titan1978

The whole Dante thing is clearly just there for an obstacle. If they cared about Dante we would see maybe Lulu pull him aside and ask what’s really going on. It would give him a chance to say he lost her, then he lost Sam, and he’s afraid to let Rocco grow up and get into trouble and lose him too. And even better would be him maybe admitting that he’s still angry with Brook Lynn and Lois and it’s being displaced on Gio. And he doesn’t know what to do with Gio at all because he keeps messing up. You know, psychologically explore these characters like they used to! Also DZ is a good actor that doesn’t deserve to be trotted out just to be an asshat. Much like Liz is an awfully important character to just stand behind that desk waiting to snap at Britt.

That’s the problem with the filming schedule! Like Genie Francis, Finola takes a break every year, it’s just not always the exact same time of the year. Couple that with the filming schedule- she could have taken a week off, or a month, or more. And either way what happens onscreen is a dropped storyline. They used to at least pre-tape scenes to pepper in, like when Tony Geary took his breaks. We might even get an episode where Anna almost escapes, then back to chained to a chair. But now they just drop it until they want to pick it up again, with little to no mention in between. One of the things I like about Scotty sharing scenes with Laura is Kin always plays it more vulnerable than his usual bluster with everyone else. He still plays that Scotty carries that torch. So him being a confidant would work for me because he calms down. Martin is just there to me. This one character suffers from what was a huge problem for the whole show until Drew- too genial. They used to go right up to the line of conflict but it would be resolved quickly and have no lasting consequences. Everyone was defanged. Scotty at least also has a swagger as a lawyer.

He’s my problem with Martin. For whatever reason, Michael Knight is not generating any heat with anyone as far as romantic relationships. You have Alexis, Ric, and Diane’s wig as lawyers and Molly as an ADA. If you want a lawyer who is funny and brings some scheming to the table Scott Baldwin is there ready to use. I do not understand this at all. And I don’t hate the Jacinda actress. She would be fine in other circumstances. But this Michael is the most viable younger male lead the show has had in ages. You don’t put a dayplayer into that story as a viable relationship.

And it was a huge part of why Jonathan Jackson quit that run. He hated what they were doing and the almost unrelenting sadness Lucky was enduring. It was also one of his asks on this return, to repair that relationship, and it was clear none of that was a priority onscreen.

I have thought for years Alexis falling for a woman would be a great idea. I think NLG would be game if they cast it well. She and the actor playing Harmony clearly imbued their scenes with a kind of sexual tension. No idea if the scripts were going there and they stopped it, or if the actors played it that way on the floor and the show ran away from it from that angle.

Me too! That and episodes about the original Carla Grey storyline! I thought of another concept soaps taught me about. The WSB is where I learned there were more than just cops. Spies were real and we had them in real life. I don’t know how many of them moonlighted as singers like Frisco Jones though. And even though I grew up with alcoholics in my family, seeing Katherine Chancellor battle alcohol, and other characters talk about addiction recovery like Maggie Horton on DAYS or Lee Baldwin on GH was my first introduction to that concept too, that it was an illness and people did seek treatment for it. One bad thing I learned from soaps that wasn’t true was the ideas that all doctors did everything. Steve Hardy being the Chief of staff and also seeing all kinds of patients, etc. Monica was a cardiac surgeon but other doctors they just used as a catch all a lot of the time.

And she herself has said it was too much and she was burned out.

I don’t mind Selina Wu, but at this rate I am expecting Michael Easton to be cast as yet another new character, and Roger Howarth to return when they wrap up that story on Y&R. Everything that was stripped away Valentini is slowly bringing back one by one.

I just wish she was played by a stronger actress. She would be fine in a recurring role messing with Nina and Drew. But not as this Michael’s next relationship. The idea of Michael falling in love with a sex worker has so many layers, makes sense with his history, and also would be a relatively modern story to fully tell on GH. Although it’s been told before, there was always shame attached to their past. It would be refreshing to see them dealing with the mechanics of a relationship with Michael’s history of trauma and just be open about the sex worker aspect.

Steve has told this story a few times too. I will listen to this one. I finally listened to the Kelly Ripa episode and I was actually pissed off for her and the rest of the women at ABC. Her description of the pay scale really rang true to me, and the fact that Mark made more money than her from day one, including a higher salary starting when she had already been there for years was so ridiculous. And this was a network that had several women EP’s at the time and the daytime head was a woman.

She’s one of the greats too!

I think it can be both, although I am really fascinated by the folks that did both at the same time. Soaps are so demanding in one role.

Me too, from the time Jack lost Jabot to Victor through them getting it back, I was so invested and also felt like I understood the concepts, even if they were dramatized for effect.

After the last several posts I just remembered I learned about the viability of freezing sperm from the Y&R story with Victor, Diane, Nikki and Ashley. I had heard of the process before, but not the actual details about how long until implantation, etc. that story was so gross!

It’s so fascinating how being exposed to these soaps taught us about women‘s health! The genre could learn a huge lesson and get back to their roots with some reality mixed with the fantasy. GH especially when it comes to medical stories! This is actually hilarious!

I still don’t fully understand what happened BTS with Franco at the end. It’s never been quite clear to me why they killed him just to have Howarth back back back again as Austin. I’m not saying I wanted Franco on the show or with Liz. But there was more audience support there than with Liz and Finn. Jesus Christ poor Becky Herbst.

