was most interested in getting up right away. Since it originally aired at the end of November, it wouldn’t have been a sweeps episode. Thanks to Google, I found out that Thanksgiving in 1979 was the 22nd. Watching an episode like this is like seeing a time capsule.

That’s my summary of the 1979 episode of All My Children that aired on SoapNet. The pacing felt different than what I’m used to watching. It felt like a good amount of things happened in this episode, but it was told in a slower fashion, there were no extremely quick cuts or musical montages. Other than one flashback, it was just scenes of characters interacting and discussing their feelings.