titan1978

I appreciate the words from Anna, but my issue is now what? Maurice isn’t leaving the show, and Anna isn’t a punk. I don’t want her reduced to what they did to Mac in the late 90’s-2000’s. If Anna Devane wanted to dismantle Sonny and they treated the characters in the writing equally, he would be in trouble.

Whomever the mastermind is right now in the mob story- Framing Sonny for killing Dex would be a fantastic way to keep the momentum going, and continue to pit characters against each other in organic ways. The guilt and torn loyalty of Michael and Carly, Joss being devastated, Anna being conflicted for not acting… this would be great drama.

She apparently found retirement boring, and missed the camaraderie of the cast/crew. The GH cast seems to be pretty tight, especially the vets. About Joss- I guess I don’t see her reaction as all that far fetched. When you consider her entire life she’s heard Sonny was in the mob, and Jason and Carly have glossed over the worst parts of that. They all know the danger, but I can easily see her idolizing her mother enough to believe Carly would not have been his defender this long if he was as bad as he is. The show and those three have painted him as the good guy for decades. These are people that thought The Quartermaines were terrible compared to Sonny. In her mind she’s probably thinking sure, I’ve been shot at. But those people being killed was justified. All of them were justified because they were dangerous to Sonny’s extended family and were going after his territory. Asking Dex to eliminate someone she described as a helpless old man was too direct. Does she know about AJ? Or Alcazar? Both of those were cold blooded. If this leads to Joss continuing to question her mother’s morals and decisions I might actually root for her, and that is something I have never said in my life when it comes to Joss.

It’s kind of heartbreaking. Her friend Suzanne was the co-host and you really get a feel for their close relationship, and then she has a reoccurrence of Breast Cancer and sadly passed away from it. She was on GH as Brenda’s wedding planner if I remember correctly, they met on Vegas.

Just going off her half told stories, it seems to me like she hasn’t fully gone there in deference to her son. I know she has been vocal but not gone too in depth with her decades long custody fight with BAG in the past, and her son has an on/off relationship with him. Her podcast was the first time I really heard anything about it from her perspective. And truthfully, her son makes me believe her side of things- he’s clearly closer with her and also clearly wants some kind of relationship with his father. It’s a terrible situation. And she never brings up her divorce from the actor from CSI New York.

It’s not just smarter, it feels specific and purposeful. And this is just the beginning. One of my main complaints for years was how generic the scripts were. It’s a good sign.

I would like to see if Mulcahey and Korte can continue to mentor some of these newer writers and let’s see if they have something. They haven’t really been given a chance to write more than the basics. Dan & Chris and their team wrote the show Frank wanted them to write- easy to chop up in editing and generic. I think they had several good ideas that never got a good shot because of the way the show is produced. Even if they had years of airtime, they were so generic it didn’t amount to anything (the return of Ryan Chamberlain for one). Several OLTL actors (HBS and Woods were two of them) complained of this style back when their show was still airing. Everything easy to chop up in the editing process and form shows that way. It’s pretty clear that has been happening at GH especially under C&D. So I’m excited to see these longer scenes with character specificity already- and they have barely begun!

There are many interesting episodes, and sometimes it does become more about him than the guest. He’s very emotional at times, and the stories people tell are moving. The one with Lesley Charleson was interesting, she opened up about her family and mental illness, and I had not heard any of that before. They are not all sad though- he is a little obsessed with the 80’s on GH and how much drugs were just around. He asks all those older GH actors about it. He also seems to geek out a bit when it comes to those performers, admitting that he was intimidated because he watched the show during the Luke & Laura days. I don’t think Vanessa will appear until she feels comfortable talking publicly about her custody issues with BAG and her abusive marriage before her current husband on a large scale on camera.

I wouldn’t mind Heather being restored to a semblance of the character she was. It feels more like classic GH to me when we have a big bad for an umbrella storyline, and then a couple of smaller scale schemers that aren’t as evil per se. Characters like Tracy, Lucy, Scotty, Katherine, og Heather, even Nina.

We know from Genie and Tony (back then at least), that ABC was considering Luke without Laura, as opposed to Laura without Luke. He was the one that insisted he wouldn’t play Luke again without her, and they tried to force it by letting her go at AMC. It’s another in a long line of ABC thinking Luke is the draw. As far as Labine, I have read stuff from back then in old soap mags and more recent interviews that ABC knew GH was in pieces after Monty was removed, and it was going to take time to rebuild the show. Nobody left was a lead in the same sense as Tristan or Finola (Bill wasn’t working), so they had to reshape the show. It had been star driven for over a decade at that point. And what Richie wanted to do needed the right person writing. Even with Labine that was an experiment, she had never done an hour show before. That’s why GH scenes ran so long in her first year, she was filling them with dialogue and had decided on longer format scenes and a hybrid structure between what she was used to at 1/2 hour and the traditional structure of an hour soap. And I think of all the star characters to lure back to GH at that time Luke and Laura were the right ones. They had that Marland/PFS foundation grounded in reality that later characters did not have. It fit the tone better.

