titan1978

I truly wish we could see more of her work on DAYS. And more of her early stuff on GH, but at least we know that Corday’s DAYS vault is virtually complete, especially compared to GH. Lesley was a pivotal character. I think the scenes with the confrontation with Monica are so good because there is a lot of character in those lines and performances. Monica is ferocious, desperate. And Lesley is not a victim, she holds her own and calls Monica out, playing her own form of anger. Evenly matched. Soap confrontations have largely forgotten that both sides should be evenly matched, even if someone has wronged another. To me, that scene is easily in my soap hall of fame. They didn’t make enough of her return, which has always bothered me. I would have loved for her to end up vying for control of the hospital when Alan was incapacitated by drugs, helping him through that crisis and finding herself at odds with Monica again on a different level, not as romantic rivals. She had such a long career! Acting in radio shows as a little kid, through her GH spots as few years ago. That’s quite a ride.

In light of the comments on this page alone I think you should really consider what you post about taking a joke.

Soft spot for Sonny because of a shared history? I can see that. But the gush fest is something else entirely. Just peculiar.

They don’t end up together in my version lol! But again, GH isn’t knocking on my door. They should though.

I have it ready to go if the show wants it lol. It allows for both Laura and Tracy to be honored, and Luke gets one final adventure. My proposal starts with Laura having vivid and creepy dreams about Luke where she starts being kind of haunted by the song Fascination IRL. She ends up finding Luke’s wedding ring at a newly opened second hand shop where Aiden gets his first job (the original one Luke threw in the water off the docks before the divorce), and realizes he is still alive. Deliberately playing up that almost psychic connection Laura used to display with Luke and sometimes Lucky to start the story off.

I saw @Vee mention this McT bio on the Classic GH thread, and I had no idea what she was talking about. So thanks to Vee and the link provided by @EricMontreal22 This is wild!

Yeah my post could have been more clear. It’s not like I swapped one out for the other. I see all the flaws with BTG, I have no rose colored glasses. The big difference for me is that at least they are not afraid to have organic conflict between characters, and not everybody is supposed to be genial. You can also see there are actual stories being crafted and beats being played, even at an accelerated pace. I don’t watch that show and immediately notice that a potential budget issue is why a story has just stopped and then reappears a month later. But you watch let’s say Dani for a month, and Carly for the last decade +. And you can see that almost psychotic level of terrible impulse control and self destruction that brings others down too that Carly used to have left with the writing team that created her. Dani is much more like Carly used to be as far as upping the ante (not saying their backgrounds are similar at all). There was plenty that did not work when Mulcahey was there. But the dialogue and work they were doing to have actual characters again made the show more interesting for me. We had natural conflict brewing with Jason and his kids, Valentin revealed, Ava with Nina and Alexis, Sonny and Anna/Laura. I’m not saying it was all going to end up in stories. But it was at least building up natural places to go so people in scenes had more to chew on than just regurgitating plot points. Up until Mulcahey’s initial couple of months, I hadn’t watched a full episode in ages, but I was at least exposed to the whole show by watching on Hulu with my finger firmly over the FF button. When he got there the dialogue was so much stronger I wanted to see what better scripts would do for some of the duller characters (like Willow). And in the process they made me actually enjoy watching Nina for about 6 months. Which was a first.

I know she has declined book offers because she doesn’t want to be mired in her past and have to dredge up a lot of painful memories. Even under Riche one of the female line producers came up and pinched the skin at her side and made comments about her weight. It can’t have been an easy place to work with all those egos (including her own), and constantly being undervalued compared to an acting partner. I still believe Geary did better work when they returned when he had to play with people who had their feet firmly on the ground. Genie, Jackie, JJ, Norma Connolly, NLG being prime examples. I think pairing Tracy and Luke brought out his worst instincts and also had Jane playing one note quite often. It was a beautiful note compared to him, but still limiting for such a gifted actor like Jane. Thanks for posting that clip, it was an illuminating look for those that didn’t know the earlier Tracy that her bravado hides a delicate person who tries very hard to keep others from seeing that side. Nice to see Laura not falling to pieces too, and the acknowledgement from both that Luke would always want her, even if they are not good for each other.

David Lewis was more fun to watch. His Edward was bitchy, nasty, a rascal, charming, and also much darker in his coldness with his children. I grew to love Ingle, but original recipe Edward was the father of a Tracy that would withhold his medication.

True!

I think he did that plenty. And what she wanted was for him to respect her ruthlessness and business mind, just like Daddy.

I agree. Although moving Luke to the Quartermaine orbit probably saved the family from being fully wiped out. But Tracy begging for Luke to love her was sad viewing.

