Dion

Thanks, that's another character I now know the name of I'll watch out for that. Hopefully it is in the playlist. Yes, Laura always seemed to be a bit friendless when I watching in the 90s. Even Monica, who would have been Laura's oldest friend, stayed in her own storylines (and their friendship cooled after Monica's affair with Rick anyway). At least in current episodes, Laura has built strong friendships with Curtis and *surprise surprise* Carly. I remember asking my friend once why Laura wouldn't tell Amy that Stefan was blackmailing her to leave town (When Genie Francis was going off on that long maternity leave) and she explained to me that Amy would probably blab to everyone in town! And in the 1981 episodes the first thing Amy does after Lesley gives her a stern telling off for gossiping is to gossip about Laura and Susan to half the disco!

Thanks! it's hard to keep track of all the guest characters introduced on the Titan lol. There's soooo many! Oh and I have been here all along; just had a minor boradband internet issue back in February which meant I stopped watching the clips initially only for a few days but for some reason (not COVID related lol) never resumed until the other day when I noticed some of the episodes had been deleted from the playlist.

Late July 1981 Slick drove Rick and Lesley to several places around Port Charles, humorously explaining to them what he knew about the Ice Princess caper (and providing a recap for the audience). Rick and Lesley eventually confronted Edward at the Q mansion. Edward stonewalled them. After Rick and Lesley left, Alan who had overheard, questioned Edward about Laura. Edward shut Alan up by bringing up the subject of Alan’s child. Rick and Lesley updated Amy on some of what was going on with Laura. Amy then told Rick and Lesley about Susan’s pregnancy. Lesley explained that she and Rick already knew about it and Lesley gave Amy a tongue lashing for gossiping. This did not deter Amy, as she later told Bryan, Claudia, Kathy and Zach about Susan’s pregnancy at the Disco. Monica’s PI, Larry Corrigan, overheard and beckoned Kathy to join him and they decided to inform Monica. Kathy rang Monica and passed the phone to Corrigan who broke the news to Monica. Monica was devastated. Luke, Laura and Robert managed to launder their clothes and waited in the sauna where one of the yacht’s guests joined them and said it was great that the staff are allowed to use the facilities. Burt learned one of his officers, officer Woods, recognised Heather as the woman he saw on the night that Diana Taylor was murdered. Burt sent Officer Woods to Kelly’s to confirm that Heather was the woman he saw. Meanwhile, Heather was alarmed to learn that Sarah was recovering and the she would be allowed to be out on day release. Noah put his foot in it when he said that it was good that Toby had recovered and was being released (genuinely meaning that he was happy that Toby had recovered and forgetting that Toby would be sent back to prison). Toby asked Noah if there was anything he could do to keep him at the hospital but Noah was unable to help. Some partial and missing episodes follow, mainly focussing on the Ice Princess and Hutch storylines. Rose accompanied Mike (who had broken his leg) to some sort of hydrotherapy session. Rose was concerned when she saw that Hutch was also there, undergoing the same therapy. Joe later arrived and spoke to Rose after speaking to Hutch. Rose was unforgiving as Hutch was in the organisation that killer her husband, Joe’s father. Gail later suggested that Rose volunteer at the hospital and Rose accepted the offer but finished the scene glaring at Hutch. Alex is upset by Tiffany’s presence on the Titan but Tony explains that she is with Victor and that Mikkos allowed Tiffany’s presence. The two were packing because Mikkos had requested that Alex and Tony join him at the island in advance of the others. Alex wanted to know why the plans had changed but Tony and Victor wouldn’t tell her. Meanwhile, Luke, Laura and Robert raided the fridge for food. Later, Laura snuck on deck while the guests were having a party. Luke and Robert attempted to tap into the yacht’s communications. When Laura returned, they were mystified to hear a seaplane headed for the boat. Robert, successful in tapping into the yacht's communication lines, learned that Alex and Tony had departed the Titan for the island; that Victor has one of the copies of the formula; and that the Cassadines do not trust Max, one of the guests who apparently controls five countries in the third world. A crewman arrives and Robert is forced to knock him out. Missing from the partial episodes was a confrontation between Stacy and Bobbie over the hospital’s new nurses’ jumpsuit uniform. Later, Anne gave Bobbie some advice on how handle Stacy's obvious pursuit of Noah, suggesting that she ignore her. Gail suggested Rick and Lesley seek Lee’s help in talking to the commissioner. Gail was hopeful that this would thaw relations between the Webbers and the Baldwins (they’ve been estranged for over a year). Lee was happy to help but was left mystified when he called the commissioner and the commissioner wouldn’t help. Rick and Lesley eventually manage to meet with the commissioner, but he denies anything is going on. Rick and Lesley later had dinner and mysteriously started speaking German with completely different voices 😜 (JK - this particular episode was cobbled together from several different sources including the German dub). Now that Tony and Alex have departed the Titan, Luke is able to go topside dressed as a crewman since Victor doesn’t know who he is. Summer madness by Kool & the Gang played as Heather removed her blouse (but was still wearing a slip and a dress) and attempted to seduce Joe during a game of Solitaire at Kelly’s. Joe wasn’t having it with her flirty behaviour though and took off upstairs. Heather angrily pushed the cards off the table. Joe returned to his room definitely looking like he needed to take a very cold shower.

