titan1978

The truth is the pairing had a small and vocal fanbase, but really wasn’t working overall. And it would have gotten much less attention all around if the show hadn’t botched the bigoted Natalia part of the story. That was what made people angry enough to care. If Natalia was also gone, this would be a minor bump. Instead I think it could become the issue that causes Frank some heartburn for some time. The optics are the problem, not Blaze per se.

Eric didn’t hit her hard enough! Karen is also insufferable during this whole storyline. This show is still incredibly watchable. I cannot wait for on demand streaming or purchasing becoming available. Hopefully they are still working towards that like the other primetime soaps of the 80’s.

I absolutely hate Diana. I forgot just how awful she was in season 5.

Just wanted to add that he was using the big talent they have for the reset when he was still steering it. Anna and Laura vs Sonny is far more complicated and could have had real depth to play for all three of them. You have some of the biggest guns in GH history on contract and are not using them for more than window dressing right now. Even Dex was being given natural complications becoming a cop with a force that half enables Sonny/on his payroll and half knows he is a criminal and can’t do anything about it and we’re not happy about it. Every story group and character was being set up with a point of view to drive conflict and more emotional stakes. Classic soap stuff like brothers not getting along, the Nina/Willow/Drew story, Ava back to being a villainous character, which puts her at odds with people like Nina and Trina, etc. The show needed better stories, the Pikeman story should have been used faster to integrate Jason and some action into the show while they did the more delicate character work concurrently. Had Valentini allowed that I think we might have seen a much stronger show. The problem with a writer like Mulcahey is that he doesn’t write the big story churning plot driven spectacle well. I think if he had been paired with a writer that does do that well, the whole thing would have ended differently. But the truth is FV never gave it a chance.

Such a maximum impact character. Cast Ciji wrong and it doesn’t really work. But she had chemistry with everyone and it helped set up things beautifully. When watching again I noticed how much she fits better than Ginger or Kenny ever did. Totally get why they brought her back as Cathy.

Much like the issues we face in 2024 with FV on GH, they thought just casting people that were known for primetime was somehow a get. Kari Wuhrer was never going to draw in an audience without a good character that we wanted to watch. Same with Jamie Luner on AMC. And I loved JL on Savannah. But again, GH if you add the week up at that point had better/similar ratings compared to those niche shows in primetime.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. A savvy celeb would have one post where they offer support for the fired actor, the LGBTQ relationship, and that Kristina continue as bisexual or however they were defining her sexuality. It’s the replying to other people’s posts and comments that seems unprofessional. Why argue with what are essentially fans? You are validating their attention IMO, not repairing anything. Finola Hughes does a great job commenting on positive posts on Instagram- someone praising a scene or actor and often she is there with a short but sweet compliment. To me, that’s how to do it when it comes to the actual show. You post on your own wall addressing something that you feel has to be commented on, and then just engage in positivity or on your co-worker’s posts because those are not parasocial relationships, those people actually know each other. Mansi, and truthfully, Laura Wright could learn some lessons from some of their peers when it comes to this. I hate the mentality that they chose to be performers so anything is fair game. I think that is bullshit, they are still people and their job happens to be public facing.

Also- it is part of their job to speak highly of the show. As much access that we have to these performers and showrunners, it is not an actual relationship. I would choose to engage less than many of them do. But if I was being accused of getting my co-star fired, and that I hated playing a LGBTQ character or story, I would probably speak up and challenge that too. But it doesn’t matter because people online entrenched in an opinion about someone are rarely going to change, they will just find another topic that they hate about them. And soap fans tweet the most heinous stuff directly to these people. Soap actors are stars but not so big that they can easily avoid the total nasty behavior some people have towards them or the show on social media.

I have been enjoying watching when I can, I almost wish I could call in sick when we hit season 5. The episode I watched this morning was such an interesting hybrid- the one with Diana’s kidney transplant. It felt like the original seasons but was clearly also in the transition period the show fully dives into with season 5 with intrigue stories, and Greg’s arrival. I don’t think they would make a good swap at all. Paige had the monied background and Anne being a thorn in Karen’s side works better with a husband still alive. I do not see Annie as a good fit at Summer at all. Lotus Point I could see though. I do think Annie would have made a great foil to Paige though, something she really lacked in her age range.

Is that why she left?

I don’t know. Jill Farren Phelps has a history of miscast recasts. I actually do think this was supposed to be more than a placeholder. If she was a placeholder, then that was twice in a row that Phelps temp cast Carly, which shows me she would have been fine to eliminate the character. Both SJB and IIRC Tamara were speaking up about the story more than women are allowed to on a JFP show, and both exited without much love for her as producer. Laura Wright feels like an example of someone better being free at the exact right moment, and ABC wanted her.

I love how much I recognize the classic soap staples and yet this casting breakdown also feels like a soap being created today. It feels fresh by having more age range than the youth obsessed 90’s and 2000’s, being I assume mostly Black characters, and a gay power couple. None of the other soaps feel at all like they are current. At least we know that in Atlanta these performers will have people bts that can make Black and Brown people look beautiful onscreen. Execution will determine success, but it looks great so far.

