In more stunning daytime drama news, SOD is reporting that All My Children will be heightening the stakes for the character of Dixie, played by two-time Daytime Emmy winner Cady McClain.  In fact, the storyline will reach such a crescendo, that McClain will be written off AMC as a result! 

Does this mean they are killing off the character?  According to AMC’s exec producer, Julie Hanan Carruthers, the answer to that is yes! 

We find that quite odd as it’s something they refrained from doing two or three times before when McClain chose to leave the show to pursue other endeavors.  This time, it’s not McClain’s choice to leave. It’s the show’s and it’s going to happen by the end of the month!  But AMC’s EP is not giving anything else away.  "I want viewers to have the experience of how it plays out,” Carruthers tells SOD.  “It’s very heightened stakes. It’s one of the strongest weeks we’ve ever done."

After a successful four-year stint as Rosanna on As the World Turns, McClain returned to All My Children with much fanfare in December of 2005.  ABC Daytime even provided blog space for McClain to share behind the scenes tales out of school with the fans. 

But the storyline was never quite right, in our humble opinion.  Believed killed in a car accident in France, Dixie was first revealed to have stayed away from her loves and family on purpose. It was then explained that the reason for her absence had to do with some horrible secret.  When she was finally found out by Tad, we felt his glee at her being alive, and then his anger at her staying away on purpose. 

We finally all learn her deep secret -- that she allowed an unscrupulous fertility specialist, Dr. Greg Madden, to take her newborn baby girl – Kate -- away at birth.  She immediately changed her mind and wanted her baby back, but Madden had already given the child to other parents.  Dixie traveled the world to track Madden down and low and behold learns he’s living in Pine Valley. 

Upon her return to town, instead of reaching out to her son JR and former husband and love of her life, Tad, Dixie instead tried to break up Zach’s marriage to Kendall, claiming to have fallen in love with Zach.  Dixie’s return also ultimately resulted in Tad committing murder.  All this was quite against character for both Tad and Dixie and they have still not reconnected enough romantically to satisfy long time TadNDixie fans.

But why, after wooing McClain away from ATWT, is AMC now killing her off?  Blame it on ABC daytime and those darn focus groups -- at least that's what fans are thinking.  Internet message board posts are conjecturing that AMC headwriter,  Megan McTavish, who has traditionally been a staunch supporter of the Tad and Dixie pairing and has written some amazing scenes for them, is probably relying on focus group results that may say fans want more of Krystal and Babe.  But we think that's a stretch.  The feedback we get from fans is that they are so tired of and bored with the "Babe and Krystal show." Yet, it does seem like fans are wise to ABC Daytime's usual tactics for decision making.

One particular message board post written by a fan pretending to be speaking for McTavish says in gest:  “We received our focus group feedback and realized that more fans want to see Babe and Krystal storylines, so we had to let someone go. At this time, it seems most plausable to kill off Dixie and open the door for a Krystal, Tad, Kate, and baby storyline. Fabulous things are on the horizion at AMC," she continues.  "We do wish Cady the best."

So does Soapdom.  At press time, McClain was unavailable for comment.

Watch for SOD’s cover story next week where the show producers and head writer share a bit more about their decision to kill off Dixie.  

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