For months, the news was out that Gina Tognoni was coming back to One Life To Live. This of course was a hellava big deal because Gina is a two time Emmy Award winner. Getting Gina to sign with One Life To Live was heralded as some type of magnificent coup, and for months the anticipation of her arrival was promoted as the “Cramer Women Story”. Frank Valentini was able to bring Laura Bonarrigo, and Melissa Fumero, Cassie and Adrianna, back for this AMAZING story. One internet site reported: Get ready One Life to Live fans. The Cramer Women are back this February and it’s going to be hot! Daytime Confidential did a podcast with all of the Cramer Women, prompting long time viewers to stay tune and enticing newer viewers to tune in.
It was all a hoax folks!
The Big Cramer story was introduced with Adrianna and Kelly sitting at a table, talking to each other about what had been going on in Llanview. The conversation offered no revelatory information. I will admit that the audience knew something that Adrianna and Kelly didn’t know and that left them vulnerable. So when a very handsome stranger came over and introduced himself, he had Mitch’s minion written all over him. Once Adrianna left with him, there was the threat that she might be in eminent danger. This point was made more compelling when Cassie called Kelly and warned her to be on the look-out for suspicious strangers. Props to Carlivatti for introducing that element of suspense into the story. It turns out the Frenchman was a red herring.
So, here you have Kelly and Adrianna together for the most part, only to be separated because Adrianna wanted to indulge herself with a well made French dessert. Then Cassie phoned Kelly from Atlanta, while Dorian sat in a police station and Blair sat on Todd’s bed. When the women finally came together, with hugs, suspicious stares, tears and bitchy snipes, they received the dreaded news that a Cramer woman was indeed dead. Melinda Cramer died of a supposed heart attack, but Dorian was sure that Mitch was behind it.
Here is the problem. Nobody gives a damn about a character whom they almost forgot existed, and there are those who never even heard of Melinda. But she is Kelly’s mom so that is a big deal for Kelly even though she barely knew her mother and the audience only saw the two of them interact once. New viewers know nothing of her and spend much of their online time asking who in the hell she is. I can only imagine offline viewers are scratching their heads, wondering who Melinda Cramer was.
So, there you have it, the Big Cramer Story. People were really excited; they were ready to invest in One Life To Live as it reached back into its history to take one giant leap into the future. Instead, the writers and producers have once again given the audience another colossal chain yank.
