titan1978

The amount of characters starting something new on this show is wild. Especially because none of the new stuff is sparking any more than the old stuff.

Curtis running wellness gym/spas is less interesting than the mob trying to move in on his club. Sasha cooking for the Q’s is a dead end. Willow flip flopping into another new venture with all the rest of this career changing going on is stupid. The only one with a point is Alexis.

I keep looking at Lynn talking about Deception and she could easily sell the product. Have Lucy brag on camera about her age and tell the buyers she’s been using Deception the whole time. She looks incredible!

I give zero F about Blaze or her mother. I might be slightly interested if the show wasn’t a huge sloppy mess when it comes to characters and stories right now.

The one thing they had momentum with was Jason’s return. They could easily have more characters helping them to stretch that out. Sam decides to investigate what Jason has been into to protect her family. Dante could be in the mix with Anna but can’t tell Sam everything. Use Anna more with the Valentine angle. Rope Laura in because she has never really trusted him.

I know the stalling is because of budget. If every there was a time to let a story run and deal with the budget later it’s now.

On 4/28/2024 at 2:36 PM, carolineg said:

Thank you so much for your detailed explanations as always.  I find out so much from you.  In your opinion would you have kept Cheryl and/or Edge?  I have never heard much positive about either, but it seems both have potential.  

I liked Cheryl and I was certain Lucas was going to end up Robert’s. And that was when I was only catching the show occasionally depending on how fast I got home from school. As a kid I really liked a lot of Wes Kinney’s GH, and not as much of Hardy’s. Edge I had very little interest in. 

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I wonder what might have been with Jax and Lois if Rena hadn't left. (wasn't he originally brought in for Lois)

That is accurate, as a potential spoiler between Ned and Lois. Ned covering up Jason’s accident was going to play a part in friction between Lois and Ned.

This entire argument is what I think is wrong with Frank’s GH. Ned, Lois, and Olivia are all recurring. They need to focus story on their contract cast, or up these people to contract if they are going to be corners of the show!

The whole besties thing with Lois and Sonny doesn’t make sense to me anyway. Back in the day they were increasingly estranged as Sonny gained more power with the mob. She was trying to extricate him from L&B due to his mob ties.

I wonder what she could have done with Alexandra Spaulding when Beverlee left. Maybe kept some of the more subtle shades that Marj played larger. 

I loved the scenes between Sonny and Laura today. But I have to wonder what is the endgame here? An entire town against Sonny but him still standing will get old quickly. We have heard nothing concrete about him actually ready to leave like we did with Tony Geary.

She was incredibly memorable as Dina. Both the complexity and the effortless style she brought to her. RIP

Pregnant woman are allowed to keep living their lives. This conversation is ridiculous and old fashioned. The Sonny danger is fine, that’s a real concern for them. Did I miss Kristina being told her pregnancy was high risk? If not she can dance the night away!

The writers did a terrible job justifying it, but knowing her history I did believe her supporting Esme as far as Ace goes. Not just the Cassadine trying to steal my kid part though. Laura was incredibly troubled as a young woman. She killed two people (Hamilton and whatever the hell woman that Rick Webber story involved), she had serious abandonment issues, she fell in love with her rapist, her issues being raised an Vinning and being Lesley’s daughter, etc. That’s all before she is kidnapped and forced to marry Stavros and have his baby.

She did make Esme turn herself in when she thought her memories were returning. If she had shunned Trina while befriending Esme I get the animosity. But she supported their relationship. If anything, Trina agreed with Laura that Spencer should not be trying to take Ace away.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I have my doubts. They were apart for a long time before the mid-2010s.

That last reunion felt very much like they had run out of options to keep them apart so they might as well marry them again. It reeked of running out of ideas for them. So I agree, I don’t think Sonny/Carly are inevitable.

2 hours ago, carolineg said:

I remember hearing somewhere that Sonny is extremely popular with the average viewer and the online consensus of his character isn't the general opinion of the audience.   It was a long time ago and I have no idea if it's still true but it's always stuck in my head. 

We all know how much JFP loved focus groups and how good she was at skewing the data to support her decisions/kinds of characters she wanted to focus on. Partner that with Frons who had certain sensibilities towards young women and flawed men as the leads on his network and we got the results in the 2000’s on GH and ABC daytime in general.

Sonny has always been a popular character. My argument back then and now is that if he and Carly and Jason are the most popular characters why does that not translate to ratings? Guza and JFP made a quality show that drove millions of viewers away during their tenure.

The ratings growth happened when FV and RC brought back tons of vets for the 50th, and their big ratings win was due to Robin returning from the dead a year later. None of those stories focused on Sonny, Carly, or Jason (who was gone). Even that ratings growth was beyond the show because they dragged it out due to KMc’s availability.

Mulcahey also spent years working at B&B. And even though I don’t watch that show, I follow the major goings on here. So he also has experience working in nonsense.

