Why so much hype?

Absolutely Fantastic

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The lives of the Lords, Woleks, Buchannans and Cramer families dominated the city of Llanview for a 43 year run, and unlike its sister city of Pine Valley, PA, Llanview was grounded in more reality even with a few bizarre plot lines. I call this ABC's closest in quality to NBC's "Another World", with former "AW" head writer Agnes Nixon moving on from that Proctor and Gamble show to create this. Although she had written the bible for "All My Children" first, her passionate love for the study of human relationships began with this show which crossed not only class and race issues, but religion as well. There were Catholics, Protestants and Jews, and even a story-line where a young black woman (the beautiful Ellen Holly) pretended to be an Italian American so she could be accepted in society. Holly's Carla (real name Clara) was one of two dominant original female characters, and had a major part in the show's critical success. Tony Winning actress Lillian Hayman was outstanding as her hard-working mother. Political upheaval on the show in the mid 1980's saw the write-out of these characters in a rather cruel way, especially for Hayman who was literally fired in a parking lot.The heart and soul of the show for 43 years was the character of Victoria Lord, a complex young woman who was eventually revealed to be suffering from a split personality and dealt with secrets from her childhood for the show's entire run. Fans were thrilled by her long rivalry with the former Dr. Dorian Cramer (most notably played by Emmy Winner Robin Strasser) which often crossed the line into occasional friendship when the characters would make amends for hurts of the past. As played by Erika Slezak for 40 years, the character was complex in every detail, and she would go onto win more Emmys than any other actress on the soaps. For the first decade, Vicki was part of the super-couple pairing with Joe Riley, although that term didn't become widely used until years after Joe died. Her later relationship with Clint Buchannan (Clint Ritchie, Jerry Ver Dorn) pretty much surpassed it. The first decade of the show was traditional class conflict soap, with Carla and her major love interest, Police Lt. Ed Hall (veteran stage actor Al Freeman Jr.) providing one of the few black couples on daytime. (Sister soap "AMC" was the only other, with Nancy and Frank Grant equally as popular as Carla and Ed.) "OLTL" got some major publicity when it cast two ousted "AW" stars, George Reinholt and Jacqueline Courtney, who at least for a time also dominated the airwaves. By the late 1970's, daytime was changing, and a "Dallas" type story began with the introduction of the Buchannan family, lead by veteran movie actor Philip Carey as the ruthless J.R. Ewing like patriarch and Robert S. Woods remaining for decades as his younger son, Bo. The mob infiltrated Llanview for a while, and Judith Light's Karen Wolek became the miserable long suffering character that fans tuned into see cry and emote every day. Light deservedly won two Emmy's before moving into prime-time. I started watching in late 1981 when the show had a masked ball that lasted for a month, with Asa's supposedly dead wife, Olympia (stage and screen vet Taina Elg) revealing her husband's evil deeds. A great story-line had Bo involved with old enemies of his father's, the Ralston clan, whom he thought for a while was his real family. "Dark Shadows" vet Grayson Hall provided real camp as the scheming Euphemia Ralston, with the gorgeous Shelley Burch as her sexpot daughter Delila who married both Asa and Bo, then ended up happy with Asa's nephew, Rafe.The story-line headed back to its roots for a while with the blue collar O'Neill family, but later went into "Dynasty" territory with the introduction of the wealthy Sanders family, featuring a scene- stealing performance by Lois Kibbee as the wealthy matriarch, with Louise Sorel going from scheming Augusta on "Santa Barbara" to the noble Judith, a victim of anti-Semitic comments from her mother-in-law Elizabeth (Kibbee). After the Sanders family faded out, wealthy Michael Grande (Dennis Parlato) became another temporary villain, later replaced by mobster Carlo Hesser (Thom Christopher) who had a rivalry with Asa over Asa's wife, Renee (Patricia Elliott). The schemes of Dorian continued, as did those of Vicki's sister, Tina Clayton and the psychotic Alex Olanov who ended up marrying both Carlo and Asa. As the show buckled with current soap trends that went far out from the world of reality, they did add two families to add diversity to the show-the Hispanic Vega's and the black Gannon's. Secrets of Vicki's long dead father Victor continued to come to light, such as the revelation that bad boy Todd Manning was another one of his illegitimate offspring and that Victor had molested Vicki as a child which lead to her killing him in 1976, a crime that was often thought to have been committed by Dorian. Slezak's number of alters increased, and her gut wrenching performance was perhaps the most spellbinding single performance since Karen Wolek's confession on the stand in court back in 1980. The last years of the show had its convoluted moments, but was highlighted by the comical malapropisms from Ilene Kristen's Roxie who had audiences in stitches. Returns of former actors long gone from the show such as Kim Zimmer's Echo Di Savoy and Roscoe Borne's Mitch Lawrence kept the show's history continuously explored, although the mystery of who the real Todd Manning was when two actors who played the part ended up on screen together. Returns of the dead by Victor Lord and Irene Manning were panned, but the mixing of young actors with the veterans kept the audience intrigued. ABC announced that it was canceling both "AMC" and "OLTL" on the same day, but both shows later went briefly onto the web.

