Well this is surprising. In an 11th hour turn of events, not only are four former OLTL actors making the jump to General Hospital, two of them were committed to the Prospect Park deal and jumped ship, BUT! they get to come over as their past Llanview characters!
I am in FLOVE with this concept. I have to admit, I used to love back in the day when soaps would have a bit of fusion during Sweeps Week to shake things up a bit. I didn't like when Babe & Bianca did it on AMC, but that was only because a baby switch was involved and I didn't like it on that one soap, so I definitely wasn't diggin' it when they carried it over to another. I did, however, like the dual thing Anna Devane did on both AMC and GH. But I'm a Finola Hughes fan anyway, so perhaps I am biased. I don't know. Regardless, I think this is definitely going to be an interesting turn of events, if the writers play their cards right. And let's not forget the rare feat that Skye Chandler pulled off, being a crossover character on all 3 ABC soaps. So the idea of crossover characters isn't unchartered territory and the fact that these will be permanent stays is an intriguing one to me.
As we all know, the Prospect Park deal is dead at this point so the chance to revive OLTL and AMC from various standpoints is just no longer feasible. Several stars, more from OLTL than AMC, signed on immediately and put their faith in PP and their shallow, unfinished promises, and were rewarded with another pulled plug as a result. Read their press release here. Throughout the holidays, we heard nothing except that Y&R had picked up a couple of former AMC'ers, but nothing on OLTL. As the soap aired its final episode last Friday (which I missed! I am so pissed about that!!), there was still no development...UNTIL! (Yes...I am excited...I apologize for the caps attacks)yesterday Soapcentral confirmed that 4 former Llanviewites are headed over to Port Chuck in their old OLTL roles.
I can't help but feel that a part of the reason why these characters were invited was to keep a piece of Llanview alive. I'm sorry that sounds cheesy, but this has been so disheartening to me to watch ABC Daytime completely go up in smoke, with no apologies to longtime viewers who provided that network with years of excellent ratings. It's nice to see the remaining soap showing some loyalty and picking up actors from a sister show.
Kassie DePaiva (Blair), Roger Howarth (Todd), Kristen Alderson (Starr) & Michael Easton (John) are all headed to Port Charles in the weeks to come, and I have to admit this may drag me back to Port Chuck for a spell. They should be a little comfortable in their new digs; it was announced some time ago that Ron Carlivati, the head writer for OLTL, will be taking over the head writer position on GH as well. You can read the article in its entirety here.
I wonder how it would go if there was a mix of all the ABC soaps, just formed into one soap. Maybe it would be a disaster, maybe it would be gold. If done right, it could be amazing. Unfortunately it seems as though not too much energy will be used in the name of soap operas anymore not to mention the production costs and equal pay would probably be altered significantly, so maybe that's asking too much anyway. Oh well...it was nice in theory.
Regardless, welcome to Port Chuck!
I'm surprised I did not relay this when I found out, but Darnell Williams (ex-Jesse, AMC) is on his way to Genoa City, where its rumored he'll once again be sharing time with longtime acting partner Debbi Morgan (ex-Angie, AMC). It was rumored that Williams committed himself to the dead PP deal not long after Lindsay Hartley and Cameron Mathison did, but I think he was right to play it safe and not announce anything until more details had come through. Since the ship was already sinking when the other two jumped on, he was smart to keep his foot on the docks since the chance to revive both soaps has since been killed. Besides that, with so many AMC characters off the canvas permanently because the actors had already committed to other soaps or retired, what potential for storyline could you have? After separating Angie & Jesse for 20 years and bringing them back for 3, I really wouldn't have been able to deal with watching them be separated again or having the writers use a puny explanation for why Angie is never shown on screen, like she's at the hospital working or asleep--when we can all clearly tune in to Y&R and watch Debbi Morgan playing another character. It would be nonsensical and again, with so many characters off the canvas, most of whom made AMC what it was in recent years, many storylines would be full of holes. The week it was announced that PP would be picking up the soaps and reviving them online, Morgan had just (and I mean 'just' as in the day before! How's that for irony??) committed herself to Y&R so she wouldn't be making a return. Denise Vasi (ex-Randi) has already picked up Stacey Dash's old slot on VH1's Single Ladies so Frankie would be without his wife as well. Shannon Kane (ex-Natalia) had left the show before the finale and J.R. Martinez (ex-Brot) is probably busy again, riding the high of his recent Dancing with the Stars win...so where does this leave the Hubbard family anyway? Part of the reason why we loved this family so much was because of their interactions with and love for each other. You can't have one member of the Hubbard family there to carry on the name alone--this isn't GH, where its half decent to have just one Webber. As much as I like Liz & her brother (I forget his name...Steve? Idk), they're no Hubbards. There can't be just one. lol Long story short, I'm glad some of the actors from AMC are finding work. They seemed less gung-ho about the online concept than those from OLTL, as many more of the characters from Llanview were going to make the commitment to Prospect Park a few months ago. Casting news from AMC has all but died off since the re-cancellation announcement, so I'm glad to hear that others have picked up and moved on to other roles. Here's hoping that history can be made again with different characters in a new locale. Welcome to Genoa City, Darnell!
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