On 4/20/2024 at 3:32 PM, Khan said:

Whoever said MW's 'do reminds them of Linda Evans was bang-on, lol.

Watching the last two days and I noticed it’s almost the same color too, especially in the back. Lots of icy and ash blonde in Maura’s color.

4 hours ago, Khan said:

I'm a big Douglas Marland fan, as most everyone here knows, so I should be used to a storytelling style on a soap that involves a large number of characters.  Yet, there are so many characters and storylines right now on GH that I'm struggling to keep up with. 

That’s because from what I have read and the limited ATWT I have seen, Marland was also recapping the stories constantly by having new characters find out what was happening. It added to the small town feel that soaps do so well and kept all the stories alive each week.

What we have here so far is better day to day writing and lots of character work, coupled with the starts and stops of Frank’s production style on the show the last few years. For me it leaves things disjointed, and so I am sometimes not sure what characters know what, and often things are either cut or skipped over to keep a story alive after not really visiting it for days or even weeks. Cody being a prime example- we know the real world reasons why it has stalled. We don’t know the in universe reasons because all the old team cared about was the start and climax, and always a meandering middle.

If I was watching just this week, I would think the A story is Sonny’s crimes and mental instability. I’m not sure what the B and C stories are. Dex trying out for police? Jason and Carly? Maybe Nina/Drew was B and Dex C? The problem is the momentum and movement was in Jason’s return and Valentin is the head of Pikeman. And that’s barely been addressed since. But we are seeing nearly every step of Dex trying to win Joss back and become a cop.

5 hours ago, carolineg said:

He wanted to inherit a necklace and I actually don't know how that ended.  I think Holly/Robert did something with said necklace, so I don't think there is any inheritance. 

IIRC the diamonds on the necklace were the Ice Princess cut up. And Victor ended up with it for his new weather machine? It was very convoluted. Cody just wanted the diamonds, I don’t think he was connected to the 60th anniversary story with Holly trying to get it and also Victor.

I don’t know what happened to it after they saved the day and Victor was killed. And Britt was also involved?

5 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

That’s because from what I have read and the limited ATWT I have seen, Marland was also recapping the stories constantly by having new characters find out what was happening. It added to the small town feel that soaps do so well and kept all the stories alive each week.

What we have here so far is better day to day writing and lots of character work, coupled with the starts and stops of Frank’s production style on the show the last few years. For me it leaves things disjointed, and so I am sometimes not sure what characters know what, and often things are either cut or skipped over to keep a story alive after not really visiting it for days or even weeks. Cody being a prime example- we know the real world reasons why it has stalled. We don’t know the in universe reasons because all the old team cared about was the start and climax, and always a meandering middle.

If I was watching just this week, I would think the A story is Sonny’s crimes and mental instability. I’m not sure what the B and C stories are. Dex trying out for police? Jason and Carly? Maybe Nina/Drew was B and Dex C? The problem is the momentum and movement was in Jason’s return and Valentin is the head of Pikeman. And that’s barely been addressed since. But we are seeing nearly every step of Dex trying to win Joss back and become a cop.

IIRC the diamonds on the necklace were the Ice Princess cut up. And Victor ended up with it for his new weather machine? It was very convoluted. Cody just wanted the diamonds, I don’t think he was connected to the 60th anniversary story with Holly trying to get it and also Victor.

I don’t know what happened to it after they saved the day and Victor was killed. And Britt was also involved? 

A great actress and really talented writer. GH with Guza, Karen Harris, and Meg driving story was one of my favorite periods ever on the show.

As others have stated, anyone that doctors his scripts and won over Bill Bell was incredibly talented.

I know people think the Sonny stuff came out of nowhere and Laura and Anna have shaky justifications for their change of heart. I think I would have gone with the Cyrus beating and also beat Dex nearly to death.

But I am okay with the turn because the show seeded this when Guza was still there with Jason/Carly and the beloved end of relationship convo between Sonny and Brenda. He told her he would always choose power.

Then it was lightly seeded again when Sonny came back from Nixon Falls and his two besties were married.

To me this is a thread finally being picked up and I am thrilled, even if the current show wasn’t completely ready for it. 

They missed such a great opportunity to have an intact Quartermaine family for Michael to have his teenage rebellion and run to them instead of Sonny/Carly/Jason. Even better if they had done it after his prison stint when Carly and Jason were admitting their decision to put him in Sonny/Jason’s world had cost everyone dearly. Imagine if we got to see him bonding with Alan and how upset that would make Sonny at that time.

51 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Again, thank you for your thoughtful reply.  I just find that whole era so strange.  Watching in in real time it didn't feel that bad, but when I try to figure out how a hospital story became about the mob way before that was GH's style I am always confused.  Add Jax get arrested for drug smuggling, Alexis wanting Stefan to think he was in love with his sister, Laura's fake death, and Aztec dolls it's just a very hard time to analyze.

