Monday, April 15, 2013

The Magic of (Online) Television

I saw Dr. Joe Martin today. Well, okay, I saw Ray MacDonnell, the actor who has played Dr. Joe Martin on All My Children since I was a kid watching the show with my mom. And though I work with actors every day, in that moment, I got the charge of being in an exciting place. The charge I got 25 years ago when I walked into One Life to Live fresh out of college. The charge I get when I see online promos for this TOLN venture that I'm a part of. I'm just doing my job, not so different from all the people I see go through Grand Central each day, but as part of my job, I get to see Dr. Joe Martin.
 

I've been working in television for a long time. You might think that the excitement would be long gone. Not really. There are definitely actors I know as friends and scenic tricks I see right through. But it's still the "magic of television" feeling for me when I see stage crew moving a prop tree. It's still exhilarating when I see someone I watched as a child or someone who's on a show my kids watch. And, let's face it, the shows you watch wouldn't be nearly as exciting if the people making them didn't pour a whole lot of genuine emotion and excitement into them.
 

On April 29th, just two weeks from today, I (and, I hope, many other people) will get to watch new episodes of One Life to Live and All My Children--shows that, a year ago, were pronounced dead--online. And though I've been right there as we've made them, I suspect I will still be on the edge of my seat. Because that's what the magic of television is all about.

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