titan1978

Of all the companies listed so far, the one that interested me the most was Jabot. It meant something when Victor took over, and it was incredibly exciting when Jack and Brad took it back. I was invested in those characters and that company more than any soap company. It helped that Jerry was back as John, and Eileen as Ashley.

Next up would have been The Banner and The Sun on OLTL. The prestige vs the often tabloid Sun.

I also loved Lotus Pointe on Knots Landing.

3 hours ago, carolineg said:

I remember the first day JJ was back as Lucky he instantly jumped about 50 IQ points.  I don't have much love for GV's Lucky, but the poor guy had some horrible writing.

Lucky should never have been played by soap hunk types. It was a strange fit both times. I didn’t hate Greg, but as you say he had one terrible story after another.

It is so strange to read Guza’s manifesto was something like “love among the ruins” when it seemed to me to be about misery. I know it got darker and more miserable after his child died, which is very sad. But the show was just hard to watch.

18 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Didn't Sage die a horrible death too?

I believe that was the shaky foundation they laid for Diego’s motive.

7 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

When Sarah Brown was in the part, any sense of hypocrisy from Carly over a power position was muted by how many characters in Port Charles loathed her

It certainly helped. You could root for her because she was so damaged, and yet people like Tony, AJ, Monica and Alan had very justifiable reasons for their disdain. And you had Bobbie trying to build some kind of relationship with her often hysterical daughter. Complex!

21 minutes ago, Vee said:

I thought Cooper was a block of hard cheese tbh.

I do not deny enjoying him for his looks. A well worn soap tradition to have a hunky, mostly good guy.

I know that is the story on Duhon, but it must have been Guza he pissed off, or he was simply tired of Logan. JFP/scab Wolf changed the ending of the text message killer story and essentially spared him being revealed as the killer and disposed of at the climax. 

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

I seriously can't remember much about either tbh.  One of them (ex-Cooper) pinched hit for Greg Vaughn recently on Days and he was very good and very hot still.

I will die on this hill. GH had a great group of younger characters (though severely lacking in diversity) and they blew it all up. IMO it was the kind of group that would have been perfect for the next generation to lead the show- Georgie, Dillon, Maxie, Spinelli, Lulu, Logan, and Cooper should have been invested in and not dumped. Don’t even get me started on Diego Alcalzar being the text message killer.

Today was pretty good as far as moving pieces in to place. Carly absolutely would be stupid enough to go see Pikeman. Jason confiding in Anna, now we know what the evidence is against Carly.

Are we going to uncover which mob leader made the recording of Carly from that meeting? Selena Wu would certainly be a fun twist, didn’t they kill off the other family heads?

This show confounds me. We have a canvas full of popular characters that are just languishing. You want to drive up the ratings? Maybe put Liz on my screen more than Sasha in an actual story. Same with Anna. Why is Laura second fiddle to Heather Webber?

8 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I thought it was just me, but if someone told me he was Logan or Cooper Barrett

Except both of them were hotter and had more charisma and personality.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

I personally find the working class PC stuff boring and annoying.  I have no idea how relevant it was in 1991 for the audience though.

I liked what it ultimately lead to, which was people having jobs besides being former spies and cops or the hospital. We had Mac and Felicia opening the Outback, Jagger boxing at Marco’s gym, Sonny’s seedy strip club, the Charles street stories, characters living in modest means again. It helped to reestablish the Quartermaines as the haves in Port Charles society. It opened up possibilities. Riche took what Monty was trying to do and actually did it, even with Levinson it was better than Monty’s first 6 months.

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I probably would have ranked it as:

A-tier: Robert (until he was gone), Sonny, Luke, Jason (post-accident) etc.

B-tier: Ned, AJ

C-tier: Mac somewhere around or maybe above Tony or Alan (Jason was probably here pre-accident)

You could probably clump those together though.

Mac was definitely at least a B level lead during Monty through the first couple of years of Labine. I feel he slipped more into supporting during the Stone storyline, and while onscreen wasn’t really a lead again after that for the most part.

The show put him front and center during the Ryan/Felicia storyline. And before that there were times I felt he was a newbie shoved down viewers throats.