Unlike All My children, As The World Turns and Guiding Light, all of which went off the air in September, One Life To Live opted to end its run in January, two weeks after Christmas and on Friday the 13th.Go figure.By ending in Sepember, it almost felt like when we would go back to school and miss the shows anyway (tho I only started watching ATWT and GL when I was out of high school), but it didn't matter.By ending OLTL two weeks after the holiday season, it caught me off-guard.First the Christmas episode ended with rolling credits (as opposed to those quick-flash names and duties run at the bottom of the screen each and every other time).Christmas and soaps developed a strange fantasy meaning to me, ever since Myrtle Fairgate on All My Children, with all the year-long chaos of Palmer trying to break up Cliff and Nina, still managed to quietly stand alone in her home, look out at the snow, and sing a nice a capella Christmas tune to herself.The OLTL Christmas episode ran the credits with a lovely slow version of Hark The Herald Angel Sings. I felt the tug.Then two weeks before the show goes off the air, various prison escapees terrorize the citizens of Llanview.Talk about going out in a bang. Even tho the only two actors who were on the show when I started watching are Slezak and Woods, the only three characters are Bo, Clint and Viki, I was spell-bound, especially when marvelous scene-stealer Patrick J Gibbon, as Sam Manning, was playing with his toys and being watched by the psychotic Hannah.When Starr Manning prayed and sang a song, One Life To Live (tho I didn't realize she was the singer, I had FFed thru some bits), that's all it took. I stood at the front door and cried like a baby. From over 30 years ago, I started watching when Samantha Vernon and Pat Ashley were taken hostage by (who was that guy? I've always called him Bruce Davison), I've watched off and on (sometimes more off when I didn't like how it was rolling).No, I was not watching when Karen Wolek broke down on the stand during Viki's trial for murdering Marco Dane (turned out it wasn't Marco at all, but his goody twin brother, Mario).But I do remember the revelation that former nun Jenny's baby, Karen's sister, really belonged to prostitute Katrina.I was watching before Buchanan appeared on the show.It's been a fun ride, a good ride. I hated stories (Clint's Back To the Future, Eterna was really goofy too) and there were clearly some better than others (The gang-rape storyline).I do hate to see them end tho. With the departure of One Life To Live and All My Children, there will be two less hours of 'reality' in my household.

One Life To Live is absolutely the best show on television. i do mean EVER!!!! I WORK DURING THE DAY BUT THANK GOODNESS FOR SOAPNET.i have watched this show since i was in grade school. i feel like they are family. i love all the characters,.... Rex, Gigi,Bo,Nora,Blair my favorite,Vicki, and of course Dorian i absolutely love all the characters from Llanview. thanks ABC and Agnes for such a great show !!!!!!! i will always watch,story lines are terrific and the acting is far better than other shows. by the way Jessica is a fantastic actress, this show has many many great actors. keep it up thanks again Agnes for a job well done.

ONE LIFE TO LIVE on ABC, Brought to you by the Colgate-Palmolive Company, is the BEST TV show, or soap opera, that has EVER been on the air. Two O' Clock P.M. has always been my favorite hour in the day; the one hour that I can be in Llanview, and check in on everyone... Viki, Bo, Asa, Dorian, Nora... If there was no ONE LIFE TO LIVE I would be much less happy. The stories are always intriguing and never boring. Even after nearly 38 years, the story lines are as fresh and exciting as they were in 1968. Agnes Nixon is a pure genius for creating such a gem in the realm of television. One Life To Live is perfect in every way. Its actors are superb; Erika Slezak has won more Emmys for her role as Victoria Lord Riley Burke Riley Buchannon Buchannon Davidson than any other actor in the history of television. The theme to One Life To Live as well as the other music by David Nitctern is magnificent too. Always tune in at 2:00 EST to ABC to watch One Life To Live.