titan1978

But what you said was the problem. There wasn’t really a story to play because they intended Maxie be there the whole time. So it just stalled out, and instead of Nathan having scenes rebuilding like that was the actual story it just went nowhere.

IIRC what Racina brought to the table was the Carbonic Snow and weather machine. I assume she created the WSB though because as soon as she came back they dug into Robert’s past as an agent. PFS hated Monty when she left, even though she said she was a genius. She must have made a fortune when she came back and decided to play along to get along better.

This would have been so much more successful. Add in Ruby too, knowing the secret. Interesting way to reintroduce Faison to the audience just before he kidnaps Lucky.

I felt one of the few cliche things to happen on GH in the last few years was Emma not being yet another vixen/angry at the world teen to a nice parent. Giving her a cause for why she was acting out and following Dalton to another school was straight out of Anna’s playbook, although quieted down to reality from super spy. Her continuing those traits while helping Tracy during the silly crypt story was great. Because there is more going on there and she is a good actor, she is the first younger woman on the show that I believably see as a lead in ages. Joss hasn’t ever been it, and they won’t let Trina.

I saw some rumors that it is a health issue but not specified. I hope she is okay. That is telling, and quite honestly shameful. Isaiah should be Tommy Jr. I would love for there to be a Doctor Hardy on staff again.

When I was a teenager I thought Jagger on GH was the hottest man I had ever seen on soaps. ASJr has ruined his appeal now for me, but back then he was so fine. I totally get the appeal of Shemar Moore, but for me it was Kristoff. I thought he was beautiful even if Neil could be a little boring as time went on. I can’t stand Nick Newman, even back then, but Morrow was and still is a very pretty man. I never really watched Another World but thanks to soap mags I thought that cast was full of hot guys in the mid 90’s. Joe, Matt Cory, Morgan, Ryan, Tomas, both Nick Hudson’s.

Terry Brock is one of those soap characters that gets a lot of airtime and then once they are gone the impact was negligible. And I liked her fine back then and when I see her. But she just isn’t meant to lead an entire corner of the show.

Thanks for posting this! The other Grant really needed a better hairstyle than that slicked back mess! I loved the music when he was dragging that body around. Very 80’s, but it works for me. Some of the late 70’s, very early 80’s background music from Monty sounds cartoonish to me when I watch episodes now.

Maybe he can team up with Willow, give Portia the same drug as Drew lol!!

Yep! Also the Nathan talk- KS’s return was delayed so they just stalled that story. We could have had months of Nathan doing anything remotely human in a situation like this. Bonding with James, being a co-parent with Spinelli, anything to make it seem believable that this guy is Nathan. But nope.

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.