Dion

I think the best time for Brenda to rock up would be just before Sonny makes it back to Port Charles, perhaps something Deception related as a favour to Brook Lynn and Lucy. We also get the obligatory visit from Brenda to Sonny's grave. Then Sonny returns and it plays out from there. I'm happy for it to go either way, either Sonny remembers Brenda and not Carly or Sonny remembers neither and falls in love with Brenda all over again.

It'd be quite interesting if cousin Alistair was a brought back as the show's next big bad and was the one behind Holly's disappearance.

He went to visit Mike's grave on July 8

I believe Bobbie woke up to herself a bit when one of her schemes to come in between Laura and Scotty caused Laura such emotional distress that Laura took off and got into a serious car accident. Bobbie stopped pursuing Scott and got into a relationship with Roy, only to have her past as prostitute exposed shortly afterwards. Roy didn't take it well and got drunk and caused a scene at the disco on the same night as Luke raped Laura; as a result Roy was one of the suspects after Laura was found in the park. Roy was later "killed" after taking Luke's place during the botched hit which left Bobbie alone. Over the next year or so she mainly concentrated on her nursing work and being a supporting player in Luke and Laura's storylines and had definitely matured a lot by the time Noah Drake came to work at GH.

Perhaps because Reilly wrote Jack Deveraux out in 1993 (before recasting him the following year); killed him off in 2003 - only to bring him back for him to be presumed dead twice more during Reilly's second stint.

They did both. Dubai and Abu Dhabi in a trip in 2014, Monte Carlo in 2017.

When was the last big location shoot GH did? Puerto Rico was obviously the huge one of the 90s and then I think there were smaller ones (Malibu for Jax and Brenda)...anything else?

I think somebody else here (apologies for not remembering who) said Guza ditched it when he came back in 1997.

Stavros killed Chloe. Stefan killed Summer whilst trying to kill Emily.

yeah on the night of Peggy's murder, Audrey came home with Tommy in an agitated state and hid a gun in her toilet tank. I'm not sure if it may have been the actual murder weapon or if it may have been Audrey's own gun and the writers were just setting up a red herring, as they do. yes, she seems to have been the favorite of the Dobsons but once they left Diana was relegated to secondary status and Lesley took over as the female lead.

Yeah it was the kinda rewrite that I suppose could have happened off-screen and I think you are right that Monica and Rick did have a moment or two; Alan's jealousy certainly did flare up when Rick returned. But the actual affair part itself was never mentioned til the storyline where Lulu and Dillon started looking for Rick's killer.

yeah that seems about right. After Audrey's trial, the show managed to generate a bit of interest with Phil, Diana and Peter; once Phil was murdered and the whodunit wrapped up, the already squeaky wheels just fell right off. Regarding Audrey: the video posted by @Vee (where Audrey tells Liz about her rape) briefly mentions the story with Tom Hardy. Basically Tom Baldwin (Audrey's second husband, Lee Baldwin's brother) had raped Audrey. Audrey fell pregnant and fled town (Rachel Ames was pregnant and needed bed rest at the time so this was a maternity leave). Audrey later came back claiming that the child, Tom, had died (very similar to the current situation with Maxie). However Tom was with a nanny, Peggy Nelson. Peggy began blackmailing Audrey and was later murdered. Audrey was put on trial for the crime, but it turned out Peggy's ex husband was the culprit.

It was a rewrite pretty much designed to give Alan and Monica stronger motives for killing Rick.

You're along the right lines but it's more the perception than reality. The problem is that Carly stepped up during the meeting when Jason was unavailable and so seemingly took control of the Corinthos organization. With Jason back, the other families now have the perception that there is a power struggle when in fact that is not the case. Carly and Jason remain incredibly loyal to each other and Carly has agreed to step aside. However the other families expect Jason to get rid of Carly since to them she is a potential rival and if he doesn't they'll erroneously conclude that the Corinthos organization is vulnerable and start to attack. Carly and Jason can still fend off these attacks quite easily, but these attacks are not good for business and may also lead to their families being targeted. So now the idea is for them to get married so that the other families will view them as a team rather than potential rivals.

The bulk of the Lisa/Lana story happened while Heather was out of Port Charles (does anyone know if this was when Heather was recast the first time?), selling Steven Lars through intermediaries to Peter and Diana. Jeff found Heather towards the end of 1977, who told him the bogus story that Steven Lars had died. Heather later returned to Port Charles; Lana got jealous and eventually tried to kill Heather by forcing her out of a window at knife-point, but Peter and Jeff saved Heather and Lana was committed to a mental hospital. https://vintage70ssoaprecaps.tumblr.com/post/138674539174/general-hospital-week-of-january-30-february-3 https://vintage70ssoaprecaps.tumblr.com/archive/2016/2/tagged/gh - has recaps from this period (filtered to the posting date of January 2016 to save everyone from having to scroll back through)

Pretty much, yes. Six weeks was pretty much the rule for a storyline to run back in the 90s and that length of time is still common today. The pacing is actually pretty similar on Neighbours and Home and Away but their storylines tend to be a bit less extreme so it's less noticeable.

Yeah I've complained about the pacing on these forums before. As an example, in 2019 the King family burned through years of storylines - dementia, suicide, rape, infanticide (in backstory), pyromania, abortion, near incest, temporary paralysis - in their first six or seven months on the show.

I think the people he saved on the roof of GH were Karen and a suicidal patient. That was in February '94 and the bus crash was in May.

When I was about 6 I used to tell my mum that if she ever gave me a sister then I wanted her to be called Marlena lol!

Yes I believe Emma Samms lives in England, somewhere in the Cotswolds. She was actually supposed to come back to GH for a guest stint last year but that all got delayed by COVID. Fortunately Emma had recovered enough to be able to film a cameo remotely that showed Holly in captivity. Robert and the rest of Port Charles currently believe that Holly is dead; unwittingly the writers have actually set up a very plausible explanation for Holly not being at Sean's memorial.

Well I was almost right...she's playing the Chloe Jennings imposter lol

The real Nurse Chloe Jennings. And then Peter sent Kimberly J Brown's character over to Maxie as an imposter.

Yeah, the hypnotism is a bit silly but overall I enjoyed her return. Nicole and Maeve did get married off pretty quickly but that's generally normal for this show. They work well together. Leanne and Rosalyn have mad chemistry and I hope we see more of them.

I don't know about Eddie but it certainly looks that way. Marley (though with the kiwi accent it does kinda sound like they are saying Miley sometimes) was introduced last year when his drunken father (with Marley in the car) crashed into Maeve and Nicole after their wedding. Marley's dad died and Drew and Harper (who'd recently found out that Drew had a very low sperm count and thus was unlikely to father more children) fell in love with him and were able to foster him. Talia is Marley's mum who is in prison (for drugs I think). We haven't seen her yet.