It was very strange. Not to mention this is all in such a short amount of time, a little over a year. It’s wild how messy the show was onscreen and off from end of summer 1996 to December 1997 (Guza officially credited again). The rough writing contributed to Maurice leaving, Vanessa almost leaving, and Genie refusing to return to the show (she was really happy at home with her two children, why leave that for the aggravation happening at the show).

 NLG was hired without an actual part to play, so Alexis wasn’t a well crafted character and they made it work on the fly. She has said that poor foundation is why she felt like they just did whatever with her for years.

Nobody was happy, even Guza was upset with the timing and he was leaving for a show he was going to have a created by credit on. Because the show was on fire and they had barely started.

8 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Thank you so much for all that information.  This probably belongs in the Classic thread, but it's the weekend, so was it Guza's bible to do the whole Pierce Dorman murder story or did Culliton change it?

I have always known RC was responsible for Carly/AJ, but I have always wondered where the Dorman/Tin Man/Rivera story went wrong.  Laura's "death" was a bit before this, so I was assuming RC just messed with it too much.

The affair was, and how the affair began at first was going to repeat when the affair stopped and he became more of a stalker, the gifts were going to become creepy. I don’t know beyond that what was going to happen/what Culliton changed. But the affair and a certain unhinged behavior by Dorman was all Guza/Harris. I tend to believe the trial for sexual harassment was Guza because he loved trials. All his tenures involved major court cases.

Tin Man stuff was way after Guza’s projections, although I can’t remember if it was Culliton or the next writers that also started the Aztec doll nonsense.

Apologies for dropping all this in this thread but that’s where the discussion about SN was happening!

Guza left in 1996, and he had a very detailed six month bible that the writers had developed that was used, including Miranda and her backstory. Culliton was credited as HW while they were using that bible. The network made them use Tracy before she took over as lead on The City, so Culliton and the team reworked that storyline/came up with most of it to justify her short stint. Stefan/Bobbie was supposed to last way longer.

Things start to get iffy around the Laura faking her death storyline to cover Tony and Genie taking some time off, as well as was Lesley part of that plan? I tend to think she was, because Culliton barely used her.
 When they came back in 1997, it was pretty much Culliton from that point on until he was fired. He came up with Carly/AJ conceiving Michael.

Guza came back and was in the building but not credited for about 5 weeks before his relaunch week. That’s when Luke tells Alexis her backstory (which was ported from Miranda), the two Mac’s and Guza loved the Carly story, but wanted it moved from Tony to Jason to create renewed conflict with the Quartermaines and Jason.

And I believe Shelly Curtis had more to do with the idea of pairing up MBE and SN again due to her history with them and that they had made magic before. Riche had no background there. They had to stall Stefan/Laura because Genie was going to return from her vacation and work for a couple of months before her second maternity leave which she kept extending somewhat because she didn’t want to return to crappy writing.

3 hours ago, Khan said:

TBH, I had difficulty accepting that Laura had had a child that she told no one about, because I knew of the pain she herself had endured when she met Lesley - plus, you can't tell me that the same Laura who pulled a rifle or machine gun on Mikkos Cassadine and his henchmen BITD is suddenly so afraid of his idiot son and wife - but I think Bob Guza did an okay job justifying Laura's actions

I wondered about that fear too, until I saw the 1983 story play out. She was terrified of Stavros, and now that I have gotten to see so much of 1979-her return, she was very different when the character came back from the Cassadines.

Also Genie has said she played Laura as if she had a mental off switch. She deals with trauma by disassociating, which can explain how she dealt with Luke raping her as well as all the other things that happened to her. So it made sense to me.

However, I felt back then and now that they kept Luke and Laura apart too long, that Stefan outlived his usefulness, and Laura especially should have been allowed to kill Helena permanently by 2000 at the latest. Lucky’s return storyline should have ended the Cassadines. Nikolas and Alexis could easily have stayed without the baggage of the rest of the family.

JMB does still act, and has apparently declined a return at least once.

The realities of Hollywood right now are that there will be less jobs for at least the next two years, if not longer due to the streamer bubble implosion. Pilot seasons no longer exist like they once did. By the fall we may have actors available that would return to soaps or talented people that haven’t been on a soap before.

If I can’t have JMB, I am going to keep manifesting for Marci Miller.

What a strange list of acting nominees.

I haven’t been this happy about a firing since Frons fired Guza, then Frons was fired, then ABC canned JFP all in a pretty quick succession.

I hope his good buddy Josh is out soon, but who do they replace him with?

I would recast Cameron before Spencer. With Liz you have an active parent on the show who can be in her own stories and her kids. I harp enough here about the need to bring back Lulu, Lucky, or both. I am also perfectly fine with Liz taking a tumble with Cody. Bring back the Spencer side of Laura’s family, not the Cassadines.