Soap Fans!!!

For the first time in what feels like forever, I finally have something worthy of the current web address---good soap info!

After about a year and some change of stringing us along and yanking our chains, Prospect Park has confirmed initial plans and are now moving ahead with the AMC & OLTL online revivals! Check the link for details. Wonderful, yes? I am happy to hear this news as I have missed my soaps terribly, but I am also very apprehensive and not as excited as I would have been a year ago and I will tell you why.

In the year since the PP deal first blew up in our faces, many of the stars of both shows have gone on to new roles, pursue new opportunities and some have left the soap world entirely. Others have gone on to new soaps in old roles and have put down roots in the year that they've been off ABC. Is it realistic at this point, even feasible, to assume we'll get some of the same characters back, some piece of the soaps we have come to love over the years?

Would I be comfortable watching a show that is only comparable with the ABC series by name and not by content? Honestly, no. Attribute that to my dislike of change and inconsistency, I guess, but I wouldn't like it. Take most of the characters we love on OLTL for example. Where are a good deal of them now? A lot of them have taken up residence in Port Charles and have successfully threaded themselves into GH's current canvas--would it be rocking the cradle to ask them to leave contracted roles on network television and film an online series that in itself has a significantly decreased audience as well as pay? It would be capsizing the boat, not rocking it, not to mention I don't expect them to immediately be interested; with Ron Carlivati at the helm of GH and many of them sharing airtime with former co-stars anyway they're in comfortable hands. Most of AMC's frontrunners you don't see anymore. Susan Lucci left soaps entirely and what the hell is AMC without Erica Kane? The stars we are used to seeing on our screens have moved on, some to other soaps and others have simply vanished. I haven't seen many of them since the final episodes, and I would assume a lot of them probably don't want to be pigeonholed into the same role they had on network tv for years, and definitely not for an online version of a series that was once broadcast five days a week on network television around the world.

So with those sorts of thoughts, I can't be as excited as I was a year ago. I thought it was the perfect time for PP to go through with the deal right after OLTL's final show; many fans (myself included) were still reeling from not having the soaps anymore and most of the stars were free from other commitments, some of them delaying other moves in the event that the PP deal came through. It's been a year and many of us have since adjusted, albeit reluctantly, to the knowledge that we wouldn't be seeing our soaps anymore; content instead to see if a familiar face pops up somewhere else. Hearing the news about PP was great, but anticlimactic and fills me with questions, not excitement. A positive spot in the news is that Agnes Nixon is on board, so even if old favorites do not return, she can create new favorites that will continue to build on the history both of these shows have boasted for so long.

What do you guys think about Prospect Park's announcement? Still excited, or has it been too long?