ALL MY KIDS and ONE LIFE TO LIVE Are Resurrected

Pardon me while I try to tamp down my excitement.

I watched ABC daytime dramas from approximately 1971 till All My Children and One Life to Live got canceled in 2011 and 2012, respectively. General Hospital, my one-time favorite, was the only one of ABC's soaps not to get the ax, but by that point, it was a dreary mess of mobsters and misogyny, and I had no desire to stick with daytime TV just for that.

So I gave it up cold turkey. Then there was talk that production company Prospect Park would bring All My Kids and One Life back from the dead, with all-new episodes broadcast only on the internet. I had a healthy dose of skepticism it would ever happen, but guess what? It did, it has, and both soaps showed off their first new episodes today exclusively on Hulu.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE! It's really, really nice to have them back.

The shows are now broadcast in 30-minute episodes, like soaps of yore, instead of the hour-long shows you'll remember from the pre-2011 bloodbath. Some of your favorite actors and characters are back, from Viki, Clint, Bo, Nora, Blair, Todd (albeit briefly), Natalie, Cutter, Tea, Dorian and David on One Life, to Angie, Jesse, Adam, Brooke, a different David (the evil doctor instead of the Boy with the Chipmunk Tattoo), Opal, Dixie, Bianca, Zach, and relative newcomers, sister and brother Cara and Griffin, on AMC.

Missing is, of course, Erica Kane, as played by Susan Lucci, along with Tad the Cad, played by Michael E. Knight, and (at least so far) Erica's daughter Kendall, last played by Alicia Minshew.

From One Life, the missing list includes Michael Easton's John McBain and Kristen Alderson's Starr Manning, both of whom had moved on over to General Hospital's Port Charles in the wake of the cancellation. There's been talk both will be back at some point, just like Starr's daddy Todd, played by Roger Howarth, who'd also shipped out to GH only to be pulled back.

Personally, I already like the new One Life eons better than General Hospital, but I also like Todd Manning, a guy who totally puts the anti in antihero, so I hope he sticks around. Seriously. How much better is it to come back and mix it up with Blair one more time instead of getting stuck in the cesspool named Carly over on GH?

In any event, no matter who's staying and who's going and who's never coming back, the new shows look spiffy, with very nice production values, scripts that are working for me so far, cheekier dialogue than you can get away with on network TV in the afternoon (including swear words), more daring situations (AJ all grown up and playing guitar nude? Destiny transformed into a much taller, much skinner girl in a tube top, with legs for days?), actors I'm happy to see, some interesting newbies, and some fun surprises. What happened after we last saw JR in that closet in Pine Valley? What are they all avoiding talking about? What in the world is Kelly and/or Kitty (Francesca James) doing back in town, only now called Evelyn? How are they going to explain Destiny and Matthew being so much older when Dani and Jack aren't? What happened to bust up Natalie and John? And what about that last-second reveal, you know, the guy in the hoodie whose name I don't want to give away in case you haven't seen it yet?

I admit it. I'm hooked. Thanks, Prospect Park! Thanks, Hulu! It's awfully nice to have my soaps back.

Is there life in ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN?

Deadline is reporting that there may be life in One Life to Live yet. One Life to Live and its sister soap All My Children, both longtime ABC daytime dramas filmed in New York, were axed in 2011, although production company Prospect Park was supposedly trying to put a deal together to bring them both to the internet as web soaps with some of the same actors. All of that fell through, which meant AMC aired for the last time in September 2011, while OLTL bowed out in January 2012. Two of One Life's most famous characters, father and daughter Todd and Starr Manning, have since resurfaced on General Hospital, the lone ABC soap left.

And now, out of the blue, Rich Frank and Jeff Kwatinetz, the guys behind Prospect Park, are back in the news with their soap-operas-on-the-web deal apparently rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva writes, "I hear Frank and Kwatinetz never lost hope, and had been quietly working since the summer on putting their plan back together and had been talking with the guilds, resulting in agreements with SAG-AFTRA and DGA. (The status of talks with WGA is unclear.) I hear there are preliminary discussions with actors from All My Children and One Life To Live to rejoin the revived shows. Prospect Park refused to comment."

Andreeva also notes that this is a good time to revive soap operas, since the four left on TV (The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives and General Hospital) have been going up in the ratings within the last year. Before it was canceled, One Life to Live was routinely beating GH in the ratings (and it was a much better show than GH, as well.)

Time will tell whether there's anything in these new rumors. Wary viewers know better than to trust Prospect Park after the last time. But still... Hope springs eternal. And that last (Hope Springs Eternal) just happens to be the name I made up for a soap opera I put in a romance novel way back in the 80s. My fictional daytime drama was loosely based on Santa Barbara, my fave at the time. But, you know, if the soaps really do come back strong and somebody needs a name for a new one... I still think Hope Springs Eternal has possibilities.