titan1978

As much as I love a fantasy where I am writing GH, even in fantasy I have to be real and I don’t think Vanessa would stay for longer than two years, and if Sonny is gone I don’t think she would stay or appear at all now. They had their chance to tie her romantically to Jason during her first return but ABC and Jill wouldn’t play ball with and good story and pretty tame contract demands. It’s not like she wanted a helicopter to fly her to the studio like others have demanded (was JFP at Another World when Jensen got that perk?).

The great Mulcahey unraveling was so wild. They scrap the plans for Jason’s return and fire the writers. They hire someone who is no pushover as co-hw. Even though Burton’s first month back was not their work, Mulcahey’s fingerprints were all over Dante’s shooting as far as the tone and scripts went. And IIRC they did get a ratings bump for the return. Then all the Pikeman teasing and how it was going to also resolve Austin’s death. Then months of spinning wheels. And even though PM was gone way before he stopped being credited, they kept up the longer scenes for a bit until Frank could get them back where he wanted them. Danny and Rocco are noticeably without a real story. To this day I think the only reason we had such an investment in Elizabeth’s boys was because it was to give Howarth’s Franco something to do, and Joss a boyfriend. Now they don’t need any of them because why would they be there to generate story for their mother?

If they are going to rip off one of my favorite films, 9to5, then rip it all the way off. The chains, the dog collar, and multiple attempts to escape that involved all three women. The cat and mouse aspect was missing. They could have taken those elements and made it their own. Like Mr. Hart, there could have been an implied bathroom and enough length that he could get to it without showing it, just to appease all the people asking where he went to the bathroom. Instead, like all their non essential stories, we only see anything from this one when something needs to happen. But not the in-between.

It serves that purpose, and also gives you time to see a bond develop so that the betrayal down the road means more. Plus as others have mentioned over the years, including @Vee in this thread, Sonny has never faced anything like that before. Laura has been in jail. Michael too. It would give Mo something to play that isn’t tied to having a mental breakdown, which jeopardizes his actual real life mental health every time they do it.

Many of them have PTSD from the sound of her heels coming down the stairs and onto the stage floor! Thanks @Paul Ravenfor posting these articles! I love reading anything about that era. And while they eventually recovered (although not to the heights of Luke and Laura mania), I like the mention that losing Laura was such a destabilizer. So maybe Luke wasn’t the whole show? I say that with sarcasm firmly in place. They have always made that mistake with Genie since that time IMO.

Monty was at heart at director in a writer’s medium. She knew so well how to get the performance she wanted that it didn’t matter how strong the writing was during that time. I know that is a terrible way to make a soap. I think her show was at its strongest when she had talented writers- Marland and especially Pat Falken Smith, who returned to the show under Monty and created Anna, Robin, Duke, Lucy Coe, etc. The performers and how she put the show together, especially casting, kept it at the top of the ratings even during bad writing. The whole DVX/WSB story with the original Grant Putnam story was a horrible mess. But people loved Celia Quartermaine and Jimmy Lee, so they watched. Holly kept Luke afloat before Laura returned, and was incredibly popular with Robert. The less said about David Grey the better. In hindsight, from the moment Laura disappeared on the docks until the climax of the David Grey story the show was a mess. How they stayed at number one during that truly shocks me, especially back then when the competition was so strong. GH is lucky Y&R hadn’t gelled into its hour long groove yet. She wanted to change soaps, at least her corner of them, but she did come to that from a history of directing soaps for a long time before she got to GH. She knew the medium, and she pushed GH to the edges of the medium. JFP learned the behaviors working for her, especially about her instincts and ignoring writers, but she lacked the skill and taste to still make it something the greater audience wanted to watch. She was there for Monty 1.0, but her work from Guiding Light on was more in line with Monty 2.0

I have posted before my dream Sonny storyline. He gets caught for something and goes to jail. Actual jail. And while inside some young guy ends up impressing him. He once again mentors a young man into being his enforcer. They have to cast well, an attractive young man who resembles Sonny as far as the intensity and the swoon aspects of young Maurice. They of course get out of jail after 6 months or so because of some soap nonsense. And within a span of two years of story, this kid ends up being to Sonny what he was to Frank Smith and Joe Scully. He wants the crown for himself, he’s young and hungry and dangerous. Then Brenda re-enters the picture. And from there you have two options- Sonny stays true to what he told her about power when their marriage dissolved, and even if I had Sonny ultimately kill the new guy, it would be as he was also dying. He still chooses the power of Brenda and everything else. Or he goes through all that violence again and chooses the other path. He gets rid of the new guy and actually dismantles his own organization, finally leaving with Brenda and ensuring some safety for everybody else. Either way the entire story is an exit and it’s something that explores his character deeper and isn’t something he has faced before.

