Sometimes I’m not sure if planning is involved at all when it comes to daytime duos. Did they really think that AMC’s David and Anna were right for each other from the start? I don’t think so. I’m not even sure that Anna was planned from the start. She only seemed to pop back up after twin sis Alex’s charm was wearing thin. Or maybe it was just that Alex showed amazing chemistry with Dimitri, and his charm was wearing thin.

Whatever the reason they put David and Anna together, you have to look at them on paper and figure this is not exactly a recipe for success as a daytime couple. Recycled spy + arrogant doctor = what?

For the distaff side, you take one extremely popular heroine who was an icon of the 80’s, stick her on a different show on the same network, pretend she didn’t really die in that yacht explosion, but instead she washed up somewhere and she’s been living in a fishing shack for the past ten years, and then you try her out hither and yon in your soap landscape.

Not that I exactly remember who was hither and who was yon. You’ll have to forgive me. It’s the twinny-twin-twin thing. I just can’t keep track of which guys Alex was with and which ones Anna, um, dated. When the two characters first intersected, Finola Hughes did a really dandy job of delineating which was which between snappy doc Alex and vague and delicate Anna, but as Anna started to regain her vim and vigor, I really lost track. So, for example, I remember this really silly proposal — or maybe even a wedding — with Edmund romancing one or the other and people in fairy outfits and I think that was Anna. But I certainly wouldn’t bet my kingdom on it.

Which was part of the problem. Not me betting my kingdom. The Land O’ Hearts is quite lovely, thanks, and I’m not parting with it. No, I’m talking about Alex and the fact that she sort of got lost. It’s as if All My Kids decided to spray around one of David’s special memory-zapping drugs so we would all conveniently forget there ever was an Alex. Because otherwise, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of difference between the smart and feisty twin Devane sisters, is there?

I do recall that Alex had a real antipathy for David. At least I think that was Alex. Whereas Anna is much more kindly disposed toward the Wayward Dr. Hayward. If you can call all that steamy stuff, with two beautiful bodies tangled in sheets slick with their intermingled sweat, kindness. Whew. To paraphrase Mae West, baby, kindness had nothing to do with it.

Who knew it could work out so well or with such incredible, combustible heat? We’ve got the Return of Anna the Blown-up Superspy on one side, and David the egomaniac, punch-spiking heart surgeon on the other. It shouldn’t work. And yet it does.

David and Anna do have a few things going for them. After all, they each had murderous international crime czar mothers. How many people can say that? Plus they’re both played by charismatic, intelligent actors who play every scene, every syllable, with fire and conviction. They’ve created complex, mature, intriguing people, with enough layers to make baklava look flat.

Let’s be honest — it also doesn’t hurt that Vincent Irizarry and Finola Hughes are awfully attractive. Both have shown chemistry with just about every partner they’ve been paired with over a whole lot of years and they know how to make the work shine. And bubble. And boil. And steam up the windows.

Can I understand why a smart woman like Anna would fall for a twisted ego-driven jerk like David Hayward? Call me shallow, but of course I can! He’s played by Vincent Irizarry!  Could I be married to Dr. David in real life? Heaven forefend! But do I lust after him the way he’s played on All My Children? Oh, yeah. And that’s why I have no compunction about giving Anna this song:

Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news
I’ve got a bad case of loving you.
No Libidizone’s gonna kill my ill
I’ve got a bad case of loving you.

A pretty face can’t heal a broken heart
I learned that, David, from the start.
Yeah, you’re cute, but your ego’s huge.
And you can be one total stooge.