AMC: Thoughts on the 2013 Season

When All My Children's 2013 ended in September, I had planned to do a post on my highs and lows. Below is what I came up with, if you agree great, if you don't well don't say I didn't warn you.

This will be broken up by story and then just some general concerns that I had.

Cara lies about Oliver

When we last saw Cara, she was pregnant with David's baby. She lied to him about what happened to the child and said she had an abortion. After Oliver was born she stayed in Puerto Rico, except her former patient Madison became sick, so she returned to town. Eventually JR convinced her to bring the child to Pine Valley saying that David would never figure out who Oliver was. This whole idea was a bit ludicrous, as David isn't an idiot, and Cara still has feelings for him. The first time Oliver calls Cara, "mom" the plot is finished. The other part of this situation that was frustrating was that Griff, who is Cara's brother disappeared after very few episodes. He knew that Cara was playing with fire unlike JR, who never really understood the depth of her feelings for Dr. Hayward. I did appreciate that Joe Martin was involved as a confidante as he actually is a levelheaded individual.

JR Awakes, David returns

David went to prison for about five years for shooting JR, after JR shot Marissa. The injuries she sustained ultimately killed her. First off, let's kill the character in the same sex relationship. Sick of that trope, can they just stop it, please. JR has issues with his family and gets addicted to steroids. David is the town pariah except with Angie who accepts him. David going to prison for shooting someone after they shot someone else made little sense as David didn't bring the gun to the party. JR being an addict of something else was to be expected. AJ caught him, and Brooke was around running Chandler as Adam was off on business most of the time. JR's antics had hurt the company so severely they were still trying to fix it. If it hadn't been five years, I'd buy that JR would have messed them up professionally. Since he had been gone so long, the excuse rang hollow. Dixie, who is now a therapist, was blind to JR's issues. She tried to be there for her son and grandson. She was more successful being a support to Angie and Cassandra. Dixie missed Tad, and also helped a new doctor named Carter Anders, though his story was not revealed.

Cassandra being a sex slave

Cassandra was kidnapped from the airport, and forced to be a prostitute. This resulted in a pregnancy, which she aborted, due to her feelings about the situation. The fetus probably wouldn't have been viable due to how she became addicted to drugs. Jesse worked with the Russian mobs who did this to her to secure her freedom. He lied to Angie about what was going on, which damaged their marriage. David and Angie flirted, but nothing happened between them romantically. Jesse called Tad for help, and while we heard his voice we didn't see Mr. Martin. Zach was implicated in Cassandra's situation, but was cleared. He sort of got involved with Lea, an FBI agent. The relationship didn't get the far, as he was still hung up on Kendall.

The Kane Women

We saw Bianca with Miranda, but she was only in town briefly. She left Pine Valley to take care of Kendall who was ill again. Miranda realized she was in love with AJ, but he only had eyes for newbie Heather. She decided to move in with Zach, and that was that. Bianca and AJ were sort of telegraphed, since they killed Marissa the idea of them dating them wasn't disgusting as if they had spent years as step-siblings it would have been.

Colby, Celia and the Cortlandts

Pete met Celia and fell for her. Colby came back to town, and Pete enjoyed sexy times with her. Colby and David became allies and sex partners. Opal helped Colby try to hurt Celia and Pete's relationship as she doesn't like Celia. Celia has a mysterious past, which wasn't revealed. Opal sold her house to Billy Clyde and Pete decided to stay in town. For a time, Celia and Pete were overplayed and it was odd that having the conflict due to recast Colby helped the story.

General thoughts

I wish the actors who were new to the show had more interactions with the longer term performers. The reason for that is twofold, one is so the actors playing family members would seem more alike and two is so the returning viewers could start to care about the new people if they saw them through the eyes of their relatives. AJ, Pete, Miranda, Colby, Cassandra and JR were all roles that were recast and/or aged. With the exception of Colby, all the rest of the characters had at least one family member on canvas played by an original actors (she never interacted with her father Adam.) I know in some cases the actors they could have worked with weren't available, but it would have helped me to like them faster if they had that opportunity. I find it extremely great, when I see people playing parent and child and you can absolutely believe they are related.

The other issue I had was the pacing. It felt like some episodes were poorly edited and things were missing. And in some episodes nothing seemed to be missing, but it felt like they were trying to make it more interesting by having characters jump from location to location. There aren't that many places in Pine Valley we were seeing, so unless there was a significant reason for it, characters could have stayed in the same place for an entire show. (One Life to Live had this problem to a certain extent, but more on that in an entry about that program.)

When it came to the first season, I think it was entertaining, but it took awhile to pick up speed and ended abruptly. That can be blamed with how they didn't return to taping and wrapped up at episode 43. I hope the show does continue, but if it does not I hope they are nice enough to provide us with a written summary of where the story was supposed to go. If it turns out that we don't get anything else, I hope those who watched did have a positive experience.