I think the AJ debacle and Michael ending up back as Sonny’s son after he killed his father in cold blood and everyone seems to know it shows they absolutely do not care. It’s all cheap stunts, just like brining back Jagger in name only to kill him off.

I do wonder if the constant fanbase issues for all the OLTL couples during Frank’s time there has made him allergic to them now that no one is essentially over him pushing for them. There was blood in the water many times over Blair/Todd/Tea, Tue thing that cracks me up at his GH is they spend years, YEARS, pushing couples only to unravel them and then never make it a thing again. How many new fans realize what happened between Willow/Chase/Michael? That Anna and Valentin were forced on us for years as a huge love? Liz certainly doesn’t ever ask Chase how his brother is. If I started watching in the last 6 months, would I know Nina was married to Sonny? That Ava and Sonny have a kid together? TJ who?

It’s the only thing she has done since this return that I found remotely entertaining. Drew can’t out scum her! I still think Rory deserves a stronger actress for a pairing though. He lacks complexity, and I think a good partner in crime to discuss his plots with like Celeste with Stefano on DAYS would help. But I also see comments like this and wonder what modern soap fans would make of other longstanding villainous characters. Roger Thorpe raped Holly and Rita, and when he came back to the show was always an antagonist until GL fired Zaslow. On GH Scotty came back during Luke & Laura’s wedding and was a scheming bastard until about a year before he left in the early 90’s. Tracy was fine letting her father die of a heart attack over his will, and in her second run pulled many petty schemes off, and also ran down Jenny (nobody seems too upset about that one though)! Drew hasn’t even come close yet!

Spacious? Sure. But it’s pretty rough around the edges. No gas, and that sticking door was a recurring issue from stuff I have seen. It’s not awful though. But it doesn’t seem as nice as the apartments above Kelly’s, and that for a long time has been the classic poor person lodging in PC.

It was there. But back then Rena was used more in light stories. Labine described her and Ned as romantic comedy, and that’s true for the most part. Compared to the rest of the show at the time, you really had Lucy providing one kind of comedy, and Ned/Lois another. Now Lois is more involved in drama and not the joyful character she used to embody. So I think the accent sticks out more.

And he was right. Mulcahey was laying it down very delicately in the scripts that clearly had his hands all over editing them. Well as delicately as soaps can muster nowadays. I sat down to watch Wednesday’s ep, and even reading about it here did not prepare me for Carly in that wig. Jesus Christ this is just comically bad.

It just makes little sense to me either way without Maxie.

The miscalculation with Britt seems to be noticeable to lots of folks this time. Usually only here at SON do I really see anyone that dislikes her. But this time the Rocco stuff and her attitude seem to be annoying the vocal part of the audience online elsewhere too. And if she is supposed to be back so Jason can have a pairing they are butchering that.

I know I posted this before, but the story actually makes me sad. Because until the last few years, Leslie was willing and able to come to work. And they did use Monica. But imagine being given something like this while she was still living? It’s just been handled all wrong for me, and I love Slezak. I don’t even hate Ronnie, I just don’t think it’s come together quite right. For several months the show was high octane but still relatively tight. And from like the day after Drew was shot it’s still moving at a fast speed, but the tires are no longer secure and it’s messy AF. Filled to the brim with half concocted plots of a similar nature- Who shot Drew? Who is Ronnie, is it all a fake? What is Britt Hiding? Is this really Nathan? All of them purport to be mysteries at some level, and they are all hollow and in a weird holding pattern to get to a climax.

That would be a great idea! Or even an actual mystery. Instead here’s Ronnie and she’s just mostly accepted by everyone? And we know she’s not going to be there for years, so it’s just a hollow stunt as far as story goes. I also love Slezak, she is still doing good work, and it does give me an emotional reaction to even just see her. The injustice of OLTL. And I hate Tracy being devastated by another will. She didn’t even expect the house, she thought it was going to Michael. But she got slapped in the face again, and then demonized by her family again. And she has absolutely deserved it in the past. But not now. The only way this is worth it at all is if we get a story beyond this, where people like Ned and Brook Lynn have to come to terms with the fact that they never have her back, and how deeply she is hurt by this. They shouldn’t just be let off the hook.

