Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but still. The truth about soaps in that their biggest crime is being "for women." Their story lines are often silly. The acting is exaggerated. Their plot lines ridiculous. Things that never happen in the real world happen regularly in a̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶i̶e̶s̶ , I mean, h̶o̶r̶r̶o̶r̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶m̶s̶, I mean F̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶ ̶G̶u̶y̶. Oops! I mean SOAPS. (Enough with the sarcasm, right? I think I've made my point. A lot of things are silly, but things that are "for men" that are silly aren't panned in the same ways soaps are. Just something to think about.)
Anyway, I'm only two paragraphs in and I'm already way off topic.
DID YOU HEAR THAT Agnes Nixon's two classic soaps - All My Children and One Life to Live - both cancelled in 2011, have been resurrected and will begin airing again TODAY!? In Canada, you can watch on FX Canada right on TV. In the States, I think you have to watch online via Hulu. The shows have been reformatted and will now be 30 minutes each instead of a full hour. Tonnes of original cast members have returned (though not all), and in both cases, the shows will jump into the future (5 years in the case of AMC) and only about a year in the case of OLTL, rather than picking up where we left off back in 2011. Here's more from EW, including some spoilers about the first episodes, which begin airing today. And here's a longer article about how this all came about, plus an interview with Cady McClain.
Now, I know this isn't a real review. I haven't watched the first episode of the reboot yet (it comes on in less than 15 minutes and I'll be tuning in), but frankly, I don't know that a real review is necessary here. If you used to like either of these shows, I say it'll be worth it to tune in again. And if you hate soaps and always have, you'll hate the reboots as well, whether they're updated and polished up for modern audiences or not.
Remember in 2011 when fans of AMC and OLTO begged people like Oprah Winfrey to step in? Ops said no. Not enough people were home during the day anymore, she said. It wasn't financially viable. But Ops was wrong. And so was I. The old rules don't apply.
Arrested Development will return on Netfllix in less than a month. And my old friend All My Children returns today. The moral of this story is simply that you never know. And any self-respecting soap fan should be able to see just how appropriate that is. After all, soap characters come back from the dead all the time. Never lose hope.
DOUBLE UPDATE: If anyone reading is from the States and doesn't know how to tune in online, watch this video by Cady McClain (AMC's "Dixie") as "Susie Homemaker." She'll fuckin' explain the whole thing. (Love her, by the way.)