titan1978

Thank you for posting that episode @Vee I don’t think I have watched a Labine era GH episode without feeling something, ever. She and the team they assembled were the perfect writers for the vision Wendy Riche had. When things were at their darkest during her tenure, I also felt hope. I might need to do a rewatch for the first few months of 2025. Just that simple moment with Ned looking at Monica leaving, and saying Happy New Year had depth to it, because the emotional core of the history was there. History on soaps, for me, has never meant minutia or just a name from the past. It’s the weight of Ned seeing Monica clearly unwell. It’s how Laura always desperately needed a maternal figure and family, and clearly found one again in Mary Mae and her family.

What is this about? Were they rumored to be beards for each other? Also, the last couple pages have been fascinating, I didn’t know Malloy was difficult, and yet, it doesn’t surprise me in the least!

Deep Space Nine. Kira was originally Ensign Ro, from MF time on TNG. Forbes did not want to be typecast. As far back as her tenure on Homicide, when she did do any press it always seemed to me that she wanted to be a character actress, and was very selective about her choices. I think she has had the career she has mostly by design.

Rosalind Cash was wonderful on GH. A year or so ago I rewatched a Luke & Laura playlist from the beginning of their return. The story for the Wards was so carefully laid out, starting with Laura walking into a clearing and seeing their old family home. Her imagining the family that lived there, right up to finding Bradley’s remains and the affair reveal. It felt like those characters had been there longer than they were, they fit so well. I also think what Guza did with Damian’s murder was a good idea. Edward protecting Justus, who went along partly for ego for himself and his family name, was a good story. That whole story is fun to watch, the murder, the memorial, and Laura in jail and on trial. The story with Justus just didn’t go anywhere after that. Much like Tony going psycho kidnapping Michael and Robin and no rebuilding his life after. I wish I could find that hospital scene with Mac and Stone. Stone is crying and Mac hugs him, like a spell breaking his anger at him up for good in that moment.

Bless you!

Liz, with her life experiences, her job, and kids was in line with what Bobbie became. A character that was in the grounded stories and was relatable through her mistakes and had rooting value and real audience support for her triumphs. She just never got fully elevated like Jackie did. Becky has worked her ass off in many terrible stories over the years. I think part of the issue with Liz was what happened during the Liason era, both onscreen and off. Then JJ came back and the show seemed hellbent in making his character miserable all the time. Guza wrote for Lucky like he did Laura- depressing, angry, maligned, and increasingly isolated. Just seeing them both smile at times during this run has been refreshing. I don’t think Liz has ever been treated fully as a lead. Even in her early years I would say Amber Tamblyn’s Emily was the actual lead character in their age group after JJ left. Her stories were not dependent on a pairing, which is what befell Liz. Even the next Emily was treated more like a lead to me.

This comment makes me laugh, because every named character in this quote now has been involved in a paternity storyline. Two years and we have paternity reveals for Trina, Sasha, Cody and Gio. Please stop GH.

Howarth did. But the problem was they were all bitching about Franco being gone and he should come back again as Franco and that was a non-starter.

I wonder if any of these kids watch him and think this is supposed to be the best of the best? I have said it before, but even at his worst, most bored and ready to leave, with the right scene partner Tony Geary was still capable of strong work. I haven’t seen anything from Mo in over a decade that I would consider any more than passable. One of the reasons I was team NAC before he left the show!

Exactly! Put some meat on those bones and you can make sense out of it. It’s the kind of conflict that would have been natural for Lois had she stayed during her first run. What happens when she starts to compromise her ethics, even if it is to protect someone else? That’s the kind of story I would love to see played out here. Watching Lois realize all her justifications don’t matter because she broke her own personal ethical code is good stuff, beyond just being a mom and everything being about BLQ (we know the dad if the rumors are true will barely be involved due to the show bias). Not just another paternity story where everyone is mad for a few weeks and then all good. Not didn’t want to. By every account I have seen including his own statements he couldn’t do it. It was dragging on too long for him to play that volatility and mania with his mental health issues, and it was getting worse onscreen with no end in sight. The same thing happened when they played his manic depression during the Emily affair. They had to cut it short because he had a breakdown.

By all accounts, including his own, he has little to no bts power now. He has admitted this several times since COVID on his YouTube show. He came back to the show in an incredibly fragile state mentally, and has never gotten back the level of stability he had before his COVID breakdown. When he had his latest episodes this summer, he was basically forced to return to work or there would be temp casting. He has said several times that they make him dye his hair. I only watch his show when he has a true soap veteran on, plus a handful of GH ones, maybe 10 of them, and he has been pretty honest about his mental health and how the BTS culture of the show has changed. It is also pretty clear none of the talent has much power nowadays. Genie Francis only got rehired because of the longevity of the public outcry directed at Frank specifically. Monaco would have been untouchable even five years into Frank’s tenure. Burton has come back clearly humbled and just happy to be with his lifelong colleagues again. Even FV’s power has somewhat diminished- look at Howarth and Easton. I think we all give them credit for what kind of power they used to wield. Look at DAYS with AA. They let that [!@#$%^&*] go on way beyond the talent asking for investigations. I don’t think any soap actors have any power beyond deciding to sign a new contract when they are fed up or burned out.

