Dion

You're welcome! Oh I forgot to mention that Obrecht had Dante and Lulu's last embryo that she held hostage - hmm maybe not the best word, perhaps held as leverage is better - to get Dante and Lulu to drop charges against her and Britt. I think Dante and Lulu eventually found out the embryo wasn't viable just before Charlotte was revealed to be Lulu and Valentin's, making Lulu all the more determined to get custody of Charlotte.

There was a period (pun not intended!) when much of the show revolved around the fate of Lulu's eggs. And the woman who carried Rocco was none other than Britt! Basically Lulu found out she couldn't carry a child to term, so Maxie offered to be her surrogate mother. Maxie got pregnant with Lulu and Dante's embryo, then promptly miscarried (though it probably would have been more realistic if they had said the implantation had failed). Maxie then jumped into bed with Spinelli and got pregnant again, but didn't have the heart to tell Lulu and Dante that she was not pregnant with their child so kept up the ruse that she was still acting as their surrogate. While this was all going on, Lulu was kidnapped by Helena and had some of her eggs harvested, this eventually led to Charlotte's conception and birth via Claudette. Maxie eventually gave birth to Georgie and everyone found out the truth. A custody battle followed between Dante and Lulu, Maxie and Spinelli (separately) with the result being Spinelli ending up with custody and Maxie being forbidden to see Georgie for a time. Meanwhile Britt (who had been Maxie's OB/GYN and had known the truth about Georgie all along) was claiming she was pregnant with Patrick's baby and then switched to claiming that Brad was the father after it came out that Patrick wasn't. Eventually it was revealed that her mother had convinced her to take one of Dante and Lulu's embryos and implant it in herself to trap Patrick. I think it was Liz who eventually exposed this and Dante and Lulu got custody of their son Rocco.

She went off to help the orphans in Vietnam following her miscarriage in 1968, divorced Steve shortly after her return, suffered through two disastrous marriages to Tom Baldwin and Jim Hobart and didn't re-marry Steve until 1976 (of course that marriage turned out to be invalid since Tom Baldwin was still alive so Audrey and Steve had to marry for the third time in 1977). Oh just remembered that apparently Steve and Audrey did basically get back together in 1971 but her lies over "Baby Steve" (Tom Hardy) doomed that reunion.

As of these summaries I think Steve and Audrey have been trying for a baby for over a year; you can really sense the slow destruction of their marriage that would eventually lead to their divorce and eight years apart. You also have Audrey involved in Phil and Jessie's problems which from one of the 1967 episodes that I've seen is going to lead to something very shortly...

I think I was only 8 when it aired in New Zealand but I do seem to recall one particularly egregious dream sequence where Ashley was in the hospital holding a baby in her arms and the nurse came and snatched the baby off her saying words to the effect of "This is not your baby, you had an abortion!" with the most utter contempt that I don't think I've ever seen matched by a background character on a soap ever since.

Yeah, we'd all be forgiven for thinking Angie and Eddie left town immediately after kidnapping their child from the adoptive parents as that's what other sources seem to indicate but no it turns out they stayed on for months afterwards with Eddie battling addiction. And little Nancy Brewer survived for at least six weeks after birth.

True. I do actually think that GH unwittingly has the least messed up timeline, partly due to not retaining many of its vets and not using certain legacy characters and partly because of a lack of what I like to call compound SORASing - i.e SORASed characters on GH tend not to have kids straight away, meaning the generational gaps are at least for the most part still plausible (for example, AJ, Michael and Wiley are all roughly two decades apart, meaning Monica is still plausible as Wiley's great-grandmother). Where GH does seem to fall down though is in not taking account of events in relativity to one another, like the situation we have now with Willow and Nelle being twins makes Willow older than Michael because of all the things previously established with Nelle and Carly.

I think Jimmy-Lee and Celia - or Grant and Celia, depending on which you liked better - from General Hospital probably qualify. There was a love triangle storyline that lasted more than two years with the result being Jimmy-Lee winning Celia and Grant eventually leaving town. Then a few months later Jimmy-Lee and Celia split up and Celia left town. Eventually Jimmy-Lee ended up with Charity and left town less than a year after Celia.

Good question! I know the reason he wasn't killed was because he had information about Lorenzo's compound which Sonny needed after Lorenzo kidnapped Carly from the panic room and then I think Jason couldn't leave him to die at the compound because Lorenzo had now kidnapped Courtney. And then Scotty offered to drop the charges if Ric agreed to help him set Sonny up for something. Ric eventually managed to become District Attorney.