AJ barely had a story of his own other than alcoholism. I would say up to 1995 Mac was B tier and AJ was C. 

1 minute ago, allmc2008 said:

You guys were making me miss Drew Garrett. Damn, he was hot as hell.  Why was he replaced? I forgot, was it his Michael that was raped?

He was replaced because he looked too young for the rape story. That was the official company line. He always came across as possibly gay (except with his sister which was also strange), and I wonder if he was replaced because they couldn’t have his possibly gay Michael raped. So taller and more masculine Chad was hired.

One bit of context about Vanessa returning for the fans- soaps were circling the drain. I believe her when she said that was her reasoning, to give fans that romance. Guza and JFP were creating such a dark, miserable show and it felt like they didn’t really see much of a future so they just kept running it into the ground.

I was not surprised when she didn’t renew for another year. I was also not surprised that Jonathan Jackson quit because he was miserable and they were ignoring his wishes to rebuild him and Liz.

17 minutes ago, carolineg said:

but she was also hired by Sam to sleep with Michael after his prison rape so it's real weird.  But she wasn't a prostitute.  Just doing Sam a solid. 

I’m sorry, what? That is wild, and bad beyond imagining.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

You didn't ask me, but I always thought it was the same bakery.  I was under the impression that some form of the Eckert family still lives in PC we just don't see them.

We saw a very pregnant Jenny once after they had been gone for a while, and IIRC Sly lived with her offscreen after Bill was killed and he was friends with Lucky.

I think the mentions, especially when RC was the HW were deliberate.

Finally watching Thursday and Friday. Who are all these children? And why are they all on the same day and at the Q mansion?

I’m not really one to trash a child, but Violet has got to go. She really stood out in the wrong way around these other kids, some of whom were actually charming.

Monty loved those nurse’s uniforms with the hats.

As we have discussed before, I think Monty had the right idea. A more grounded GH with socioeconomic differences was the way to go. She just didn’t invest in strong enough writers to accomplish what she wanted. Which was a repeated flaw on her part. I felt her GH during her original run was stronger during Marland and PFS’s two runs than it was with lesser writers.

The constant departures did not help- some she pushed through, and some were people just wanting to leave. And as embattled as she became, she lost her two biggest stars with Finola and Tristan being tired of the grind and her.

Riche and Levinson took those bones and made something more watchable out of them, and it really takes off with Labine.

@Khan Critical analysis should always be welcome here. We are clearly fans of the genre here, not just specific shows anymore. I love GH, but I have felt the lack of emotion onscreen for most of FV’s tenure.

I have been commenting for years that it feels like FV is almost ashamed to let the show be a soap. It is often produced in a way to avoid passion. And it is hard to overstate how damaging recasting ME and RH several times instead of trying new actors has been for the show- maybe those characters could have worked without the shadow of using the same performers over and over again. Instead we have dead zones where they tried to reinvent them every few years.

The last writers had several stories that should have been better onscreen and I felt the production failed them many times. Ryan Chamberlain being back and killing people being a prime example. The stop and start of Trina/Spencer being another, especially when you consider how much the actors did in the moment to make something come alive (Trina jumping into Spencer’s arms comes to mind).

Shelly Curtis learned the right lessons from her showrunners. I would welcome her back in any capacity to GH.

3 hours ago, carolineg said:

This is probably an idiotic question because I have seen the more famous clips, but did Richard Simmons have a storyline or was he just the fitness instructor?  From his anecdotes and memories he makes it seem like he spent quite a bit of time on set, but I always thought his appearance were more a gimmick even though it spanned a few years.

Not to my knowledge. He was seen frequently though from what I have seen, and the exposure made him a national sensation.

On 5/2/2024 at 2:31 PM, Vee said:

Richard Simmons is talking at length about his GH memories on Twitter. There's several long threads so I recommend just going through the page using either Twitter or a nitter instance like me.

Thanks for the heads up. Everyone was terrified of those Monty heels clicking as she came from the booth to the set!

That was a sweet story about Genie Francis and the earrings.

Frankly at this point the show cannot handle the outcry if they get rid of Liz.

I am supremely confused about Jason. He has two popular romantic interests on the show, and Carly. Yet they are not leaning in to that at all.

This month was very strange.