After six months I've resumed watching 1981 episodes of General Hospital. I won't be doing detailed summaries as I found doing that to be a bit too much. Sadly in the interim a number of the episodes from the playlist were deleted so we lost about two weeks or so in July, skipping the fallout of James Duvall's murder, O'Reilly's murder and Victor Cassadine's introduction. Some highlights so far: Alexandria finally convinced Emma Lutz to give her the Ice Princess in exchange for a $3k donation made to GH in Emma's name. When Luke, Robert and Slick found out from Emma that Alex had the statue, they headed over to the Q mansion to search the place, upsetting Stella and causing (the unseen) baby AJ to cry from the disturbance (None of the other Qs were home). Meanwhile, Alex relayed the good news to Tony and gave him the statue's copy of the formula. Alex later met with James Duvall at Laura's apartment in an attempt to get him to hand over his copy of the formula. James was suspicious and opened the base of the statue finding the statue's copy missing. James and Alex argue when he realises that she's with Cassadine; she ended up hitting him with the Ice Princess and he was killed instantly. Alex was very upset but managed to compose herself enough to find James' copy of the formula. At the exact same time the fourth of July picnic was being held. Most of Port Charles attended, including the Qs and Jesse (who was out of her nurses uniform). Mike (later Mike Webber) was introduced pretty much as a random kid. Mike and Jeremy won the three legged race. Bobbie ended up having a flashback of the previous picnic when Luke got her to light fireworks for him so he could run off and do something without anyone suspecting. Meanwhile Laura and Slick waited for Alex to show up at the picnic (Alex arranged for Laura to meet her at the picnic, but it was a ruse to ensure her meeting with Duvall would not be interrupted. When Alex didn't show, Laura gave Slick the slip and went off to her apartment. When she arrived she found the door ajar... We then unfortunately skip all the parts where Laura finds the body, is triggered and finally tells Luke about what happened with David Hamilton. The playlist picks up with Robert, Luke and Laura already on the yacht. Hutch and Toby recovered from poisoning at GH. During the missing episodes, The GH staff (except for Amy - who pointed out that Hutch was a hitman who'd been after Luke and Laura - and Dan) had apparently become quite fond of the two cons. Dan and the hospital board were not happy about their presence in the hospital and Dan tried to convince Steve to release Toby since he was sufficiently recovered. Audrey strongly came into bat for Toby and pleaded that he couldn't be sent back to prison while his life was in danger. However Steve felt he had no choice but to release him. Lee met with an old friend to discuss Hutch's case. Meanwhile Gail was showing Zach, a new intern, around the hospital. Zach was interested in Nurse Stacy (but I think Stacy is still interested in Noah). Susan has fled town and Alan has finally told Edward that she is pregnant with his baby. While Edward was supportive of Alan having a mistress, he was furious about the pregnancy and declared the child illegitimate. Monica's PI attempted to talk to Alice about Susan, but Alice wouldn't tell him anything. Amy later eavesdropped as an upset Alice declared out loud her feelings that she had failed both Heather and Susan. Amy was most surprised to learn that Susan was pregnant and she quickly crept upstairs before Alice could see her. Heather and Joe grew closer and shared a kiss. Burt organised a line-up but the woman failed to be 100% sure that it was Heather that she saw on the night Diana Taylor was murdered. Anne was upset by Joe and Heather's growing closeness and warned him about Heather yet again. Now that several characters are on the yacht en-route to the island, Victor Cassadine and Tiffany Hill has finally become apart of the cast.