Yeah, take Liz out of any romantic pairings. There are plenty of bullshit things they have done with her that have nothing to do with Jason or Carly. They spent years building up a special relationship with her boys, who were decently cast, and misjudged the audience on preferring Carly’s children and the men Liz was paired with over her. Joss was played as more important than Cam. Jake is gone for no reason. And Aiden is miscast, and I agree with @Vee- it is because they didn’t want to tell the story they had dropped seeds for since he was little with anyone that looked younger than 20. They had a grounded family dynamic that worked, and stopped caring about it when they couldn’t use her and the boys to prop Roger anymore, like they were a set where his character lived and not a fan favorite vet in her own right. They had a real chance to do something fresh for American soaps when he was being bullied by Charlotte for being gay and they were all little kids. The adults were having good takes for their characters, creating natural conflict. But this is GH and Valentini is somehow allergic to natural conflict ever being displayed. I have been barely watching the show since BTG started. More than anything I am sad to see GH this hollow. They have all the pieces still in place, this isn’t like Guiding Light near the end that was decimated of longterm characters. But it feels hollow to me anyway. My flurry of posts in the Classics thread just makes me want to dip out of todays show for a bit.

I think that isolation was sometimes due to her first in schedule when she had her first child. There is a real change in 1995 with how Laura is used. She was much more part of the action with Luke before that, or fighting the Q’s over the incinerator in their neighborhood. She was pretty central up to 1995. The first year of Guza really reinvigorated her and she was in scenes with more people because her stories were the umbrella stories. After Lucky died in the fire it felt like she was either grieving at her house or on Spoon Island, and nowhere else for like an entire year. Shades of Nikki at the ranch on Y&R. I bought Laura being that devastated about Lucky, because she lost everything that had been her life for a long time that year. But the show didn’t do anything with it. She could have gone to therapy again, been allowed to actually work with those troubled teens she started to see and then never went back to her GH job. But Genie said they stopped writing for her and they kind of did. I watch the show today and just bitch and moan about all these back to back paternity stories, and never once complained when Bobbie and Laura were both in them at the same time with Carly and Nikolas. Instead I was glued to the show. Good writing and strong performers can make you forget the sameness.

IIRC, they had some clear chemistry testing going on then, including the cliche of Mac giving a freezing Laura his jacket and trying to warm her when they were stuck on the roof. Then he was just standing there when Laura lights into Carly, and even asks Sonny to control her and he sides with Carly, which causes Laura to basically erupt on them both. It was a terrible idea to put those two characters against each other that way, especially with Gia and Liz in that silly storyline. Genie did too. In her exit interview in 2002 she said they should pair him with Alexis because that would make Tony happy and she was fantastic and they worked well together. I am not certain if that was when the leave happened. It just fits what was happening onscreen as being so unlike Guza. But it may have been at another time period. When I learned this it was alluded to that it happened during the Pratt period of time, not when he was solo again. That makes sense. I don’t remember Brenda ever having real scenes with Laura, and Vanessa loved both of them. She and Maurice were both intimidated to work with them because they were fans from back in the day. Vanessa even has a photo with her and Tony at a fan event when she was a preteen. I am not quite as big a Genie fan as you are a Vanessa fan. But I think Tony and Genie are important to the genre, and Luke and Laura are very important characters to the show. So I invest in them. Especially when they came back and the entire show was just excellent. I think they fit in any era after their debut. I can’t imagine Robert working as well in Riche’s grounded era for example. I don’t think Anna (who was my all time favorite GH character for a long time) works as seamlessly either. But Luke and Laura work because they have both grounded foundations and then the larger than life quality. They can save the world from freezing by the Cassadines or break your heart in a grounded human story about loss.

One thing about Tony and Genie both- they often generate chemistry with their scene partners. Not just romantic chemistry. Both of them had great scenes with Tony Jones often. Genie had some sparks with Mac, Roy, and serious heat with Stefan in the early part of the story. Tony was possibly NLG’s best scene partner, and he had real chemistry with Helena. They both worked really well with JJ, Tyler, and JMB. Jackie. Sonny. The list goes on.

I believe he had a child that passed away. I just don’t know exactly when it happened as he is very private and it wasn’t widely known. I read it after he was fired and it lined up with how that Pratt era seemed balanced between their styles at the beginning and the end, but there was a section there where the show felt very much Pratt only. And I think that was when Guza was gone.

The Mac/Laura teases started getting serious during MVJ’s short HW stint, when Laura and Carly owned Deception. I think they were even trapped together on the roof by Carly at some kind of reception? My memory is fuzzy about the show around then. But yes, the actual papers being signed were JFP/Megan.

IIRC, their credit was Associate Producers or Producers and Head Writers. It was both so Pratt and Guza were equals (Pratt wasn’t going to just be a HW), and it gave them more control over the writing after what happened with Riche. But they were not Executive Producers. When Pratt came to Y&R they were both interviewed about his EP credit, and they danced around it not diminishing Jill, even though it did. I have no doubt JFP lost power at GH, it shows. But I don’t think she was completely powerless as stated. I know Guza was gone for a period of time due to a family loss and was still credited as though he was still there. Like gone for months. Maybe that was when the Stefan cartoon villain stuff started, which did feel 100% Pratt. With her track record with women and their family desires I have a hard time not thinking she was involved somewhere.

