When Gary Tomlin became Executive Producer of "One Life to Live" in January 2001, his familiarity with the series and its characters – from his stint as director from 1992 to 1995 – "manifested itself in ... the utilization of the show's rich history." At the time he noted that the return of Allison Perkins "invigorates the Viki storyline, and kidnapped Jessica, so there's a history there." Tomlin explained how then-Head Writers Christopher Whitesell and Lorraine Broderick had thought, "OK, where can we do something where we do bring back that history but also explore something that's going to affect the future of this show?" He added that "One Life to Live" had been "so fortunate to get Barbara Garrick, who played the role originally, because we used those flashbacks from 13, 14 years ago. It's a treat for the audience that has invested in the show for that long, and the audience that doesn't know the story and gets to see what happened and realize, 'Oh my god, this is real. This isn't something they're making up.'"