titan1978

I don’t know, both sound terrible. Maybe I could see Guza on OLTL, with a greater focus on Angel Square and the newspapers. The only soap I can see Pratt on other than GH is DAYS. He would have loved Carrie/Austin/Sami and turning Hope into a bitch! Pratt absolutely turned Melrose Place into the show to watch when I was a teenager. He’s the one that told them they have a soap, and they might as well take advantage of it. I do think a good writer for GH in modern times should be better at balancing character development and growth with the spectacle and crime elements they are known for, slow it down a bit too! Pratt is too much trash all the time.

If they want him to be so publicly evil they should have him doing gotcha style political interviews like Fox News, so even his work is a ridiculous as his life.

Funny to see Alan with his train set after it came up in the recent stories with Monica’s estate. lol. I think Frons had a simpatico minded producer with Jill. She produced a splashy show, and that was what he was always trying to force onto AMC and OLTL and it just didn’t work the same way because they are all three fundamentally different shows at their cores. Nobody in their right mind would think Pratt would be a good fit for AMC. Cutting vets to impact the budgets is something both of them believed in. The fact that Alan Quartermaine died and then shortly came back as a ghost just reeks of ABC getting cold feet and wanting to lessen the blow, forcing it on Jill. I know Laura waking up was an ABC thing to capitalize on the 25th anniversary of the wedding and also to get Tony and Genie to Super Soap Weekend in 2006. The stuff with treating the women like crap bts, especially over the men was absolutely JFP. Again, Frons had no problem with misogyny, so he wasn’t going to stop her. I also think the overall nihilistic approach to telling stories fits both of them- they both acted like there was no future beyond a handful of years for soaps so they stopped training new bts talent and had no problem decimating the shows. There are many little things that you can add up along JFP’s career and see her fingerprints on stuff that happened at GH during her tenure. But Frons shared so many of the same values that it’s hard to fully tell who made which errors.

It’s one of those times where Pratt walked in the door with a high pricetag and the clout from his primetime career to demand power over the stories, and from what I have heard back in the day Guza got favored nations with him when they came back as a team. Which was very smart on his part. But we know that power was not total and Jill could use the budget to override them. Alan Quartermaine’s death being and example of her vs him. Thanks to MVJ spilling that tea. Same thing with Vanessa Marcil’s contract extension- JFP got in the way there too. I suspect she was more the reason Laura didn’t fully return than Bob Guza too, based on what he used to say about Genie and the fact that he seemed to write for her several times.

Happy holidays all!

I’m sorry, what? I refuse to engage in Passanante as a Head Writer so I pretty much missed most of her tenure.

It points to the lack of general schemers on the show right now. Back in the day you had grey characters like Alan, Edward, and Monica who were capable of anything in the right situations. And people like Scotty, Lucy Coe, Katharine Bell, even early Damien Smith and early 80’s Heather Webber. Reliably capable of blackmail, opportunists, scoundrel behavior without crossing into supervillain. That type of characters are reasonable suspects in a story like this to keep the fuel in the storytelling fire.

I just got to the eye mites. They made Felicia be part of this too?

That was deeply stupid and a waste of time. Now if the full rumored story had happened I could see a Monica/Rick interlude, leading to Alan being a credible suspect when he died. I think the ending was always going to be Rick dead, I just think they were setting it up to be more of a mystery. I could see even Lesley being roped into this mystery (but not as a major player). Scott, Laura, and Luke being set up as the main suspects. I could not bring myself to watch more than the first vid, but even then they were being very heavy handed with Scotty/Rick. It did feel very Melrose Place Pratt. And I think the Bobbie stuff was maybe the second version of the story that also didn’t fully play out, that she was who Rick was sleeping with. But when they decided Laura (later Scotty) killed that nurse, they shifted away from Bobbie except as a red herring while Laura tried to piece it together. Although JFP was more than willing to destroy Bobbie as a character, I cannot imagine her knowing Laura was molested and keeping it to herself for decades. In all the retcons, I know they decided Laura didn’t kill Rick. But she did still kill that nurse, correct? Or was that reconned away too? @carolineg Brenda’s return really saved several jobs, JFP especially. Because they were able to use that as a reset and momentum to carry them out of a real rough patch that had lasted over a year, from the end of Riche to that dreadful first period with JFP. Then they established the big sweeps event storytelling that kept them going for several years.

Does anyone know what the original Rick Webber storyline was supposed to be in 2002 before Genie quit/was fired? Were they actually going to reveal that Rick molested Laura? And was there originally an element of Bobbie being involved in it? I was watching classic GH episodes and it auto started a Rick Webber returns playlist otherwise I would probably never have seen it again. Right away Scotty is very anti Rick, so he was included from the beginning. I assume the hospital takeover was supposed to last longer too, and everything got cut off because of Genie’s exit.

We have fallen very far from Bert Bauer’s Pap smear and Stone dying of AIDS. It’s comical how much soaps used to do storywise that they would never touch today. Especially the real stuff. We saw Erica Kane at Betty Ford! But at least the eye mite community got their PSA.

I know I have said it before, but the Ava/Nina and Ava/Alexis confrontation scenes during that period were my favorite Ava scenes in a long time. Maybe ever. The turn with Nina where she just drops the pretense was so good! It wasn’t just two ladies sparring, Ava seemed dangerous again.

I really don’t get it because Ava hasn’t been on the front burner much in like two or more years. She is a natural antagonist that should be up to no good. Deeply involved with Drew against Sonny. Or with Sidwell against Sonny. Watros is in the same boat. It’s like Valentini would rather leave them on the shelf than actually use their talents. And Rick Hearst has energy and chemistry to burn all over the place. And now he’s back to trying to win over Sonny too! Puke!!!!

