Prospect Park's All My Children - back and better than ever.

What a glorious week.  After two years of missing Pine Valley and most its residents, on Monday April 29th, I was finally able to return. 

If you're a regular soap viewer, then you'll probably agree that the city in which a soap is set plays an important role to the overall feel of the show.  The city almost becomes a cast member.  After spending so much of my free time in Pine Valley, I found myself unable to return, and to my surprise, the emptiness did not fade over time.  Initially, I was very hopeful that the shows would find a new home on a different network or cable channel.  After the initial Prospect Park deal feel through, I lost hope.  I removed myself from several Facebook fan pages that were trying to do what seemed impossible and somehow convince a production company to revive the shows. 

I decided that I would never have closure - that I would forever be wondering who JR shot.  I was reminded of a similar ending when the comedy Soap went off the air.  It ended with my favorite,  Jessica Tate, being fired upon by a firing squad. 

Sad and hopeless, I made up the ending in my mind... I decided I had to face facts and remove hope that AMC would ever rise from the ashes...

Flashing back in my own mind to the costume ball where Tad put a plan in motion to save Dixie from Adam's plan of institutionalizing her, and to take baby JR away from Adam's clutches.  Baby JR was such a cute baby.  At the series finale, a very troubled JR shot a gun in a crowd.

In my mind, Erica Kane was shot and killed.  Pine Valley's brightest star was snuffed out.  All of the residents of Pine Valley were shaken to their core.  Even those who didnt get along with Erica were torn up.  Erica's business failed and unemployment climbed ever higher.  Little by little residents of Pine Valley started moving away - the city was no longer the same.  There were too many memories for most to be able to work through.  Erica had been an integral part of Pine Valley.  It had been Erica who had put Pine Valley on the map, and now with Erica gone the town slowly reverts back to the sleep town it had been before Erica became famous.

Thankfully, that ending was just a bad dream of things that could have been.  Thanks to Prospect Park, All My Children lives once again.