I guess that's how Ken was finally written out. I believe John Prentice had been appearing since 1964 but this storyline seems to mark the beginning of his increased prominence. Thanks @depboy

Eddie's developing sleeping pill addiction after giving up drinking seems like an interesting and logical development for the character. I do wonder though how quickly it will all be wrapped up so that Eddie and Angie get their "happy ending". The events described here do make the speculation that Angie and Eddie eventually divorced offscreen in the years prior to Angie's cameo in 1993 plausible though as Eddie doesn't seem to treat her very well.

Ooh I had no idea Ken Martin was still on the show at this point. Like the GH wiki, I assumed he and Cynthia left in 1964. Though it makes sense he'd be still around since it appears he had a crossover episode onto The Young Marrieds. Thanks @depboy

yup that's basically the reason lol

Yeah that makes sense. I have a feeling the divorce was called off or nullified once Phil found out about the baby (Nancy), but then of course they finally divorced after Nancy died. I think it's possible Audrey and Tom Baldwin may have had the same interlocutory decree a few years later, hence necessitating Audrey's scheme to hide their son (who later became Tom Hardy). I'm not certain but I beleive the existence of a child would give grounds for such a degree to be nullified. Some other thoughts, it's interesting that Audrey seems to have set her sights on having a child as early as 1965. The storyline doesn't play out fully until 1968, but I guess we'll eventually see Audrey come to suspect that Steve may have a problem and go down the artificial insemination route, leading to her miscarriage and divorce from Steve. And thanks for the summaries

Yeah we're gonna get months of Trina acting like she was Rory's widow aren't we

I don't know, but they casted 5 out of 6 of their children for this appearance. so that does bode well. Just some history, Lucas was born at the end of 2000 (can't remember if it was the actual finale or the episode before, but it was around the time Chris returned) and is Nick's son with Ange (who was terminally ill and died in early 2001). Tina-Anne (not seen this time) was born in the 3000th episode in 2004, the next three (Celica, Silvia and Ranger if I have the order right) were first mentioned during Nick and Waverley's return for the volcanic eruption in 2017 (not by name, just that they had since had "three other children") and Camry is the child Waverley discovered she was pregnant with during that guest appearance. I missed that Radio New Zealand (RNZ). I'm not sure why it would specifically have an effect though since Shortland Street isn't like EastEnders where that show is directly made by the BBC studios.

I'm a bit miffed they had Waverley being the one responsible for accidentally starting the fire but Claire Chitham knocked it out of the park as usual, particularly in her scene with Maeve. With many of the major locations destroyed by fire we can expect a dramatic refresh of the sets in the new year

Worst thing the show ever did IMO

That's true, especially in Jessie's case. Although it should be noted that both Audrey and Diana's childcare arrangements eventually ended up playing a huge role in their storylines lol. That said, I do think it was particularly cruel to kill off Jane's daughter just as a precursor to Jane's exit.

I hinted at that above when I said that Port Charles had some of the worst infant and child mortality rates in the 60s and 70s. I mean up until Gloria Monty took over... Jessie had a miscarriage in '64 Chuck died in '65 Jessie's daughter Nancy died in '66 Audrey had a miscarriage in '68 Diana's son Tracy died in '72 Lesley had a child that died as part of her backstory Jane's daughter Joanne died in '75 Lesley had a miscarriage in '77 Diana's daughter Martha was killed in a hurricane in '77 In the end only Angie's child,Tom Hardy and Augusta McLeod's child survived.

Wait...Lee had a (biological) son? I suppose he probably died. Port Charles - or rather "the unnamed city where General Hospital is set" as it was back then - had some of the worst infant and child mortality rates back in the 60s and 70s. Speaking of Phil....

The lighting and the overall look of the show did dramatically improve in the immediate lead up to going HD in early 2009 though (about one or two weeks before the actual switchover). It was quite dreary beforehand but suddenly brightened up. Which brings me to what I'm thankful for, I quite enjoyed most of 2009, even the first run of Franco. I particularly liked the carnival which ended with a drugged Edward driving into everyone. After Sonny shot Dante - which was a great moment - the show slowly lost its appeal.

**Not to be confused with Sarah Horton whom the thread was about a few days back That said, I'm not sure she had anything to do with Sami/Austin/Carrie/Lucas so perhaps this is a more candid shot of the younger cast posing together rather than a promo for a particular storyline?

I think Carrie was supposed to be slightly older (at least in 1990) because I remember them being candystripers together in the hospital and being interested in the same boy, Chad. And I distinctly remember Sarah saying to Chad that he was probably more interested in Carrie because Carrie was older. But then of course they wrote out Carrie (and Chad), recast Sarah with an older actress (which kind of gave Sarah a bit of a bump in age too, though she was still a teen) and tried to pair her with Michael Easton's Tanner before writing her out.

No need really. They've totally just glossed over 2006 Holly. Plus they already did that with Anna and Alex just recently.