titan1978

47 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I am sure GH could have found an actress that looked like VM to play her sister in the 90's.  The one thing GH has proven is they can find and hire anyone that resembles VM regardless of acting talent.

This is so true.  

11 minutes ago, Marlenaphan said:

You would rather have a new one? The character is needed but yet another recast is not.

I would rather have a completely new actor or Jackson.  I think he was miscast back then, and is still not right for Lucky.  He was great as JR and would have been a fantastic child of Jimmy Lee and Celia that went to live in Port Charles.  Just not Lucky.

6 hours ago, Vee said:

 

He was the worst of all the Luckys, John.

Yup.

There are way too many worthless newbies with no real ties.  This team even invented ties  with Kim and Oscar and then killed him off.

I do have to add that all the comments about a public employee’s insurance covering all their medical expenses for an injury or illness not related to their job are wrong.  You can have insurance and still have major medical bills.  Especially public employees, depending on their location.

The real issue is didn’t Drew hit her?  I know it was an accident, but his insurance or better yet, a lawsuit against the Quartermaines should cover her bills.  For that matter, why aren’t they paying anyway?

2 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

The question is: would Jason Thompson be as welcome back at GH? Is there room at the inn for Patrick Drake?

Frank and Ron were not using him except for the Robin is dead/isn’t storyline.  He even had an addiction storyline that played off camera, like AJ in jail.  So bad.

I remember thinking at the time why are we forcing Easton into another character when we have Patrick right there.

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Oh, my God.  The poor dear must be really down on her luck to take the gig.  (Should we set up a telethon or something?)

She’s a working character actress.  All jobs pay.  Even GH .

2 hours ago, Ponds said:

 I am another poster who doesn't mind Josh as Nick.  He's not supposed to play Hamlet, just a young man with continual father issues.

I have always liked him.  But he isn’t a young man anymore and that is the issue for me.  He’s a grown ass man that should have issues but shouldn’t feel so stunted.

Its like Sam on GH.  These are not characters in their mid to late 20’s anymore.  Write them as adults.  Yes they can have issues and be immature but it’s like they want us all to pretend they are forever 29 and Marlena on DAYS is forever 45.  Let them age!

2 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

I'm not sure this is a quirk or just a thing that pisses me off, but I've just gotten used to the fact that there will never be any fun soap-related merchandise or knick-knacks in stores. The "nerd" aisle now includes shrines to The Golden Girls and Bob Ross, but god forbid I get an Erica Kane mug or Y&R logo magnet.

And yes, I realize it's fairly easy to get something made online, but it's the principle of the thing.

I agree.  I think the death of soaps happened before the rise of fandoms being catered too, and that sucks for those of us that loved this genre.

There should be dolls of possessed Marlena and Deception and Jabot cosmetics and Erica Kane mugs with all her last names on it.

9 minutes ago, DeeeDee said:

 

The Abbotts remained pretty central to the canvas EXCEPT for about a year and a half when Brenda left and Y&R tried to integrate The Dennisons onto the canvas.

 

During the 90's everything revolved around The Newmans (primary stories), Abbotts (secondary stories), Winters (tertiary stories), Williams (background stories), and Chancellors (background stories) with everyone else (the Romalottis, the McNeils, etc) orbiting those central families.

 

The brilliant thing Alden did was move Jill out of the Abbott orbit back into the Chancellor orbit which greatly refreshed both families.

I guess that year and a half looms large for my memory.  The Ashley that replaced Brenda sidelines the character.  And Jess was wasted after the baby Billy stuff, John leaves for a bit and Mamie was gone.  It felt very much like the Abbotts were out of favor.  And truthfully, I felt that way at times before that.  Once Traci stopped being a major player it felt at times like Victor and Ashley were really tied to Victor and John to Jill.  I never felt that Victor was sidelined at any point.  Or Cricket.  Or Drucilla.  

And I still think Cricket was the second lead behind Victor.  And then Drucilla.  Because without those three hinges the rest of Bell’s stories in the mid to late 1990’s would have looked nothing like the show we got.  I’m not saying I didn’t love characters tied to them, but they were the leads in those circles.

I really and truly miss Dru on this show.  Of those three I never got tired of seeing her.

I agree that reigniting Jill and Katherine was the best thing for both characters, and building from there with a new generation was Alden’s master stroke.

I really miss Y&R.

Do we think Bell kept the right characters to mix with his new families? I think it would be hard to say what Y&R would have been like if he hadn’t kept people like Nikki, Victor, Jill and Katherine once the purge began and he moved towards characters that had little if any ties to the original families.

Once we get to the years when Y&R challenges GH and then passes it in the ratings, you really only had a few of orbits on the show.  Victor and the Abbots (through relationships or business), Cricket, Katherine and Jill, and Lauren.  Everyone was tied to those stories or sets of characters as far as I can remember, with little spots of overlap.  By the time Bill left as HW, the Abbots and Jill and Katherine were pretty much not as center stage (except for Jack).  Everything was pretty Victor or Cricket or Drucilla centered.  Kay Alden moves Katherine and Jill and the Abbots back into being major parts of the show again, and leaves them there.

