ESPRIT LIBRE // Press Archive

Miss: What OLTL 'DID' to Jessica is a 'DON'T!' (Soap Opera Weekly 4/25/06)

While One Life to Live's Tess and Nash attempted to suffocate her molester, viewers choked on this dubious storyline.

Jessica was born in 1986 and rapidly aged, but according to OLTL's fuzzy math, she was victimized by a child pornographer during an on-screen Niki emergence around 1985. Getting molested before you're even born -- gee, that's a new one for soaps. But even if one of Viki's Niki fits had coincided with Jessica-at-5, why would boozy, trampy Niki drag a kid out to a bar? It would cramp her style!

Although Jerry verDorin (Clint) and Erika Slezak (Viki) gave powerhouse performances, and alter Tess gave "oomph" to Jessica recast Bree Williamson, the pacing of the molestation reveal awas also tough to stomach. Tess clutched her head and fled Llanview a dozen times. Using the mirror-on-the-wall trick just so Jess/Tess and Niki/Viki could chat got old quickly. And the supposed "love quadrangle" in the middle of it all was anything but loving: Nash came off as creepy for bedding a pregnant personality fragment, and Antonio flat-out disappeared without explanation.

If the love of Jessica's life didn't care about the brutality of her secret, how could viewers? -- MB