Pretty much lol

Mr Mom's coverage of the Victor/Nikki/Kevin triangle. It's funny how at the end even the kids want to know who the father of Nikki's baby (Victoria) is "Kevin's a skunk!" "Kevin gets all the girls!" "Sure got Nikki!"

I've seen a few references over the years to Monica possibly being raped by Alan in early 1980 ( so only a few months after Luke and Laura). I've never seen clips so I don't know the exact circumstances and it seems that if it occurred it was seriously downplayed. Other than that there were a few attempted rapes and rapes mentioned in backstory until Carla Greco (as it happens she's mentioned up thread) was raped by her ex in 1990. But that was during Joseph Hardy's run, several months before Monty returned.

The closest I can think of is the rape storyline involving Matt Clark, Sharon and Amy, though that started long before the summer (Sharon's rape was in December '94) and I think the social issue aspect was downplayed somewhat. I did enjoy the run of social stories that Cricket was involved in post David Kimball; kept her and Danny busy for a few years without having them cheat on each other. Of course that didn't last forever. Danny always seemed to be getting into trouble with drugs lol, often through not fault of his own.

@cassadine1991 Thought I'd reply here rather than in the ATWT thread. Frankie Greco was the brother of Carla Greco (Carla was Colton's new love interest once Felicia had reunited with Frisco and was played by Laura Harring). Frankie was on for at least 6 - 7 months; involved in storylines with Colton, Ned, Decker and Dawn etc. I don't know what happened to him, but it's likely he got axed when Gloria Monty returned.

He was also on The Doctors in the 60s. He wasn't very happy on Soaps though.

Oh interesting! I recognise the TV2 channel idents; this is actually a recording of the New Zealand airing in 1997 (New Zealand was 4 years behind). If you pause at the right time you can also see about one frame of a Shortland Street promo after the opening credits, and one frame of a Friends promo after the end credits. As for the episode itself, the Dru/Lillie Bell confrontation was a long time coming. It took a long time but it was great to see Dru finally vindicated. I've always wondered what the original intention was supposed to be with Danny and Bernadette. Seemed like it was building up to something like what later happened with Phyllis the following year.

I'm thinking that a significant turning point was when she discovered Nathan's affair with Keesha. Olivia completely lost it, though at the time her rage was completely reasonable and justified considering the circumstances. It's probably one of Tonya Lee Williams' most memorable performances, and could have been the beginning of a more complex, stronger and hardened Olivia. Unfortunately, later storylines instead placed Olivia into situations where she acted unreasonably and often out of spite. While her behaviour in later years mostly made sense in the context of Nathan's betrayal, I do think it is a shame that the writers (Alden?) chose to take her in a bitter direction.

@titan1978 I'd stopped watching by this time so I didn't know this myself, but yes, Lucky burned down the house 😔

I seem to recall Lucky (I think it was still GV then) wanted Liz and the kids to move in there with him when they got engaged in 2009 and Lucky surprised her with an engagement party there. Of course, Liz and the kids never moved in there because her affair with Nikolas was exposed; Liz ended up staying in her house in Queens Point near to Patrick and Robin while Lucky got an apartment for himself (Patrick's old apartment). On April 1st, 2010 (the 47th anniversary, but I don't know if it was intentional or not because celebrating the anniversary every year seems to be more of a Valentini thing), Lucky (now JJ) took Maya Ward on a tour around the house. However, we only saw them talk on the exterior porch, we didn't actually see the interior.

Yes, it is a bit frustrating but on the other hand, the fact that Michaela Rooney already works behind the scenes and probably wasn't interested in having Emily recur does lessen the disappointment somewhat. That said, Shortland Street does tend to rely on serial killers, killer epidemics and Big pharma a bit too often. It's possible but I think that it was intended to be a short stint all along. It was filmed shortly after the show resumed production in May but would have been written earlier in the year when COVID didn't yet have such a foothold; as far as I know, the show hasn't had to make wholesale rewrites.