GH May climb back up to 2 million Nielsen viewers a week. But the frustration is that I believe there is more audience, and a few key movements away from his clearly losing strategy would get the show there. And with FV and these writers I don’t think they can go beyond that core base of steady Nielsen viewers. That’s why the nonsense with constant rewrites and propping and keeping Eva is a problem for me.

Jesus GH has been a nightmare trying to tie in one ill conceived character after another in Frank’s time. It’s so lazy. Just off the top of my head, in one convoluted story after another- Nina, Nathan, Britt, Liesl, Drew, Willow, Nelle, Ava, Valentin, Esme, Austin and before him retcon-central Franco…even Laura’s brothers had the added nonsense of explaining why one talks like Foghorn Leghorn. These posts trying to explain Nina are a prime example of the nonsense playing out right now with Natalia. It’s about keeping the actor, not the character

I don’t think Mulcahey was getting rid of Ava, at least not yet. He built in an out with Valentin having been the real person meddling with his meds. If anything, I saw Ava as being moved into the kind of spot characters like Roger were in on GL during his time there. Many times his schemes blew up and he just kept on ticking, always smart about covering his tracks. I think Ava was going to use the meds to be a hero and buy herself some credit while she plotted against everyone. But that was when Mulcahey was there and stories had structure. At this point it would not shock me if Finn finishes his three months in rehab and is back on the show before the year is out.

At least DAYS makes an attempt before they all quit or Ron blinks and decides to start over again. There have been many attempts at a younger and 30 age set of characters on DAYS. Frank has just given up on GH. All those younger characters featured when Jason returned were just quietly ignored. On DAYS they would have been swapping beds weekly.

I just keep coming back to what a mess. The show is a public relations mess for this whole season, and FV and ABC have made zero attempts to engage the audience. I am starting to think Frank wanted kids and never gave himself the life needed to get them, hence all the young children constantly given time on GH. And that Frank’s idea of dealing with a mistake or something he doesn’t like is to just ignore it until it goes away. One of these days, another situation will hit like what happened with Genie and the outcry will once again last long enough that a change happens. As little as I care for Blaze this is just shitty nonetheless.

I am kind of shocked that he has been allowed to make such publicly bad decisions for almost 20 years when it comes to LGBTQ representation. We can’t have anything modern (and even that is laughable, diversity onscreen is hardly modern). We have plenty of room on the canvas for more Violet and those kids, and another player in the over 50 age range, but not really the in between? Make it make sense to me please. And I am not calling out for a return of only 20-something’s onscreen. But this is equally unbalanced.

It’s the backpedal to keep her that just makes me angry as a viewer. Let’s keep the bigoted character who hasn’t really had any lessons learned or any lasting jeopardy in her relationship with Blaze, and dump the pesky lesbian. It’s gross.

I forgot about that. The whole thing is just gross.

Your corrections also immediately make their great sets look even more expensive. We all need to remember Valentini started under Rauch. Nobody likes bright lighting more than him.

I just intended to watch a few minutes, the first couple of seasons are not my sweet spot. But the combination of Karen Allen and seeing the show again, I found myself drawn in. I forgot how much I really did like Sid even though he is an ass in this episode.

Add to this that Korte was in position before him. Was she just sitting there with Frank thinking of ways to disrupt what he was doing once Mulcahey started? Some of these stories had to be hers too. The job shuffles, though messy, I got. It was attempting to group characters together into story clusters. What a mess this show is! I was horrified by the show rallying behind a bigoted character. Getting rid of Blaze and keeping Natalia is just awful. Reeks of Frank cutting all the gay characters on OLTL instead of reworking them/curtailing Ron’s stupid Dorian story.

She has said before that she started working on a book but realized it was nothing but a collection of jobs and trauma until she got married and started a family. She had no life beyond her career before that, and her career had been traumatic in her younger days when she became famous. She loved the actual work, but the fame part mixed with the isolation of being so young really did a number on her. As far as a spark- when they first came back she had it. They didn’t really stop writing anything but Luke loves danger until after her second maternity leave. That last year or so of Labine Laura was more neglected than Luke because Luke had stronger ties to the only story they were telling-Stone dying and how the community responded to that. Back then I had only seen a handful of Luke and Laura scenes before the return. Now that I have seen more of their original run, I think Guza leaned into more of the younger, very troubled Laura. And Labine didn’t.

It is all perspective, but one person’s excellent character development is another person’s (mine) watching a show jump through hoops to keep someone because they liked the actor more than the rest of the show. He should never have been Franco. They should never have tried to keep RH and Michael Easton in roles that kept failing instead of trying something else. Poor Rebecca Herbst was forced to prop both of them. Hamilton Finn might be a beloved character right now if they had cast someone else to play him that had not played several characters already in the same decade.