By now, it should be a shock to no one that the near unanimous consensus among most of us who watch All My Children here at Daytime Confidential, the casting of Jamie Luner as Liza Colby Chandler has been a huge bust as of this writing. We know that opinion could change in the future with a knockout performance by Luner, an engaging storyline for the character, or a relationship of any kind that could revitalize Liza and make us see her with new eyes. Unfortunately, none of those three things have happened yet.
The collective criticism of this "new" Liza has centered mostly around the (mis)casting of Ms. Luner, an actress who has her fair share of fans from her days on Melrose Place, Savannah and other shows. On AMC, however, Ms. Luner is delivering the kind of performance that might described as, if I may be permitted to coin a phrase, pseudo-catatonic. Sure, some of the dialogue sounds a little like what Liza might say, but not after three tablespoons of Nyquil.
As a result, at first I was convinced that the problem with Liza was mostly the fault of the actress. That opinion changed with a couple of scenes that aired on Monday's episode that revealed the fundamental reason this character isn't working is because of head writer Chuck Pratt's fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of Liza. READ MORE