Michaela Rooney's brief return in front of the camera as Dr Emily Devine has now come to an end with the character being killed off as part of the ongoing 'creep' storyline

Shortland Street's 7000th episode screened on July 3rd. The episode itself was low key but there has been some media coverage. https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/tv-guide/121984423/shortland-street-cast-celebrates-7000-episodes - the photos in this one are cropped in an odd way lol https://twitter.com/ShortlandTweet/status/1278909727884238848?s=20

And in a surprise move, Michaela Rooney has reprised the role of Dr. Emily Devine after 23 years. Emily originally appeared from 1995 - 1997. Like many former actors from the show, Michaela Rooney has moved to working behind the scenes on Shortland Street (as a scriptwriter). It will be interesting to see where this goes. I found it interesting that the intruder was planned to be Emily all along, but that Jennifer Ludlam's leave of absence delayed the storyline for a while. https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/tv-guide/121914377/shortland-streets-emily-devine-returns-after-25year-absence hthttps://twitter.com/ShortlandTweet/status/1275692195690012680?s=20tps://twitter.com/ShortlandTweet/status/1275692195690012680?s=20https://twitter.com/ShortlandTweet/status/1275692195690012680?s=20

If you use ctrl + F to search for 'Conn' at the curlyqgirl recaps (Connor and Conner are spelt interchangeably, hence you have to shorten his name to get all the mentions, but unfortunately it will also pick up 'connected' and 'Connecticutt' as well) you'll get an idea of his storylines. http://www.angelfire.com/tv/curlyqgrl/gh/eps/gheps1991.htm http://www.angelfire.com/tv/curlyqgrl/gh/eps/gheps19912.htm http://www.angelfire.com/tv/curlyqgrl/gh/eps/gheps1992.htm http://www.angelfire.com/tv/curlyqgrl/gh/eps/gheps19922.htm Basically the TLDR version is that Connor first appeared June 24, 1991. Mac and Dominique encountered him first and Mac hired him to sing at his new jazz club, The Outback and the now infamous wedding rehearsal scene takes place on June 27, 1991. Connor also became friends with Dominique and Robin. Connor performed again the following month at the opening of The Outback. By September 1991, Felicia had become suspicious of Connor. Connor revealed that he was looking for his father and that Mariah might have some answers since as @AdelaideCate007 mentions, they were connected. Mac, Connor, Felicia and Maxie went to Texas where a friend of Mariah's told them about Connor's father, El Patron. By December 1991, Connor was in trouble with immigration and needed to prove that his father was American. Sean tried to help Connor and was shocked when Connor told Sean that his father was El Patron. Sean revealed to Robert that he was El Patron. This is where the video - "He's my son" - that @victoria foxton posted comes in. Sean saved Connor from deportation by revealing that he was Connor's father. They took blood tests at the beginning of 1992 and the results came back in February. Connor was hesitant to accept Sean as his father (and they still had an uneasy relationship as late as July). Then there was a brief storyline about Connor being hired by Lucy to write a theme song for Deception. By September, Connor had feelings for Dominique but she got ended up getting married to Scott. There is no further mention of Connor in these recaps after October 22, 1992.

It's weird reading about a pre-Monty spy storyline on GH. It does feel very Dobson-ish though. Also good to see what Steve Hardy was getting up to. Those yearly summaries they used to have on Abc.com always seemed to suggest that all Steve did in the early - mid 70s was pining after Audrey.

Not sure why they divorced the first time as I wasn't watching (something to do with Traci having a miscarriage and Lisa locking Brad up in a cage?) **Edit** I didn't see the post by will81** The second time round Brad pretty much lost interest in Traci and had only re-married her because she was pregnant with Colleen. So when Colleen was a few months old, Traci left Brad for her publisher Steve (from memory it wasn't even a big affair storyline or anything, Traci had realized her marriage was over and decided to pursue things with Steve who had been showing interest in her). Taci and Steve left with Colleen to live in New York City. A year or so after that, Traci had married Steve. Brad - concerned that Colleen (now SORASed to 5 years old) didn't know him and viewed Steve as her father - pursued joint custody and/or visitation rights. That lead to a brief quadrangle as Traci still had lingering feelings for Brad but Brad was involved with Lauren. At one point, Brad had a heart attack while being intimate with Lauren; Traci and Lauren feuded over Brad at the hospital. I don't know how that exactly all got resolved because I stopped watching for a while and when I resumed; Brad was with Nikki, Lauren had moved to L.A (for B&B) and Traci and Steve were back in New York.

i guess the inappropriateness of Scotty and Laura's early relationship gets overshadowed by Laura's later storylines with David Hamilton (basically a story about grooming) and Luke (the rape at the disco).

I've read somewhere that Scotty was 23, but I think that may have been in 1979 when he married Laura, who was 17 at the time, so nearly a six year age gap. They actually started dating when Laura was only 15, which I've always thought was a bit problematic (but may have been more common in the 70s? I don't know).