We should have seen the real Ava get very nasty! Except Ava had to be a near victim of Kristina, and they even squashed that beef too!

It’s why Ava is defanged, Watros isn’t allowed to go full psycho, Valentin is a simpering wimp, Laura and Sonny are besties, and everyone is generally way to genial with each other. At least they are allowing some conflict with Drew and Carly turning on Brennan. I want the kind of sustained animosity we got from Ed Bauer and Roger Thorpe, or Viki and Dorian. The snobbery of Phoebe Wallingford. A general dislike over the years like Erica Kane and Brooke English, or Margo Hughes and Barbara Ryan. GH historically had a supervillain big bad, and then also natural conflict between people that just don’t get along. Bobbie and Lucy could be nice over BJ’s grave, and also rip each other’s hair out later. It’s why I have loved Drew this year. And why I used to love the way other women felt about Carly. Liz, Robin, Brenda, and Sam all cannot stand her, with good reason.

I am not a Liason stan, however, Jason as he is right now would fit much more naturally with Liz, who has nothing to do but warn about eye infestations. Give her an Aiden that doesn’t look like he is the same age as his mom and bring back Hudson West as Jake and just get the natural rivalry story going that is right there between him and Danny. Bonus points if we make Danny Bi and he gets involved with Aiden. If they won’t go there I am not opposed to a Lucky recast. But that still leaves Jason in a pairing not working. And it’s not Burton’s fault, he’s clearly trying.

Please no. But if it does happen, I think having him as another new character and using Liz or Anna to try to make it work again will finally drive me from the show. I don’t think I can even FF that!

Everybody did well, but Jessie was such a sad sack even just looking at her she seemed miserable, and Becky didn’t quite land that.

Nikolas is what tore them apart. It laid bare all the times they both chose to ignore something rather than face it. The rape story soon after destroyed the family unit of Luke/Laura/Lucky. Before Nikolas they were mostly in step with sharing the adventure and danger together. Laura got tired of being shot at, but they were still united and that was clearly not going to be the end at that time. Luke could even later accept Nikolas, but not the betrayal he perceived in her not telling him. And Laura just shut off pain she couldn’t deal with, increasingly making her vulnerable to reality. In my viewing, the betrayal was Luke had pretty much been completely open with Laura, possibly the one person who knew him that well, and she still didn’t do the same with him. And it was with the Cassadines, their greatest enemy.

That hallucination absolutely was laughably bad. Some of the worst acting he ever did on the show. I also thought Luthman was incredible and they should have snapped him up.

Luke as an alcoholic was one of the Guza era ideas he hated IIRC. And the whole Frank Smith revisit was stupid and he said so on his way out the door. He said Frank was old in 1979! How the hell was he still hanging on? A Carlivati special- resurrect the dead and then kill them off again quickly. Geary did like the flashback idea with their parents, but he didn’t care for the DID stuff either if I remember correctly. It was supposed to be Bill.

Sarah Brown has been very public about how much Geary meant to her. And truthfully, Sarah Brown is the only Carly that felt like a Spencer. Tamara Braun was slightly too polished, and Laura Wright has always felt like a spoiled brat all grown up. Jennifer Bransford had that grit, but it didn’t work for what they wanted Carly to be at that time. It may never have worked to be honest, she felt like Carly took a wrong turn and lost everything and was mostly just bitter. Which was a Sliding Doors option for SJB’s version. The stuff I said about finding the emotion, in every Labine episode I have watched over the last couple of days something moving happens. And these were not the big moments, not Stone dying or BJ’s heart. Just quiet scenes where they leaned into the heart of the matter. 1996 Guza has those spots too, but they are more about damage and less about hope as a tone.

This was really sweet to read. I watched GH initially because that’s what my mom, sister, and grandma watched whenever they could. It’s also why I didn’t watch AMC until the 90’s, because in my family as a kid it was OLTL, GH, and when it was still on, Edge of Night. My grandmother didn’t like AMC, so the habit wasn’t passed down.

I don’t think so either. I think the volume and speed they work necessitated him coming up with a tighter version of the filming model he was using on OLTL, and he can’t change what he does anymore either by lack of vision, control, his own taste, or all of the above. Right away the longer scenes were going to be a problem. Right away using Sam so much was going to be a problem. The deeper focus on character just isn’t what he does anymore, if he ever did it. When Shelley Curtis was on MB’s show and said even in these days every script should have the set of scenes that are the focus, and they should be given more care and time to breathe. MVJ on Soapy just said those short scenes for everything are not the way to go. But that would entail him changing what he does, and he’s just not going to do that. With Geary’s passing I have been finding random 1990’s episodes on YouTube and watching the whole show. It’s fascinating how much emotion is there compared to today. Every episode had something that was an emotional centerpiece. When you watch that and then turn on today the show is so hollow.

IIRC Nathan Varni made a public statement about trying to get lapsed viewers back around the time Burton returned, and alluded to the show returning to feeling more like a classic GH with characters the audience associates with the show. This had followed a year of declining ratings and the show not capitalizing on Sprina who were generating their own publicity. There were a bunch of mismatched couples, and several stories hinged on recurring cast members or newer folks and the contract cast was mostly in the stories but not the focus. It started with Burton’s return, then Mulcahey, longer scenes, then almost all Frank’s besties or personal favorites were slowly shown the door. As far as Lucky and Lulu, Genie had been quietly lobbying for their return for a long time. And to Valentini’s credit, he did try to get Julie Berman back several times before going with an ABC name recast. I truly believe the second JJ’s scheduling became complicated Frank was done with even pretending to integrate Lucky. TPTB clearly didn’t want him there because the natural stories were there and he wasn’t in them.