I remember at the time Bell was almost done that the show was not as compelling and he wasn’t using people I loved like Nina and Katherine very much.  But Sharon and Nick were always on.

Bobbie was well positioned before they phased her out.  She could have been in storylines with nursing students, and tenants living in the brownstone to ease her into that matriarch situation.  I think she had much more of a temperament as a character (beyond her very early years) to be the tent pole/matriarch role.  Alan and Monica are wonderful characters but they are also too selfish and manipulative for that stereotypical place on a soap.

Lesley would also have been perfect.

There was a time when I felt the show was trying to shoehorn Tracy into that and it just doesn’t work for her either.  Especially when she was Lulu’s stepmother and Dylan was around.  I loved her scenes with them back then, but only Bob Guza would try to make Tracy a matriarch.

10 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

GH has no beloved matriarch or patriarch any longer; no Steve and Audrey Hardy or Jessie Brewer or Lee Baldwin to provide warmth, wisdom and stability to the Port Charles community. Denise Alexander would be perfect for this purpose. It's a shame most of today's soaps place no importance on showcasing and preserving these (IMHO) necessary characters. I will never see Victor Newman as a benevolent patriarch on Y&R; it's a shame the show killed off John Abbot and Liz Foster, who could have provided that sort of comforting presence after Jeanne Copper passed away. At least DAYS can use Doug and Julie Williams as Salem's tentpoles.

I agree so much.

Although Julie is at her best when they let her remain feisty and kind of a pain in the ass.  So I’m glad they still use that aspect of her personality.

Re-watching the BJ/Maxie heart story (I guess I wanted to cry tonight), and I do not think the show ever told another story as beautifully as this one.  Stone comes close, and it deeply moved me then and now, but BJ was connected to the entire community of Port Charles.

We watched BJ grow up.  The bet and the Damian affair and how Bobbie was feeling before having the affair.  Frisco being there.  The family stuff with Frisco, Felicia and Tony and Bobbie, Ruby and Luke.  Monica was on the transplant team, Amy and Steve worked on BJ when she arrived.  I think the scenes with Lucy and Alan comforting her were really special and a use of history that these shows rarely do anymore.  Just really good integrated character based writing.

I know Jack Wagner and Kristina Wagner were never given material like this to act on the show before and she in particular really does great work.

I wonder if the titles have something to do with budget?  Their union contract probably has a stipulation for how much certain duties pay as a baseline.  The new titles may add flexibility in duties and pay scale.

I think we can have a good mix of escape and reality.  Labine maintained the action and thriller storytelling that GH had become known for and added depth and a sense of reality to it.  Her version of the mob with Frank Smith, Damian, Sonny, Stone, Luke and Laura has gravity.  There were consequences.  Sonny slowly moved up the ladder.  They made choices and their actions had consequences.  She also brought real world issues that had to do with medicine to the fore- heart transplant, HIV, cancer.  It was a wonderful mix.

The thing a lot of these shows forgot is that when you have romance happening on several levels, you can lean into the gritty or realistic storytelling because the love affairs create that escape storytelling.  A show like Guiding Light in the 1990’s had great, community based storylines and also a business story and romance and rivals all going on at the same time.

I also enjoyed DAYS at that time.  But I didn’t want every show to be like DAYS.  Far from it!

We were all watching a second golden age of daytime in the early to late 1990’s.  It is really sad that it was the end of greatness instead of a dip and then great again like the decade before.

I enjoyed Robin as Skye on GH.  I also loved her recast on AMC (Carrie Genzel) just as much as I enjoyed her on that show.  

This is like prime soap magazine days.  One mention of Brenda and she’s all anyone is talking about.

I miss her, but the show as it is would not be a good fit for her today.  Better to watch some clips from the past.

That clip Vee posted-  Guza was a good writer.  The writing was strong, it just wasn’t a GH I wanted to watch anymore.  But that scene was pretty great.  And not just Sonny’s point of view.  Also- he and Laura’s Carly have so much more chemistry as friends.

Or Jerry.

I love Anna during that period.  Also Casey the alien gave us Faison, and we got to explore Anna’s time with the DVX.  I loved that aspect.  Anna teaching Frisco was a great mentoring relationship back then.

3 hours ago, j swift said:

Today, I'm stuck on the logic of why Rick adopted Laura when he married Leslie?

 

First, Laura was almost 18 and almost married to Scotty,  Second, the marriage didn't last that long.  Third, Leslie had just met and adopted Laura a few years earlier.  Fourth, she was on probation, so Rick was liable for her behavior on probation.

 

I recently read a critique of pre-Monty GH that fans complained that the Webbers had taken over GH, to the point that one of them became Steve's son.  Given that feeling, what was the logic to have Laura become a Webber?

Wasn’t it symbolic of them wanting to feel like they had the bonds of family?  Since Laura had been so troubled and Lesley had missed out on so much of her life?

I know I have seen clips of Rick with Monica and it was very important to him that she still be his daughter and important.  Laura even likes Monica during the period Rick and Monica are together.