At one point he actually did get Laura. His first year was pretty much her more in character to what she was before than Labine was. He loved her idea of having been gone long enough to have a child, and ran with that to reintroduce the Cassadines. And Stefan and Laura had heat in that initial story. When he came back in ‘98, Michael Logan asked him about Laura and Guza said he was basically willing to beg her to return. And wrote a huge event around it when she finally did agree. When he and Pratt arrived the first thing they did was write a big story for Laura (awful as it was going to be and ended up being). Now that we know more inside info about Stuart Damon’s firing and other bits from that time, I am not sure Guza was the problem when it came to wanting to write for Laura. I think we have Frons being youth obsessed and JFP being basically a horrible EP more to blame. I think the show did them both a disservice by dragging out their separation for several years. I just think you don’t divorce the couple that had the highest ratings in daytime history for their wedding. There is marquee value there. Split them up, even affairs I could stomach. But you just don’t divorce characters like Luke and Laura. Everything kind of falls apart after Lucky died as far as writing for both of them. They didn’t want to reunite them yet, so we got the Felicia affair, etc. The perfect reset would have been when they went to find Lucky they should have reunited then, and then you add in the conflict again with Lucky being not quite right when they get home. When Laura learns Lucky was alive, and slapped Stefan, that was the moment, and they didn’t take it. We had like another year of Laura just existing without a point. There was a moment when I thought they might make her an alcoholic after the affair is revealed in court but that didn’t happen either.

Plenty of people have said Tony wanted to morph Luke into Bill by the late 2000’s. Having watched a lot of 1992 recently, that tracks. The person he describes is Bill, not Luke. I think these points are why it was such a hit too. It was Vanessa who was a legit draw for the show at that time. It wasn’t so far gone that the audience that loved her was all gone, and it helped the blow with Genie and just how sad that exits story was. The audience that had lapsed were not so far out of the habit that Brenda coming back was going to have interest. And the story was moving, you had to watch because it lit a fire under the show.

It was in one of those more candid interviews she has given in the last decade. She said it was kind of foisted on them after the deals were done and both of them didn’t feel like it was earned, and they both felt like going anywhere near a big wedding was just a bad idea because it would always be compared to the actual iconic wedding. I think he was still there when Geary pitched it, and I didn’t really remember him playing a part when it happened.

Also, even watching the show on YouTube Luke was never a traditional dad. His beliefs about his character were never shown onscreen. Luke of 1983-1999 just would not have cheated on Laura. He would have adored any baby he made with Laura. I think the show spent enough time showing that he wasn’t comfortable being back in Port Charles as far as being settled down. But they never stopped his having adventures. Labine said she just wasn’t the writer for a new adventure caper every year, that it had to be more grounded than that for her. And her mob stories with them, Sonny, and Frank Smith actually worked and were plenty of action for that time and that tone with the show.

What kills me is that Laura ended up being the character that was damaged by the family life stuff, not Luke. Not at first, but she was the one who became weaker, was worried about danger all the time and lost some of that spark that made Laura and Luke a good team, beyond just romantic partners. She started to be kind of like saint Laura. By Labine’s last year she’s just a dull, handwringing mess. A lot of characters were coasting then because Labine was so focused on Stone, which was an important story. Guza’s first (and best) stint corrected a lot of the issues with the Damian story, which set them back up as a pair fighting an obstacle, followed by deeply emotional stories with Lulu’s bone marrow transplant and the turmoil of her secret son, Nikolas. Both of them really do shine in very emotional, grounded material.

I know Amber was put off pretty quickly because Riche was direct and supportive, and JFP is anything but either of those things. Riche was no slouch, but she wasn’t out to cut up other women. And Sarah was rightfully pissed that all of a sudden her input was no longer even listened to, but Maurice was still able to do what he wanted if he felt like something wasn’t working or didn’t suit him. As others have stated, she just decimated the women within a year of arriving, and it really was Vanessa and Guza/Pratt writing such a tight story around her that saved her. And she repaid that by trying to put Vanessa in her place, and never saw ratings as good again, virtually almost killing the show a slow painful death. Guza helped of course, and Brian Frons too. She would have started the Vanessa train of signing 1 to 2 year deals only, but she was worth it as Carly. Just like Vanessa was worth her wish for early shooting with a newborn and never more than 3 days a week. When you have a strong show, 3 days a week is more than enough for a lead and actually makes you write for more characters. I still find it so hysterical that it was Steve’s idea to get Robin back on the show and the first thing she said was she didn’t want to do Jason/Robin again.