Monday September 19, 2011: Worst AMC Plots!!!!

By Sylvia Gurinsky

All this week, YesterTube will salute "All My Children" as it goes off the television airwaves. Today, we'll have some fun with a look at YesterTube's picks for the five worst "AMC" plotlines:

5. The Fake Silver Kane: Probably the nadir of Erica Kane's 41-year run in and around Pine Valley came during the early 1980s, when she got involved with a variety of uninteresting businessmen before she met her match in writer Mike Roy. One of those involvements, with Kent Bogard, led to "Silver Kane," Erica's supposed sister, coming into the picture. "Silver" turned out to be a con artist named Connie Wilkes who framed Erica for murdering Kent. The idea for the plot was far more interesting than the execution.

4. Jenny lookalike: Manipulating the emotions of "AMC" viewers still angry about the character of Jenny Gardner being killed off in 1984, the writers introduced "Sheila," a Jenny lookalike meant to entice Jenny's husband, Greg. Bad idea.

3. My Mother the Drug Dealer: Poor Brooke English. Getting her life back together in 1981, Brooke had married Tom Cudahy. But then her father died, and Brooke invited Peg English, the woman she thought was her mother, to move in with her. Peg turned out to be "Cobra," a drug dealer, and was actually Brooke's stepmother; Brooke was the child of a woman her father had an affair with. This worked so much better on "General Hospital" (from where the idea was probably taken).

2. Erica's aborted child back from the dead: In 2006, "AMC" writers turned their backs both on real-life history and on the series' gutsiest storyline ever - Erica Kane's 1973 abortion - by having Josh Madden not actually aborted, but implanted in another woman. Never mind that it would have happened five years before Louise Brown of Britain became the first baby actually conceived in that matter. The show seemed to bow to the right wing in this plotline, and it was sad.

1. Natalie in the well: By far, the worst "AMC" plotline ever. Janet Green, the lookalike sister of Natalie Marlowe, became smitten with Natalie's sweetheart, Trevor Dillon; she became so jealous of Natalie that she threw her in a well and took her place with Trevor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GTgqM07Vwk

This plotline dragged on so long that it preceded and followed the 1991 attempted coup in the Soviet Union that eventually brought an end to that communist country.

Kate Collins, who played both Natalie and Janet at the time, seems to have spent twice as long in that well (playing Natalie) as her father, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, spent on his moon mission.

Tomorrow: Fun "AMC" characters.