titan1978

Truthfully we have seen sprinkles of how good Mark Teschner used to be at GH with casting most of the younger characters onscreen currently. Especially Liz- her kids are all good. The only weak link is Joss, and even she’s not terrible. She just should not be the central character in that age bracket. And count me as someone that would like to see TC back some day.

Even other cast members want them to just get on with it!

One of the worst! Agreed! A great episode. Gone or completely marginalized! Poor Larry.

I loved Angel Square, although like @VeeI am sure it would not work as presented completely today. I also liked Antonio and Andy. Nora really suffered post Malone. While not as idiosyncratic a writer as Labine was, there were still characters that just morphed completely with other writers. Labine’s OLTL was a disappointment to me, although I loved Mel and Dorian. The story about Dorian’s past had good bones and then became a sleepy bore. The rest of the show was a big mess as I recall, but with strong dialogue and intelligent characters. I will go to my grave loving Tea. Right from the start.

I mean, his exit story for Tony involved Frank Smith still being alive only to be killed off again. Even TG said something like Frank Smith was old back then, how could he still be kicking it now? Luke also having DID was just so stupid. AJ being resurrected then just dropped and killed again… Tony had too much say, and I agree with the poster here who said Luke slowly morphed into Bill. He really did. The bastard TG wanted to play had not been Luke since the campus disco. And I get losing Laura really destroying him, but to then also play that Laura was no big deal to him because the actor didn’t want it to be that way the longer time went on was ridiculous. Also- I think Ethan was always intended to be Luke’s. Guza did not write major story around recurring characters like they do now. And Tony didn’t like Lucky being a cop. He wanted to play scam artist father and son.

I had zero issue with it back then because he was an incredibly compelling actor and I loved the show. I thought that initial connection with Blair was amazing. I was also a young teen. When I rewatch or look back at it now, they went a little too far with integrating Todd. It’s very similar to what the did on GH with Luke. People forget how amazing this story was for everyone. Marty of course, but also Nora.

That period of OLTL and ABC daytime was really special. OLTL was really a mess, and what they accomplished there was remarkable. LG’s time was relatively short as EP, and for outsiders she and Malone really recaptured an essence of what the show was like when Nixon created it. When you watch what is available of OLTL pre Rauch, it fits right in with what they were doing in the 90’s. That class structure, the grit, the motivations all explored onscreen. Of course there were missteps- Todd being too redeemed being one of them. But it was really great storytelling.

I believe that is what was stated onscreen when they came back. They had a couple of years running around having their own adventures when Frank started his vendetta against them and they started living under false identities and moving around. They had been kind of settled for a period of time in Canada when they were discovered and went back on the run to PC.

Apparently Jean Passanante announced it online, maybe on FB? He passed away last night. I absolutely loved his first run on OLTL. His characters had so many facets and a great range of personality traits.

When Luke & Laura came back, they had been running the diner, then he was working for Frank again and opened the club. Guza added the great touch that he still had the Ice Princess and was very conservatively using it over the years to help fund the family and his adventures. Even Laura’s house was rundown when they bought it. IMO Luke always had access to plenty of off the books cash. It’s in his nature!

It appears Michael Malone has died. He really reinvigorated OLTL in the 90’s. I was glued to that show and his many wonderful characters.

Until JFP terminated her contract, Jackie was only gone for a year or so in the early 1980’s. Of the four of them, Leslie has been on the longest as far as still being used. Genie is gone for a decade at a time, and Kin has come and gone the entire 45 years. They should be celebrated, it’s a shame. Y&R had no issue celebrating two recurring characters with Ashley and Traci!

Who would? She writes for a half hour soap, probably makes very good coin compared to other soaps.

Okay GH- let’s lure some of the actual writing staff back to make this a possibility, then I would be halfway excited. Korte is not enough- I’m talking Karen Harris, MVJ, and what feels like my constant drumbeat lately for Shelly Curtis. Lois existed in a very specific space on the show, and she needs people that have written her in the past to help move the character forward without being a caricature and or obliterated. The hopeless romantic part of Lois would be welcome on this show, paired with the right person (not Ned!). Watching a woman her age reclaim her music business, bond with her daughter, and find new love would be great. I see an easy fit at Deception too. As far as Ned- I think that ship should stay sailed for the best of the performers involved. It may have been a long time, but nobody should have to entertain others by reliving their own romantic traumas. It goes without saying that Frank’s pets also must stay far away from her. Come on GH- I bet this board could think up a good two year story for you to use! When Labine was there I never saw Lois as the naive overly moral person that Guza moved her towards. She was shrewd, she was smart, and she had ethics that did not align with the values of the Quartermaines. She had a big, loving family, not the backstabbing dynamic she married in to. She wasn’t perfect, but she had HER point of view and made choices to be with Ned and business partner with Sonny that made her question how strongly she held her beliefs.