I was at a cardiologist appointment today, and just looking around the room while waiting for the doctor, and saw this cardiac bulletin and it had a section about Kawasaki Syndrome, and I immediately knew what it was thanks to the original BJ/Maxie heart transplant story! They talked about Maxie’s diagnosis for I feel like weeks before the accident that killed BJ, and I have never forgotten what Monica told them. My brain retained something that has had zero impact on my life, mostly because of the name and how often they talked about it. Have soaps taught anyone else actual knowledge?

Yeah Fake Jagger was pointless on every level. Maurice used to be able to play the complexities, but the truth is the writing was so skewed in Sonny’s favor that there were few actual reckonings. Jason got even more skewed writing and that added to the Sonny centric feeling the show had. They had no problem calling Carly out though, she had plenty of fights with Alexis, Liz, Sam, etc. But even Robin would trash Carly and then admit what Jason and Sonny did was criminal and dangerous, but not go so far as to say they were the problem. But MB at least played the layers, even if everyone else had to be his fanclub. It’s part of what made the show so unbalanced- everyone could see he was the problem! As we have discussed before, when Michael was in jail and after, Jason and Carly were finally able to admit their lives were worse than the people they were trying to protect Michael from. And Sonny was getting darker as time went on. Plus Guza had his new favorite, Dante. The Sonny/Brenda breakup conversation was also a huge sign that things were headed in a direction of Sonny being the problem. The whole Karen aspect is really on my mind because of how openly people discuss Luke and Laura’s terrible past together now. I know it’s been a long time since their heyday, but younger people really don’t like that they were as popular as they were. But people still give Sonny a pass, for the most part. Maybe not here as much, but certainly other forums.

Am I missing some sarcasm in a desire to have fat shaming be the basis of comedy or the joke of an entire show? Or was that an actual lament?

The only way I see Jagger surviving Guza would have been because at the time ASJ would have still been popular, and harder to just write him out. If Karen had survived and not been subjected to vampires, I actually could see her returning during a later era and being subjected to a return to her darkest stories, because that is where that writing team almost always went. Drugged out and begging Sonny for attention, but I don’t think she would have survived long either. Just enough to degrade herself fully. Plus she was a doctor to slide into the Grey’s Anatomy rip off they were doing with Scrubs and the those renewed hospital characters. I just wonder if she had survived, would we ever get a story like the ones with Lucky and Lulu where they had to confront something a modern audience would have difficulty just brushing away. Again, Tony Geary did not shy away from that type of character examination, he almost went too far in trying to make Luke reviled. And Maurice doesn’t seem to want to play that type of thing too much.

I was thinking about Sonny’s start on the show recently. Running a strip club, providing drugs for people, sleeping with barely legal Karen Wexler. For the most part he has gotten a pass for this, and I think Karen and Jagger leaving pretty soon after that story helped. As did partnering him with Luke, Brenda, and Stone. But what if Cari Shayne had stayed on the show, and that trajectory had lasted? While not as heinous as what happened between Luke and Laura, it’s still pretty awful. Would the show have had to deal with it down the road like they did when they revisited Luke’s assault? Would they have paired him with Karen? I think that would have been possible at the time if she stayed to expand the issues between Sonny and Jagger and Karen/Jagger. If Karen hadn’t gone to PC and been killed off, but stayed or returned for a long run, would they ever have played out what he did? Maybe even with another girl that danced there? Even when Labine was there they already made excuses and gave him a pass. I know part of it is Tony Geary did not shy away from the darkest parts of Luke, and relished when they were explored. Maurice doesn’t seem to want to do much of Sonny’s self exploration as far as stories go. I know the recent fake Jagger return used Karen as motivation, but it didn’t ring true. Lucky, Laura, and Lulu all had stories where they had to come to terms with the darkness within Luke, and their own histories. Sonny’s kids have largely given him a pass, as have Carly and Jason for the most part.

I loved him as Paul.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned Sharon Gless yet, she had a long run on TV from ingenue to grandmother. Switch (which I have never seen) 1975-1978 Cagney & Lacey the show plus the telefilms 82-88, 94-96 The Trials of Rosie O’Neill was short lived, 90-92, but I remember it being pretty good. Queer As Folk 2000-2005 then Burn Notice 2007-2013. And it seems like plenty of guest roles from the 90’s on.

IIRC it also took them time to integrate TB’s Carly because she was intended to be a short term recast to write the character out. And the actors liked her, the audience didn’t react like they did with Jennifer later, and as @Vee said, the Angel story was a dud. The whole show was pretty much awful when JFP had the most control over it. Laura Wright also benefitted from a terrible Sonny story/romance, the Reese character. To me, the losses of Kimberly Simms, Sherry Stringfield, and Beverlee McKinesy were pretty brutal to the watchability of the show. Then follow that up soon after with the Ellen Parker debacle and also Beth Ehlers? Curlee and that writing team did their best, but a more bland Blake, terrible recasts for Mindy and Alexandra (and I love both actors, it just wasn’t the right fit), and then Lucy Cooper overload are just not the same quality and it showed.

You had me up to Liz Keifer. I don’t think she held a candle to what Sherry Stringfield did with Blake.