titan1978

I have vague recollections of him strutting around town at various points calling Carly a whore and complaining about how dangerous Sonny and Jason were. And yes, the terrible 2001 story. IIRC Helena forced his hand but I can’t remember how.

Didn’t Tony eventually help her resurrect Stavros in the underground lab at GH? Which was such a stupid storyline to watch. I know that was all post Guza and almost lost JFP the EP position. Everything was bad, including the new music cues she started using.

Happiest of holidays to you, and the posters here!

It is stupefying that GH has the most Black actors on contract in their history, and they do use them consistently, but still clearly not letting them center anything or feel significant to the fabric of the show. I would argue that the first two Simone’s felt more centered than any of the Black women do right now, and she was tied to the B story characters and a bland Tom Hardy. You could argue that nobody on the show feels important right now, but they feel more dismissed than the rest of the disposable cast. Me too.

I thought it was pretty well known that there was bts strife after the writer’s strike, and Guza and JFP were both in agreement about the show being dark but not who the focus should be on or where the stories should go. GW went fi-core and most of the others went out on strike. I don’t know how long she would have lasted under RC, because they pretty much cleaned house of the veteran writers. But I think, as others have pointed out, that her issues were with either GW, JFP, Altman, or some combination of them.

I used to watch Hollyoaks, and they slaughtered young adults and teens constantly. But at least it was fun to watch for the most part.

Recurring problem. This is why Esme was fun before they broke her too. Everyone on this show is either too genial or a maniac. Which are so old fashioned because people are not having kids like they used too, not having them as young.

They kind of were when they were there to help prop RH’s Franco. And I agree, they should all three be in the mix to some degree. The only time I tolerated Charlotte was when she was being used as a bully to build the Aiden is gay angle, pitting Liz, Lulu and Stafford’s Nina against each other. Agreed! There used to be two rooms used consistently- the library and a sitting room, and they both had their own style back in the day. I was happy to see a return, but I can’t quite decide which one is which now.

I’m not. He hasn’t had stable writing for longer than like three years at a time until Chris and Dan, and he exerts too much control over them. They seemingly write for three months in advance at a time, and FV will blow things up whenever he feels like things are not working.

I did enjoy Wes Kinney’s tenure, but outside of using the hospital again and giving Steve and Audrey something to do with Tom and Simone, he really was playing in the scraps left over from her. The Jerome’s, etc. I do think the Snowman storyline with Anna and Grant Putnam was one of the best of the decade though. i would kill for Pikeman to be revealed as Grant Putnam. His target last fall was Anna, and he did serious damage to her back in the day. Robin was traumatized, Duke went back to the mob which eventually led to his death, trying to find her because Robert was taking too long and shut him out of the search, and Anna had to fight her own way to escape. At the time I would have kept her over Jenny. But Jenny had Paul and a built in story with Ned and Tracy that needed to be resolved. They both dwindled and were gone soon after because without Tracy there was nothing there.

Dan must have been the one that liked Kristina Wagner too, because they had Felicia way more in the mix on several stories before Korte/Mulcahey took over.

Amanda Setton is enjoyable when she goes on the attack as Brook Lynn. I almost forgot she had it in her. More of that and less hand wringing please. Anna is easily in my top 5 GH characters but she never cried this much during the 80’s. I do not mind it some of the time, but her blaming herself for Dex and crying in her office was just such bland soap writing. She deserves better. Sonny is back to being the town grandpa, out here giving pep talks and money to the church. Ridiculous. I kind of feel for Maurice- I think the show through all the turmoil has completely lost any trace of Sonny, Jason, and Carly’s characters. Carly less than the other two. I don’t know who this person is supposed to be but it ain’t Sonny Corinthos. Bringing Rick Hearst back was a great move. He has a certain energy that none of his scene partners have, so even a bland scene sort of crackles with energy.

Riche clearly wanted gritty, realistic drama, and Levinson enjoyed seedy. When Labine got there she got excellent character driven writing, and Labine was already a more grounded writer. She brought depth and heart. As we have discussed here in the past, Monty’s instincts were correct. The show needed to be more grounded, it needed class distinction, and did need a shake up. The problem was she didn’t want work with strong enough writers to get her there, mixed with anchoring her new family around Tony Geary not playing Luke. Another actor might have helped the Eckert family. I think her earlier legendary run is pretty solid all the way through thanks to her fast pace and casting talent saving down periods. But it is at its best when she has Marland, then both Pat Falken Smith tenures. I think her best writing partner was PFS to be honest.

