titan1978

I haven’t seen it yet, but that’s a dramatic device that was used a lot during Wendy Riche’s term as EP, and I used to love it. Makes me miss the old foggy pier set! I am looking forward to seeing it.

This made me laugh! The DA isn’t even strong enough to be a BrendaBot! I will never understand these decisions, like DA Lady/Sonny, Jacinda/Michael, Kevin/Laura, or Valentin/Carly. These are all leads on a soap opera and their relationships are with recurring players! Throw Kai/Trina and Joss/Vaughn in there too. I know a lot of this is schedule and contract guarantee dictated. But it is maddening to watch!

The deck was stacked against her, and it was her deck for the most part. But much like Roger Howarth and Michael Easton taking multiple turns on GH as different characters, who knows what Bill could have been without the audience having a beloved performer back for diminished returns. My argument with FV’s pets was that they spent years trying to make all that work, when the issue was dead on arrival from casting. Had they found dynamic men to play those parts they might have gotten something worthwhile out of all of it. Instead we got parts created to shore up those actors staying.

As many of us have discussed here before, her instincts were correct as far as the storytelling needing to be grounded again and for there to socioeconomic differences in the characters and what they were working towards again. Her ego got in the way. Douglas Marland and Pat Falken Smith were actual writers with the skills to pull off what she wanted and helped create the GH style, especially PFS from 1979-1981. Labine was the right partner with Wendy Riche in 1993. But I cannot imagine Labine and Monty together. I think GH was on shaky ground to begin with from Hardy’s tenure, and Y&R , AMC, and ATWT were all poised to help soap viewers break the GH habit at the top of the pack. Once she forced everything through at once people didn’t come back. At least Nielsen people didn’t. Had she rolled up with Luke and Laura with her and not been so hell bent on marginalizing the Quartermaines, things might have been different. Nobody but Geary wanted anything to do with Bill Eckert.

I think Rick, Mike and ultimately Ginny were dealt a fatal blow when ABC and Denise Alexander could not come to terms. It took a couple of years, but the result was the same either way. Without Lesley and Denise the others were easy to push further from the center of the show. Had Lesley still been on the show I think it would have been harder to justify their slow decline in importance if not actual airtime, and relatively quick exits once a budget reallocation was needed. I was a big fan of Wes Kenney’s era when he arrived, partly because of Anna. He also brought the hospital back and gave Steve and Audrey something to do, even if Tom wasn’t cast to be the lead he needed to be. I liked him back then just fine, but he was never going to be Steve Hardy, Robert, or a Patrick Drake type which would have benefited the whole thing. But I wonder if the show would have been better suited to Kenney/ABC not being so reticent to play with the visual style of the show. It was solidly in the top two still in those early years at the end of Monty/early Wes Kenney. But imagine he had ushered in some of that lushness from Y&R, moodier lighting, and amped up the dramatics? As it was he maintained the style of what I would consider the middle to end of Monty, and not much of his own visual style. Joe Hardy at least went about really refreshing the sets, like the Q mansion.

Why? The only tie they utilize is his marriage to Laura. I don’t think he has had scenes of any meaning with Mac, Felicia, Scotty or Lucy since the Ryan story ended. Laura is easily in my top 5 GH characters and even with that I think ending the marriage and writing him out would be best.

I think off camera stuff has impacted plans for Tristan. Finola is off the show, they would want her and Kimberly there. Plus Luke was already dead onscreen, making tributes easier to do as stand alone specials. I have plenty of complaints about FV, but this team has consistently honored folks that passed away, even if they were not on the show for a very long time like Lee and Gail.

The Finola situation is similar because it also played out messily onscreen. But then again, in some ways this is how soaps used to be! You read those recaps from the 60’s and 70’s, and people were quietly leaving town for weeks or months all the time. Audrey did it all the time in the early GH years!

I also keep tabs on this thread @Franko but I am enjoying your recaps so the reminder doesn’t hurt!

This whole situation is just strange. Burton I get because he asked for the break before his new contract term starts, so of course he is off contract. But wasn’t KS popping off when she left that this wasn’t like Chad Duell, that she was staying on the show, etc. She ended up gone longer than the original plan by all accounts, and she’s only been back a few weeks. Everything about this story has been impacted by bts stuff showing onscreen.

Pascal makes me long for the times when we had characters like Celeste to be the eccentric henchperson to the supervillains.

I have never been a fan of Kevin with Laura, and I think it’s way past time to end them. I wouldn’t go the conventional route either and have him killed, Laura has been through enough of that. Let Laura start falling for a dashing new man of some kind, and before they cross the line Kevin comes home to return Ace and admit he has been up to the same thing with a fellow doctor in France, and they just part ways due to growing apart.

Well we know she loved Labine and Guza, and is still publicly close with Bob Guza and Wendy Riche.