I wonder if any of the scenes of them in therapy back then when Laura was more troubled covered any of this?

4 hours ago, OldGHFan said:

Who wasn't at GH's 30th Anniversary?  So many people were there.  Loved it!

 

Is Chris Robinson there?  I couldn’t find him and considering everyone else that is I think it is strange.  Even the AJ before Kanan is there, and he had been replaced relatively soon in relation to this.

Genie was there when she was still fighting being back on the show.  She lost her AMC job because they wanted her back on GH.  The audience didn’t want Geary as Bill, and it was the decision of all involved to bring back Luke.  Geary said he couldn’t be Luke without Laura (sure changed later), and so the network forced the issue.  Genie waited a long time to agree.  Mostly because of the trauma of her first period in the show.  Once she was back, backstage was so much better and she was valued so her opinion changed.

The posted clip of Monica and Alan learning of Lesley’s death was a great scene.

The one with Lesley and Monica is good too.  On another show they would have been rivals for years.  I wish we had gotten that.  Claire Labine would have loved writing for Lesley.

That clip also reminds me just how much Genie is a lot like Denise in acting choices.  I see a lot of similarities.

Lesley is such a great character.  I would kill to see scenes of her from DAYS- especially confrontations or scheming.

Oh- and I am more than ready for Jeff Webber.  He can get it.  Especially over Rick and even Alan.  Also- I loved Doug Sheehan on Knots and he is just so cute when I see him in clips from this era as Joe Kelly.

Richard Dean Anderson must have been proud of his time on GH.  Proud enough to attend the 30th anniversary party and be in the giant cast photo with Riche and tons of former and current actors.  

As awful as Monty’s seduction rewrite was, I give her some credit for learning her lesson there.  She never did it again.  Which makes me think she knew it was not good.  

 And unlike DAYS, which was the most like GH in tone in the 1980’s, the women had more agency and were not as male dependent as on other soaps of the era.  I love Hope and Kayla and Kim but they are nothing like Anna or Felicia or Monica.

That period between PFS’s first two GH runs is a mess.  The DVX Grant Putnam mess, David Gray, Susan’s murder... just a mess.  Without those actors and a few couples people were excited about, I am amazed the show stayed number one.  Anna’s arrival, Frisco/Felicia, Robin, the Asian quarter storyline through the end of Monty with Duke and the Jerome’s was a great time on the show though.  I also think the next two EP’s had great stuff, and the show was good if not great, except for wtf Casey the alien and Duke being killed again for no reason.

1 hour ago, BetterForgotten said:

At least with Roger and Jack, their behavior was never brushed aside and what they did was very integral to what their characters were about. They were never really forgiven for anything, and in Roger's case, he was always the town pariah, even when his intentions were good. He never became the hero of the universe like Luke. 

And yet Holly and Roger had romantic scenes together again.  Jack through his relationship with Jennifer did become an heroic man.  Mark Valley sure didn’t inherit a character that the rape played a part in at all.  And truthfully, neither did Matt for a long time until GH laid the groundwork by destroying Luke and Laura.  Todd and Marty were paired together as well (I think. Wasn’t watching OLTL then).  Poor Jennifer Horton, one of her friends chose her rapist as a partner (Carly I’m looking at you). 

Roger was the only one in my list that their entire show was not propping at some point.  He was never really redeemed.  Sure he had good qualities, but as Alexandra said he was also always hungry.  For power.

That is one of the reasons I love Alan and Monica.  They were both horrible people in relationships, but they also were great doctors and more than just one thing.

I have seen several scenes on YT from back then of Monica with Laura trying to help her.  These people had layers, and even in Monty’s plot oriented storytelling they still kept their layers.

Monica could go from concern for Laura and selfishness with Rick and Lesley to love for Alan and anger over his child with Susan.  And yet she ended up loving Jason, arguably more at times than her own son.  She helped Sean steal the Q fortune and kicked them out of the house, and was later devastated by Alan cheating on her and marrying Lucy.  She had so many layers that her cancer storyline never occurred to me to be a redeeming story.

Same with Bobbie back then.  She was awful to Laura in her pursuit of Scotty and then protection of her brother.  But she was also a good nurse, and seeing Roy killed and then her abusive relationship with Brock never seemed like a redemption arc.  

Luke and Laura and the left handed boy seems like a redemption arc to me though.

Once again, why do all these soaps have rapists as romantic leads during their history?  Roger, Luke, Todd, Franco, Jack, Lawrence? Even if I loved some of these characters, it is still ultimately gross.

Marland and Monty set the foundation for the show at that time.  It is not the GH that was created in the 1960’s.  But PFS and Monty created the tone that made me love the show.  And then she came back and created Anna Devane, my favorite character in the history of the show.  

As a viewer I owe them so much for the fun I had watching the show.  Labine took those bones and gave them a deeper soul than they had ever had before, but the bones were still the ones created by Monty and PFS.

As Monty described it- Capra and Hitchcock blended together.  That is the tone and style of the show when she was there.

I know lots of people deride what they did, and how daytime changed.  But I loved it.  However- I still think to this day that Monty was best with a strong HW.