Articles and Interviews: 2006

One Life's Ladies Have Two Lives to Live (TVGuide.com 1/24/06)
by Daniel R. Coleridge

If you're a fan of ABC's One Life to Live, you're probably wigged out about all the multiple-personality melodrama happening right now. Antonio and Nash are both in love with "Tessica," the lovely loon-a-chick with two identities: Jessica and Tess. And it's like mother, like daughter. Llanview matriarch Viki has been battling her own alter ego, Niki Smith, since the 1960s! Here, OLTL head writer Dena Higley sits on TVGuide.com's couch to analyze soap-opera psychology.


TVGuide.com: Viki was diagnosed with DID (dissociative identity disorder) and supposedly underwent therapy to "reintegrate" her personalities. Then she had one difficult conversation with her rival, Dorian, and "Niki" popped right out of her subconscious mind. Huh?
Dena Higley: I didn't see the point of doing the Jessica/Tess story if we didn't make it about a mother's love. Viki, who has worked so hard to become one whole person, willingly split herself in half again. Because of Viki's past, that was the worst thing that could be asked of her. It's basically like walking back into the bowels of hell in order to heal her daughter. What is a mother willing to do for her child? That's the emphasis of this story, not the [plot] device or how easy or hard it was to get Niki out.

TVGuide.com: OK. Back in the '90s, Viki was revealed to have a legion of alters inside of her. Will you resurrect Jean Randolph, Tori, Tommy, et. al.?
Higley: Right now I have no plans to bring out all of the others. I do want to do service to the fact that Viki was integrated to a certain extent. To fragment her that much would be a disservice to that backstory. But because Niki Smith was Viki's original [alternate] personality for so many years, all the way back to the beginning of the show, I didn't feel strongly [against] bringing her back. Niki is such a legacy character.

TVGuide.com: I could go either way on this argument. The other alters were fun, too!
Higley: But to fragment Viki that much... It doesn't serve any story point, as much as I enjoy the fact that the show did that, and as fun as it is to watch Erika Slezak be such a brilliant actress. I may change my mind later, but at this point, I have no plans to do that.

TVGuide.com: Jess' life is a mess because she could be pregnant by either one of her BFs. How long will it be until she integrates herself?
Higley: It would be well past the baby being born, which will be during May sweeps. So [we're playing Jess and Tess] all the way to December.

TVGuide.com: Wow! That's a relief to the many fans who like Bree Williamson as Tess more than Jessica. Will Tess have to go away in the end?
Higley: There's always a way. I would never give up a legacy character like Jessica Buchanan. At the same time, Tess is my creation. How could I kill my creation? [Laughs] There are definitely plans in the works to teeter-totter a balance between them.

TVGuide.com: Perhaps Tess will occasionally pop out of Jess, like Niki emerges from Viki?
Higley: I think we can do better than that.

TVGuide.com: Better?
Higley: [Slyly] I think so.

TVGuide.com: Tease!