The Return of the ABC Soaps?

ABC Daytime fans may have gotten an early Christmas gift. It’s been reported that Prospect Park is looking to revive “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” sometime in 2013.

For those who forgot or didn’t know, ABC announced these two long running soaps were cancelled. But shortly after, Prospect Park announced they had bought the rights to the two shows and planned to continue them online. Actors from both shows signed on to continue their roles and things were swimming along. “All My Children” still ran a week wrapping up the show but then, on Friday, had a deranged JR Chandler (Jacob Young) fire into a party filled with the entire cast. Then the screen went blank, with the promise of finding out who JR shot when Prospect Park got the show back up and running.


But issues forced Prospect Park to abandon the project (and from what I understand, had to do with making agreements with various unions), leaving fans to wonder “Who did JR shoot?” And “One Life to Live” fans went into their final month knowing this was it. Characters got happily ever afters, though the last episode ended with John McBain bursting into Blair and Todd’s room to arrest Todd for his brother Victor’s murder. Except the viewers learn Victor wasn’t dead, merely tied up and forced to listen to Allison Perkins ramble on.

Now there is another problem for Prospect Park: Several “One Life to Live” characters were transplanted to “General Hospital.” Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson), Todd Manning (Roger Howarth) and John McBain (Michael Easton) are all fully integrated into Port Charles. But Prospect Park technically owns the characters. If they decide to use them, the characters will have to be pulled from General Hospital. I don’t know how easy that will be. Yes, it could force Ron Carvalati to finally wrap up the “Johnny killed nuHope and nuCole but Connie took the blame while Todd stayed silent about it” storyline. The fallout could force Todd from Port Charles, what with everyone learning he knew and that he switched Sam’s baby with Tea’s on purpose (though he was acting with the best of intentions due to bad advice from Heather). But I don’t know how it would get Starr away from there or end her relationship with Michael. John will probably be easier. Yes, we’ll lose McBam but we OLTLers can have a Jolie reunion.

Would I still watch General Hospital? Absolutely! I may have come for the OLTLers (namely, John McBain) but I’ll stay for Patrick, Ellie, Lulu and Dante, Sam, AJ, Michael and Anna.

So, here’s hoping for new One Life to Live episodes!

And finally finding out who JR shot!