I was not a fan of a lot of JFP’s score either. She insisted that the theme music cue be utilized in the score, and it didn’t work for me. There was a lot of great music during Riche. Especially for sinister characters or mystery elements.

My one big fear is that some of the vets that came back will just drift away. I could go either way with Robert as long as Anna is still there. But I don’t want to lose Felicia or Lucy again. Diane can go back to smart ass lawyer though, nothing more needed.

That was pretty wild. Soaps do stuff like that all the time and it’s always a head scratcher.

Well if she could forgive Sonny, Brenda pales.

I agree 1000% Give this woman an attractive actor that can act, and let’s get on with it. No Finn. We should all be so lucky that Sonny didn’t go after her.

Back in the day the WSB wasn’t just a US agency. World Security Bureau. The FBI has been mentioned often. I have no idea what DVX stands for though! Labine said one of the first things she did was have Karen stop using and call Sonny out. She wanted Karen to have some agency. As far as the re-introduction storyline, they toyed with a bone marrow transplant storyline but decided L&L’s return needed to be bigger than that, and involve some danger to create momentum. Tony Geary has claimed that he and his writing partner created the framework and Labine and team implemented/expanded on it. They ended up reusing the bone marrow idea for the return of the Cassadines. About Vanessa Marcil- I also agree she grew a lot as an actor before she was paired with MB. As a matter of fact, I think Maurice improved by being paired up with Tony for the Frank Smith story. I was not of the opinion that he landed as amazing and everyone needed to learn from him. Vanessa made specific choices during the Karen stripper story where she is supposed to be exposing her and yet she acts as if she feels badly about it, and has some concern for what is happening. I thought she was playing against the writing a little bit and it was noticeable to me, and I was a Karen fan back then. It was like all of a sudden she decided to have an inner thought process play out as Brenda, instead of mostly surface. And I also loved VM, still do. But moving her away from straight vixen did wonders for her.

Sonny hasn’t been the same since Nixon Falls. Maybe there is something to play there in regards to Jason. He is also mostly isolated except for Ava. Sonny isolated traditionally means he is on the verge of a breakdown/in one. Plus he is paranoid after Michael/Dex was revealed. I don’t find it all that strange Sonny thinks something is up with Jason. Because Sonny at his Guza core is a selfish bastard that wants power more than anything. Not being in the know is a threat to his power. We have seen grandpa Sonny who is pretty mild for close to decade. Him being volatile and unreasonable is back to 2000’s basics for him. What I am hopeful for is that other characters are allowed to be as strong as him, so that the show doesn’t slip back into Sopranos lite like it did when Sonny/Carly/Jason became the dominant characters.

It’s funny I just watched several episodes from when Bobbie was helping Jason with Michael after his heart surgery. She was invited to the christening, and the Q’s were not, which created friction between them. She even slips Monica in to see the baby while Jason is out. All of this was right before Carly told her she was Caroline. Bobbie really was still central to a lot at that point.

Sad news, I have fond memories of her on GH.

Why would he want to play Jason Q? He did that before and it was a dead end. He didn’t even become popular with the audience until Jason Morgan. I mean look at Drew, the more he is like what this hybrid Jason would be, the more they sideline him. Both with Billy Miller and Ryan Lavery. And yes, this has been the rumor for years. Personally, without characters like Alan, Monica, Emily, and Edward, or even Robin, Jason Q is irrelevant. It’s too late for this to have deeper meaning.

That’s a nice bump for GH. And the show was very watchable last week. I will be curious to see if they can show continued growth by the summer, once PM/EK’s work has been airing for a few months.

As much as I have enjoyed Jason’s return so far, I have to say my FF button got a workout on Monday’s ep. So the new regime clearly has some work to do, but I am optimistic that they are up to the task. Monday also felt more like leftover material of the prior team minus the Jason stuff. It felt more choppy too. The Jason umbrella storyline is working. But eventually other stories need to be told for the other characters.

I like Mansi, loved her on DAYS. I’m still having some trouble with her as Kristina, for the same reason. Same with Molly. But I think if they give Mansi some material to work with she will fully win me over eventually. As for Molly…none of the recasts have worked for me.

Well we know from Genie Francis that ABC ended her time on All My Children, even though the show wanted to keep her. And the network told her flat out that they wanted her only as Laura on GH, which pissed her off and she refused for about a year. So ABC knew Bill wasn’t working and wanted Tony to play Luke. And Tony wouldn’t be Luke back then without Genie as Laura. I think Labine had the right idea- the action is grounded with the return of Frank Smith and the mob, followed by vying for control of that territory after he was killed.

I was at the perfect age as a young teen when Karen/Jagger/Brenda/Jason/AJ started getting played. I loved all those characters back then. As we have discussed before, Monty had the right idea. She just went about it all wrong. More grounded stories and characters were needed. But she threw too much out too fast for the audience. I think if she chose better writers it could have worked. Marland and PFS both wrote more grounded material that she produced incredibly well. I also think a different actor playing Bill would have helped. Nobody wanted Geary back as another character except maybe Geary himself.