titan1978

I am one of those not a fans. But I cannot argue that he’s incredibly attractive and he does have a lovely voice. Truthfully, I blame the show for his ill fitting onscreen character and connections. Designing Women and Twin Peaks in the same GH thread! Wonderful! All this talk about hot Dante reminded me he used to have a swagger that was part of why he was attractive. I miss old school Dante.

I am always here for a Designing Women quote.

He was so attractive, and I didn’t watch Loving, my ABC affiliate didn’t air it. I only saw him in the soap press back then. And Robert Tyler’s Trucker. Chase is attractive but he is so self righteous and frankly stupid that I can’t wait for him to realize how wrong he is.

I truthfully don’t think Genie, Jackie Zeman, and Kin Shriner get the credit they are due for the audience they brought to the show with that story. I have respect for Tony Geary and how the audience embraced Luke, and I get the phenomenon that L&L became. When you watch the whole episodes of that time it is clear why they are considered special. But I don’t think any of it happened without Genie as Laura.

It’s pretty incredible to watch the show from the summer on the run story to her exit, and think about how much pressure that amount of work was for a teenager. Her earlier stories were also very gritty and mature, but when Luke and Laura took over the show she was on 4-5 days a week in some capacity for like two years.

You are correct. But she did used to joke that there were too many kids and it might be time for a bus accident. Actually killing kids was not in the nature of what she did at GH. Her mantra was a mix of Hitchcock and Capra, and pure entertainment. They didn’t do a lot of tragedy. The DL Brock storyline is a real outlier for her tenure on the show, focusing on domestic violence towards the end.

I think those numbers give us a glimpse into streaming. I bet that audience was stuck at home so they watched within the Nielsen window instead of catching up later in the week. The audience is still there.

I don’t think he phoned it in then either, and I don’t believe his issues were intentionally directed at Genie. They were his frustrations with his career being so much about GH when he didn’t feel fulfilled by most of what was written for him over his last twenty years. They all knew that Laura return was finite at the time, so he didn’t have to worry about being pulled from Tracy. It seemed to me he was proud of the work but also stifled creatively by the constraints of the genre. Nobody’s car even slid off the road! Monty would have wiped out some of those kids in a bus crash! I think about what Shelley Curtis said all the time when I watch the show. It was so real too. There is plenty of needed exposition for the plots, and those scenes can easily be knocked out quickly with these tight schedules. But every episode should have a set of scenes that are the emotional core that are filmed with a little more care.

I commented this on the monthly thread, but Willow’s recent admissions with Drew could have been at night and been even more effective. A stormy night would have been more epic and memorable, with lightning occasionally making the room brighter. And I liked those scenes. But they could have been better. Dramatized. My complaint for years is that Valentini seems to run away from drama onscreen.

I loathed what Bob Guza and Jill Farren Phelps did to the show. But I can objectively agree the show looked good, was mostly cast well, and it was written with more depth, emotion, stakes and characterization. The problem was the emotion they chose as their overarching theme was misery. And it was misogynistic to the core, and Jill especially seems to gravitate towards the worst attitudes towards women on the show. She likes them needy, young, and not as dynamic as the men. You could argue Carly wasn’t that way but I would say her JFP era characterization was needy/hostile. I would blame Frons but she loved that kind of woman on GL and OLTL. I haven’t watched enough of her AW or Y&R to compare.

I will never understand why the show is so fixated on Holly’s characterization from her first 6 months on the show, and not the rest of the time when she gave up being a con artist. What’s next, Anna comes out of this crisis with that scar back on her head and we are lead to believe it was always there? I actually liked this cynical Bill the best, and his terrible parenting. What I never agreed with is that Luke would be this way with any kids he had with Laura. In down periods I don’t disagree. And the lead character stuff is baked in from the beginning when Steve and Jessie were tied to everything happening and were apparently on every day pretty much. Even Claire Labine said they tried to keep Luke and Laura as the axis connected to every story. What they did do in the 80’s though is you had three hubs- the main umbrella action storyline usually featuring Robert/Anna, the Quartermaines, and Bobbie being in a lead story that was more grounded with other down to earth characters. There was crossover with the hospital and each story, but those were the hubs as I remembered them. It’s been more an ensemble at points during Valentini than most of the other times. I disagree about the writing though. I cannot speak for pre Monty, but Doug Marland wrote actua stories, as did Pat Falken Smith. It does get rocky from the Ice Princess on, but PFS’s return where she created Robin and the Robert/Anna backstory was a good period too. I would also say Labine through Guza’s exit in 1996 was good. Even Guza’s later era was well written, I just didn’t like what they did with the show. But the scripts were better, the pacing was better, and the characters had a voice all their own.

He’s so mad at Dante I can see him misinterpreting a scene between Dante and Brook Lynn, or feeling like she sided with Dante over him, and marching straight to Willow.

I don’t see this as out of character for Chase. I think Chase, Michael, and especially Willow have changed over time in ways that make sense in the last couple of years, but still seem like the same characters. The only one who you could argue changed quickly with little build up was Drew. IIRC Chase also fell for Brook Lynn during a period of time she was vulnerable because of Peter August, and then her Me Too story with the record producer. He gets off on rescuing women. I see him easily falling for Willow’s lies and eventually into her bed.

Michael’s keys, that Willow slipped from his coat pocket at the meeting with Alexis and Ric, and added the key to Drew’s house. What’s laughable to me is that Chase is such a bad cop he didn’t even try to secure the evidence. He and Willow both touched the key, and could easily be accused of wrongdoing. I loved Willow’s confessions, which were partly accurate and also delusional about her own role in all of this. My one little complaint is that staging matters. I know it’s a budget thing with the lighting, but in the past this confession would be seen during a stormy night and dimly lit.

Emily McLaughlin had a lot of tragedy in her life. It’s a shame.