This just popped up for me on YouTube. I miss stuff like this. It can be played lightly like it is here, or more grounded, I could go either way. But someone living in a crappy apartment, starting out as best they can, and their parents trying to let them. You can freeze the world in carbonic snow while also playing out real stuff too! Added fun are the scenes included of Laura as Edward’s receptionist at ELQ, which has come up a few times over the years, a job she was terrible at.

It comes back to something I have said on here before. You either write soaps with the mentality of how wonderful it is to get all this time, because you can really explore all the little parts of the story. Or they work from the mindset of how in the hell are we going to fill all this time? Writers either have a brain for how this should work or they don’t. Imagine Curtis, trying to give Trina and Taggart space, but also admittedly being jealous of that. Trina not accepting Curtis out of loyalty to the father that raised her. Taggart and Portia coming to terms. Curtis getting to actually explore this very deep betrayal by Portia. Portia being given space to explain to herself, any confidant she had left, and eventually all three of them why she did it. Trina being more reckless than she was because she was tired of growing up listening to someone who lied to her about a fundamental truth. We could have had months of scenes to chew on that! Instead they kind of just blew past it without any deep exploration. Maybe it’s just me. I know a lot of people didn’t like Mulcahey slowing things down, having the characters talk more about everything. In my viewing timeline, we had two successful presentations of story on GH. Monty and everyone after her told mostly plot driven stories, but they played every beat and the characters did get defined through them for the most part. Riche and JFP told mostly character based stories where deep, rich dialogue brought the characters to life between big events. The pace for both was faster than traditional soaps, but still played things out. Valentini, especially now, plays more like Monty but with very little character work, mostly just generic dialogue to support the plots.

If this was a well plotted out story, Willow would go on trial and be acquitted. Drew’s plan against Michael would fail because the cops would feel like they found the perp, but he would still feel a victory because Willow had returned to him. And then we see Willow brushing her hair while getting ready to go to bed with Drew, and she flashbacks to having been the one to shoot him. Her current state after that is best described as mentally unwell. And thanks to some good old fashioned soap interpretation of double jeapardy, she’s off the hook. For that attempt at least! We couldn’t get her faking her cancer. But this is the most Willow has ever been watchable, so I hope they keep her on the edge.

When she played Carly she loved Michael, but also wasn’t afraid to use him to keep Jason in her life. And later to build a family with Sonny. As a matter of fact, Robin and Jason are what provided stability for Michael until Robin told AJ the truth, not Carly. We have gotten so far away from the Carly that was manipulative and craved status. For most of her run Laura Wright has played the impulsive part of Carly and the soap bitch version. But not really much time as the calculating almost villain that SJB pulled off when needed.

Something just occurred to me while catching up- Portia is going to be in a second story lying about a baby with the same man she did it to already! It had not really lined up for me right away because they spent very little time overall exploring that Trina twist, it barely matters now! It’s why cheap stunts are fun but don’t work for me long term. Look at what being switched at birth did to Laura? She spent years being tormented as a teen because of what happened with Lesley. That line carries through now, it’s part of Laura’s foundation. Look at Lily on ATWT. That reveal is again the foundation of her character to me. Bo Brady on DAYS. All of those really shaped their characters. We know part of the reason why Trina isn’t fully explored as a character. But don’t do these kinds of twists with her then!

There are times now, when trouble has started to boil over, and Jason and Tracy share a look. In the 2000’s I did not imagine Tracy and Jason being allies. But this time around, with Jason visibly showing the trauma he has endured since becoming Jason Morgan by having fuller access to his emotions, and Tracy warming in her relationships with people and especially her protectiveness with Michael, it feels organic. It is exactly where Steve Burton should be if he is on the show. The only thing missing for me is a purpose beyond the coffee warehouse, because that is a dramatic dead end. Imagine him and Spinelli as PI’s and owning a security agency. There is plenty of story to tell there that allows Jason to be outside the law a little bit without the full compromise of Sonny’s enforcer. Add in Felicia and you have an interesting set of characters to play off each other (I am forever wanting Felicia back as a private investigator!).

This 1000%! The truth is the show had the trifecta of Jason/Sonny/Carly on our screens so much for so long, you would think there would be some in story evolution to them. But truthfully, Jason spending time with the Q family more is the only thing of consequence that has happened between the three of them in a long time. I’m not saying they didn’t evolve at all, just very little, and nothing seems to have an impact on them today.

Even Carly at 11 should have layers in her performance, and she used to bring them for the most part. I think part of the problem is outside her relationship with Jax, her Carly was primed for confrontation at all times during the first few years she played her. She doesn’t play quiet rage very well, and now the filming limitations bring out some of her worst instincts. But I will take her going for the walls over MB mumbling and struggling with basic dialogue.