I just hate these stories more and more because they had Lulu sleep with him, only she didn’t know who he really was. And it’s not like he was brainwashed and also didn’t know. It’s just another version of SA. All of her stories right now are about being violated, and that is sad to me because it’s all plot driven nonsense with her babies and now NotNathan, and the show isn’t written to be on her side. Rocco still thinks Britt is somewhat important to him, Charlotte and Valentin are as gross as ever, now this. When the Ryan returns story took off while Genie was off contract, they were very careful when Laura returned to play up a disconnect in their marriage and that they were not intimate before breaking up and the reveals starting. I can’t remember if they had Ava sleep with him though. But I had hoped they had finally learned not to tell these stories, after years of nonsense like this. Marty and Todd while she had no memory but Todd did comes to mind. I know it’s just a silly plot on a not serious show. But it bothers me, especially right now when our culture is at war with women’s autonomy.

It’s an example of how the show is structured around twists and not around telling a full story. Just like we got the Willow reveal with drugging Drew then the story disappears for weeks. Marco’s mom’s death. Marco’s death. Look at Trina and Kai knowing the truth about Willow. Laura’s involvement with Sidwell. It limps along and gets lip service between the needed twists. It’s reminiscent of the breakneck pace Melrose Place used to employ, and it chewed up several characters pretty quickly there. It was fun to watch, and so is GH through this style. But nothing really matters because everybody just picks up and heads to the next danger.

They have always done the umbrella big bad story. But some of them just will not end, and became too all encompassing. It’s been especially bad the last few years. Cyrus and Peter both come to mind. To me there was no reason to tie Willow to Sidwell for one.

I don’t know the particulars, someone here probably does, but I know Brenda Dickson had some issues at Y&R during her final run, including allegations against Bill Bell. I thought Peter Bergman showed a lot of class on his Soapy episode about his friction on Y&R in his early days. Both the animosity from his scene partners who didn’t want Terry Lester to be gone, and his own attitude about being a New York actor and not wanting to be there that much beyond needing a job. He spoke about his part in the blow ups with Braeden and accepting his part in what happened. It was a great episode, and honestly I am not a big fan of his or his version of Jack. Y&R seems to have been particularly rough bts from almost the start. GH was during the middle JFP years, but now they seem to be a pretty close cast. I think all the losses have hit them hard and brought them closer, especially the vets. As far as DAYS and Deidre and Suzanne, what cracks me up is Dee looks miserable and pissy in scenes they share. Doesn’t look at her, has a miserable look on her face, etc. It is very noticeable.

That’s pretty gross as well!

I only dipped in and out of Another World. John raped Donna? Wow. Soaps really loved having rapists end up as upstanding citizens and not paying for their crimes. And romantic leads! Didn’t he later have a hated affair with Felicia?

I would accept her for Serena Baldwin in a hot second if Carly Schroeder wasn’t available! But they need to grow up and let Kin back in the building on recurring to help bring her in.

I am one of the people that liked her. Before they made Willow exciting she was the better of the two for me. But her writing was often a mess, and she hasn’t been all that missed. What I am sad we will not get is her being part of the story when Willow is revealed. Her exit was strange and clearly fast. She had hot nuMichael’s kid, was feuding with Willow, and Emma Samms returned to reveal this unknown child of hers and Robert. Then just gone, after all those firm connections were finally established! I am not team recast for her and I am as underwhelmed by Jacinda as many others here. Like you, I am team Serena Baldwin coming in for Michael, or your Wu family member who is a doctor as a brand new character. As we keep harping on, Rory and Michael need someone dynamic that is a real character with the show’s investment (contract) behind them. And I also liked Jacinda, but in order to pair her with Michael the opportunist in her has disappeared.

Jane Elliot described the original Quartermaines as all being great. I think she said not a bad egg in the bunch. All lovely, all funny and hardworking and good actors. I was a kid for their earlier stories, but I did remember stuff like Monica/Sean Donnelly, and Alan/Lucy, and their bickering. So I found the cancer storyline especially poignant because of how much Alan loved Monica and they played his partnership with her so well during that story. It felt earned.

I think the difference is that now the act of production is more important than the product. Getting it made quickly and efficiently is the overarching goal it seems. So generic writing and stories not well thought out, easy to fill time, etc are where we are. I have said it before, but they mostly used to be produced under the idea of how great it is to have so much time to fully tell a story. Take it slow, make them wait. Even Monty, while paced faster, still played the beats. Now it’s more like a pain in the ass to fill all that time.

Deidre has not always gotten the credit for how good she is as Marlena. I also liked her a lot on Our House. I was thrilled she got asked to appear on Hacks. Now this. Just really sweet for her, and by osmosis, the show. There is a list of absolute titans in acting that the Emmy’s didn’t honor because they didn’t start soon enough, or they just didn’t get nominated enough. People like Beverlee McKinsey who was an undisputed powerhouse, and both she and Zaslow should have had lots of Emmy’s like Geary, Zimmer, Slezak and Flannery. But you also have the talented actors/big stars that had long soap careers and were often leads, and just didn’t get nominated enough/win. People like Deidre, Jackie Zeman, Denise Alexander. Had the younger actor category been around I bet Genie and Kin would both have Emmy’s from their early GH run. Huge stars and all of them got to play from light comedy to tragedy. Marlena is one of the handful of soap legends that the wider public and pop culture knows. Folks like Luke & Laura, Victor Newman, Susan Lucci, Marlena. She should have won a couple of Emmy’s.

He just seems like a nice guy to me too.