I preferred her chemistry with Ned and AJ. Bill was such a monumental failure. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, from the mid 2000’s on that’s pretty much what Tony morphed Luke into. There was some basis for Luke going dark- Laura’s madness storyline was heartbreaking, and he blamed himself so he pushed everyone away. But he tried to act like this was how Luke had always been and it never rang true to what I saw.

I think it helped that most of their reunion wasn’t just an exposition dump about the last four years. Both Lucky and Laura were mired with a lot of that. To this day it annoys me that Carly and her children are having emotional moments at Robin and Stone’s bridge. Jason really burned that spot. I would be genuinely shocked if they killed Felicia. I don’t see it happening. I hope she puts the pieces together and helps solve things like the old days. They already offed a long term vet with Sam.

I felt Julia was one of the bright spots of Monty 2 back then. Even though Fluke was a mess, I wish it had been Bill and we got some of those rumored appearances. I have a lot of fondness for many parts of Monty 2 through Levinson/Riche. Labine takes what was there and the return of L&L and makes it much better of course.

While I was reading this all I kept thinking was Julia has more actual ties now than Jagger did, and would have fit in pretty seamlessly compared to how hard they tried to shoehorn him in as just a name from the past. Add in Brenda too and everything fits quite easily.

I meant the first ones on DAYS. Luke and Laura are absolutely the original super couple. Sherri Anderson while working with Pat Falken Smith at GH is really the architect of the supercouple formula. I consider Marlena and Roman at DAYS the first true application of that formula on that show and post L&L. We can all agree that retroactively other couples count. Julie and Doug fitting it the most with all their obstacles and heightened romance, also under major influence by PFS who worked under Bill Bell establishing them. But they lack the thriller element that arrives with Luke and Laura and Roman & Marlena. That element is pretty integral to Anderson’s formula.

Absolutely. And I agree, the lingering shots and as I said, glamour, would make it stand out tremendously. And it just suits the show’s DNA. Some clarification about what I mean by high romance from DAYS. It’s not just a supercouple thing. It’s the heightened romances the show has always told. Laura being pulled between brothers Bill and Mickey and the fallout. Doug and Julie and Addie. The supercouple era which I think starts with Marlena/Wayne’s Roman. Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas. I think DAYS has to have major romance for it to feel like Days of our Lives.

It was on YouTube. There was even a year like it was official!

I know we have gone over this in broad ways many times on the site. I am curious what you think each of the four current shows need to have for you to consider them set up for success? For me- GH needs a strong hospital core of characters, and also the classic thriller umbrella storylines. I just think the show is best when you have both at the same time. DAYS should have high romance and a sense of danger. DAYS was always watchable when you had people falling in and out of love, and a good antagonist to keep stories moving. Y&R needs old school glamour and dramatic staging, with heightened but also somehow reserved emotions and actual business stories involving Jabot. The only show to have business stories I cared about. B&B I have never really watched to be honest. But from what I have seen, and read about it, I think it needs a Spectra type crew to go head to head with the Forresters. Scrappy, rootable, maybe a little shady, and fun to combat the stuffy nature of the well to do characters. Whats makes these shows successful to the rest of the board?

Who is this guy in the opening credits?

I agree. It’s like a snake eating its own tail. And the same thing has broken superhero comics from Marvel and DC. The constant navel gazing. We are now two generations of American kids that don’t read those comics but still support the genre by reading manga. Much like continuing drama is pretty much all of the rest of television, and superhero movies are still a juggernaut. But the source material has died on the vine. The audience is out there, and fandom has such a stranglehold on soaps and those comics that they won’t let them evolve.

That divorce and his desire to have no body fat at all aged Burton a lot between his last stint and this one. I do appreciate he is emoting more than he has in decades. But he looks like old pappy to me paired with Sasha. And Finola is older than him and she looks closer to his age. Honestly, anything to keep him and Anna apart. But I am still in favor of Tracy/Cody!

There is a lot of truth to this for me too. And what you said about Sonny and Jason colors my viewing habits of the entire show. It used to make me feel something, and so I am still tied there out of my history, and how I feel about the genre as a whole.