I am dying.

Same.

Maybe he wanted to get out of the US? If you didn’t have to be here right now would be a good time to get out.

Yikes to both to be honest lol.

This is very interesting. I love McKenna, have since he was teen Joey on OLTL. I even felt the chemistry between him and GR on Y&R (go ahead and throw the tomatoes at me). I liked Measure, and this changes the character quite a bit. I have a harder time seeing McKenna as an early career peer of Anna and (puke) Valentine. But details do not matter at this point on GH, they retcon their own retcons quite often, and just steamroll along. This does not help the show’s constant need to blow up romances. They had achieved a slow burn with Carly, and I found their most recent conversations and flirting to be much more adult for Carly, and I believed his side of things too.

It is interesting to think how much those early episodes and years were quite dour. In one of the most recently uploaded episodes I saw the slightest smile on Jessie’s face, and it had to be the first time I ever saw her close to smiling. I bet early Audrey was a breath of fresh air, because she is much lighter before they start piling on the tragedy to her too. Lee Baldwin too- he has such different energy compared to Doctors Hardy and Phil Brewer. I know amongst original fans, many felt Jessie and Steve should have been together, and never were. EM certainly played a deep affection for Steve in many scenes I have seen of them together. Those dour early years almost make the miserable JFP/Guza years seem like they were no so out of character. Almost.

What drives me crazy is everything else is slow burn. Almost every prestige TV show spotlights sparkling dialogue and a slow burn storytelling style. And FV cuts everything up so much that stuff gets lost quite often.

Even though I haven’t really met the characters fully yet, one thing stands out about all the looks I have seen so far. They are being treated with care. All the soaps used to have wardrobes that suited the characters and rarely do now. On Y&R for example, Malcolm, Neil, Drucilla, and Olivia each had their own look, and you would never expect Drucilla to look like Olivia. Even in a suit Neil and Malcolm had their own personality. On GH, another example would be Luke. He always had his own look that only suited Luke. Monica and Tracy, both wealthy Q’s would never be dressed or styled alike. Happy to see these characters seem to be fully designed from the inside out, and everything doesn’t look like H&M.

You have made a lot of us very happy these last couple of days. It’s wonderful to see so much history that many of us have only read about. Performances and characters that we all know but many did not have the context of seeing their work and how that formed the characters. I never thought I would see so much of Pinkerton’s Dorian. Thanks for sharing!

Denise Alexander also said so- that when she came to GH she was shocked at the sets and even the filming equipment, it was less sophisticated than what DAYS was using. I loved Evans, but I was young when I watched her and I really thought Witter was a great recast. Kind of like Krista and Kimberly Simms as Mindy on GL, who I also preferred. Witter and Simms just had a more sophisticated take, and both were sexy in a more grown up way.

Of the big three in the 00’s, I liked Jason the most. I felt the show shifting from being Sonny centric to Jason centric after the Emily affair and I agreed with that shift. All of a sudden Sonny was allowed to be called out, and Jason was the only one that was “always right”. For me, something changed about a year before he left the first time, and I think his vaccine beliefs were a danger to his coworkers the second time. But as I said, he came back with the right kind of energy and is closer to the Jason that he used to be. Finola and Steve both deserve better! What is wild to me is they spend about 18 months trying to make several pairings work and then blow them all up at the same time. Now Cody is just there floundering, etc.

No offense, but you are one of the least reliable posters who often perpetuates online nonsense and inappropriate information about these performer’s personal lives. As far as when you end up having actual information, a broken clock is right twice a day. I am more interested in Sasha and Jason with Michael’s baby, whatever it ends up being, than I am in Anna and Jason. I am not a huge Steve Burton fan, but he came back with the right work ethic this time. To embody the scenes with more emotion when they call for it and to lean in to connecting with more than Maurice and Laura. The show is so underwritten for character that I really appreciate he is emoting more than he used to, because the dialogue isn’t getting me there. I will continue to praise the current team for one thing- I can watch pretty much every day and see actual GH characters in the mix. Even during Mulcahey/Korte, it felt like weeks would go by and I saw a whole lot of Nina but very little of the GH vets. Now we see them daily, in the mix. Just wish the writing was stronger, but I will give Valentini credit where it is due. We should see more of Laura, Jordan, and Anna together talking about the issues they all are against in the city. Cyrus being one, and now Sidwell and the violence surrounding Sonny.

Yes to all this. When NAC was on the show he went above and beyond supporting a pairing with both Trina’s. What’s new to me is that this is the first time I have seen soap social media make its way to mainstream. About two months after he left all this stuff started which basically amounts to he is ungrateful to GH or their fans. And then it spread after about 6 months of constant online digs to mainstream online people. He may be an asshat, I don’t know. But the stuff I have heard reeks of soap fan nonsense.

Doris Belack, one of those great New York actors that played a judge many times on Law&Order and SVU too IIRC. She will also always be Rita to me, the stand in for Gloria Monty in Tootsie. Always interesting to see Joe. I had no idea Dorian was after Joe.