2 hours ago, carolineg said:

Joss never seemed intelligent enough to pursue such a demanding job.

That part.

She is increasingly annoying online, but I did find it funny when Alexis was in jail and NLG outright said it was her boss punishing her.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

That's just a nice statement to quiet the crazy fans claiming NAC is ungrateful to the show, etc. I highly doubt he'll be back any time soon. A recast is the most likely option down the road.

I agree. And the fan based rumors about his difficulty and departure. From insiders wink wink.

It read to me as both a fan thank you and a plea for people to not blame Frank for what has happened. Reminiscent of Genie Francis posting accolades about Frank when the audience turned on him when she refused recurring.

I have no doubt he is a good boss to work for. I just think he’s a better manager that keeps the trains running than a creative EP. All the cast comments about him make me wonder what the hell JFP did all day. Because they all talk about how hands on he is on the floor and how it wasn’t that way before (the 80’s vets compare it to Monty’s eyes on everything).

25 minutes ago, MissPhoenixGirl92 said:

Wait, so Nina basically acting very promiscuous with Drew when she's never really acted that way before and exchanging sexual favors in a desperate attempt to rebuild any semblance of a relationship with her daughter is actually considered to be character-driven? Okay then... 

As opposed to lying to everybody about Sonny still being alive and all the other crazy stuff Nina has done since she arrived with both actors? If my option is the Nina we had before who was a jittery, crying mess obsessed with Sonny, or the one we have now that has so much more going on…I will take the current version. This one is at least fun to watch. And she made CM’s Drew tolerable to watch!

The original Kate story worked. I recall very vividly these same fools ranting at Cynthia Watros online and Frank about Nina breaking up Sonny and Carly. Maurice spoke out about it a couple of times. That group of people are best ignored.

My feeling from the beginning was we won’t see real movement until  May/early summer. They are taking a bit too long to rearrange the deck of the Titanic when it comes to many of these characters.

This is what happens when you hire new writers and put them immediately to work without a bible or time to strictly focus on where they want things to go instead of slowly shaping it day by day. I am constantly reminded of SSM returning to Y&R. The characters and scripts were so much stronger, they just didn’t have stories to propel them.

The reason I am still a little hopeful is that Mulcahey is a much stronger writer than SSM. 

17 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I like the idea so much.  Unfortunately, I don't think SM could play that.  Maybe a recast Sasha could.  

I thought she had at least a spark of bitch when she first came on. She would just need to tap into that. 

6 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I might classify her as Cecile more than Barbara Ryan, but the main problem is that none of these characters she would be affecting are very interesting or worth rooting for.

Oh they are all boring. But at least give them something soapy to do to pass the time if we have to be stuck with the likes of Michael forever.

Of everyone on this show, Sasha should have gotten the Marland Barbara Ryan treatment. Too long a victim, pissed at how things shook out at Deception, ends up at Drew/Michael’s company and is the first person to find out about the Nina/Drew anger sex. Lures Michael into her bed again by playing up her sadness and his savior complex, and sets the stage for Willow/Drew affair. She can also be sleeping with Cody. What we needed was a character to mix things up in several stories. We need a schemer desperately!

The amount of characters starting something new on this show is wild. Especially because none of the new stuff is sparking any more than the old stuff.

Curtis running wellness gym/spas is less interesting than the mob trying to move in on his club. Sasha cooking for the Q’s is a dead end. Willow flip flopping into another new venture with all the rest of this career changing going on is stupid. The only one with a point is Alexis.

I keep looking at Lynn talking about Deception and she could easily sell the product. Have Lucy brag on camera about her age and tell the buyers she’s been using Deception the whole time. She looks incredible!

I give zero F about Blaze or her mother. I might be slightly interested if the show wasn’t a huge sloppy mess when it comes to characters and stories right now.

The one thing they had momentum with was Jason’s return. They could easily have more characters helping them to stretch that out. Sam decides to investigate what Jason has been into to protect her family. Dante could be in the mix with Anna but can’t tell Sam everything. Use Anna more with the Valentine angle. Rope Laura in because she has never really trusted him.

I know the stalling is because of budget. If every there was a time to let a story run and deal with the budget later it’s now.