When I started Jill was pretty close to a cartoon, but even then BD played the vulnerability about her past, Phillip, and even sometimes with Katherine. But Jess really grounded Jill, she had some scrap and grit. She humanized her quite a bit. MM as Hillary had that internal life that used to be a hallmark of Bell shows and great female characters. More going on internally was portrayed even with weak writing. I am one of those people that thinks the show was better with her and that character, both in the short term and the potential.

Those Webber brothers really had a problem with fidelity.

As much as I love Lois and would be thrilled to have a scene with Brenda, Sonny, and Lois again, I don’t really wish this show on her at this point. Lois is wholly a Claire Labine character. Guza couldn’t write for her, and I don’t think anyone that is a soap HW currently understands how to write for a character like Lois. And I’m all for her being moved forward character wise, but again, she had a certain set of ethics, personality traits, etc that just do not work well on todays soaps. it would end up as a caricature, and I’m tired of that happening to beloved characters and actors.

It’s almost like two different things happened at GH in those years. Marland introduced important new characters, Monty and the network before she got there cast them well (Bobbie, Scotty and Laura come to mind as ones she didn’t really have a hand in hiring), and almost all the stories had movement. And while the pace was increased, when you watch the shows still written by Marland they are more traditional than what we got once PFS takes over. Marland is a very traditional soap writer- he certainly tackles complex issues and characters, but his pacing and style is not as revolutionary as what came after him. What I think of as Monty’s style was really cemented from the summer on the run story for Luke & Laura through the Ice Princess. Humor, intrigue, proto-supercouple writing, complex characters, strong women, danger and the canvas being dominated by a single story. She also stopped doing things like recasts after Robin Mattson as Heather, and didn’t really do that from then on for any major character in her first run that I can remember. The characters were important but the star system made it so they were not replaceable as recasts. Marland would never let a pesky thing like an actor leaving end his stories. I think that her formula was created under her time with PFS, and then she kept implementing it until she left in the later 80’s. While Marland’s contributions cannot be ignored, I think GH became what it became in the cultural sense with Monty and PFS.

And doesn’t Serena have all the estate?

Oh brother. And let me harp once again on the fact that we should have CS playing Serena on this show, which would make this stupid plot a little more tolerable. Because then at least there would be someone tied to Dominique on contract.

And from interviews we know when Curlee was promoted she focused on characters she had a particular fondness for when she was paired with Long as co-hw. I spent some time rewatching Reilly’s first run on DAYS. I would say his GL contributions were stellar, and his DAYS was very entertaining for me right up until Marlena is revealed as the desecrator. Once we get to the full possession storyline the show really changes.

I’m just going to chime in and also say at most of those CBS procedurals, almost all the female characters, while given camera and story time, often were hard balled at contract time and considered replaceable and paid less than the men. And the decade prior that wasn’t always the case. Or on other networks. It mirrors what happened across all of daytime television in the late 1990’s-2000’s- except for DAYS the last four soaps all had significantly skewed their storytelling towards the male leads and settled on often misogynistic tones. Y&R fully became the Victor/Jack show, many female characters were weakened and sacrificed or sidelined. GH was fully the Sonny/Jason/Carly hour, and Carly was of replaced three times (twice we know the talent would have stayed if they had the same input and a comparable salary to the other two). DAYS unquestionably belonged to Sami at that time. Again, learning none of the lessons of how Sex and the City became such a cultural flashpoint and maligning the female characters on their shows. This was only really apparent in daytime and at CBS primetime.

I know this is not ideal and many people are upset. But the talk that this is being done as a way to just get rid of DAYS altogether is not realistic. If they wanted the show gone they could very easily have announced the show is done when this contract is up. They are attempting to draw viewers to Peacock, with something they think is a big enough asset to do it. They want the show to help them succeed. The question is will viewers tune in? And moving them to less than 5 days a week would honestly be for the best.

Didn’t the Bell family sell their stake in Y&R a few years ago? I seem to recall a lot of posters lamenting that as it meant the family was no longer able to do anything about the creative choices.

I know he has had to justify the musical guests during almost every season budget renewal, and also he has protected the show airing the way it does- live, with the cold open, weekend update as a centerpiece, musical guests, etc. Also the way the show is run- from the writer’s night to final show, three weeks and a break. So while I think the show would continue without him, minus the budgets and more network interference, I just don’t think we get a better show out of the tinkering. My apologies for hijacking this thread with SNL talk- I’m as obsessed with the bts of SNL as I am with with soaps.