carolineg

I don't believe Chad's departure has anything to do with personal issues or story/material and came down to money. I don't get the vibe he's on a short "break" or whatever, but gone at least for now. I get that GH is conflict averse, but this is becoming a non-story. There have been successful affair stories where no is the villain, everyone is a villain, or there is a clear right/wrong side. This affair story is pretty much everyone boringly sucks here and there is no rootable couple to back up one side or the other. Once Michael slept with Sasha the only way to go was to make him a vengeful Q. Most of the audience would root for Michael at this point. I do wonder if the show was thinking about going that route like @DRW50 mentioned and just pulled back when CD decided to leave. Now he'll probably just leave town with his tail between his legs and never know Sasha is pregnant and let Drew/Willow raise the kids or some nonsense.

Interesting. I think both characters were out of options at this point. Tony is the type of character that you did need on the show and Guza should have tried harder to keep him relevant. After his stellar work in the mid-late 90's he should have been kept in a solid supporting role.

Hmmm...I think Helena helped Tony get off on the kidnapping charges for Robin/Michael? I believe Helena made Alexis defend him and claim temp insanity. Carly ended up shooting him and all that. I can't remember what Helena's endgame was with Tony or if for some reason she was just screwing with Alexis and Tony was just a pawn. There are aspects of the Cassadine resurgence in the 90's I loved, but it very quickly got repetitive and motives to some of their plots become convoluted and lacked clarity.

Yes, the GH side was focused on Alan's issues and Sonny's reappearance. Didn't Tony make a scene too? To be fair, I don't think Jake was murdered until the very end of the Nurses Ball. It just didn't seem like the GH side of things even knew there was a murderer on the loose. The 2 randoms killed before Jake that had no connection to the GH cast might not even make people in Port Charles blink in 1998.

I can't recall why she was living at the Q's, but I think @Vee mentioned the scene upthread where the Q's and Katherine were celebrating her birthday and they find out about Brenda's death. She snuffs out the birthday candle with a smirk and a bit of bitterness because her birthday was ruined. I assume this was the time she was living with the Q's. I guess someone invited her. Lila? Edward maybe? Danielle was dull and so was Rib Hillis, but they were cut pretty quickly right?

I really don't remember late Katherine shenanigans that well. I think she fell of the parapet and was secretly alive, reappeared at Stefan's? murder trial for her death, tried to marry Nik, and then fell off the parapet a second time when Helena pushed her and was dead dead. The Rex story irritated me in general because Wayne was doing whatever that was when Days decided to recast Roman at the same time and I couldn't be objective. The whole story was a waste of time and I kept thinking how much better it would be if Wayne was playing Roman instead.

Thanks! I think I got the Katherine shooting timeline confused with when she fell off the parapet. Now that you said that I do remember that Bacchanalia Ball and it was clearly in May(ish?) 1998. I honestly don't remember her on PC at all, but she was obviously around lol. I probably need a rewatch soon because things are starting to all blur together timeline wise for me!

Maxie also found out she was pregnant super quickly. The whole thing sort of defied any medical logic. It really wasn't Maxie's greatest era. I remember she kept losing any custody rights to Georgie for an extended period of time after as well. Maxie was a mess for a long until she met Nathan and decided to try to get shared custody of Georgie. I can't remember if KS's absences played into that though. An insane amount of airtime was dedicated to this nonsense. A little goes a long way with this crew of kids. NB's Spencer rivals JL's Violet as the most obnoxious child actor GH has ever hired. They both make Dylan Cash's Michael seem tolerable (almost)

Maxie miscarried, was upset and ran into Spinelli who was sad Ellie broke up with him. They had sex the same night she miscarried. I remember thinking having sex was probably the last thing you wanted to do the same day you had a miscarriage but....🤦‍♀️ Once Maxie had the baby she told Spinelli and they decided they wanted the baby back. Dante/Lulu named the kid Connie, which doesn't matter for plot purposes, but I am glad that didn't stick. There was a whole court battle and everything which ended with Spinelli getting sole custody, Maxie having to stay away from the baby for 6 months, renaming the child Georgie, and Spinelli moving out of town with Ellie and Georgie in tow. Kirsten Storms leaves for maternity leave? or one of her medical issues and comes back to town with Levi Dunkleman and that's a story you really don't want to hear about I am sure.

MBE was around as Katherine until 1999, but I am pretty sure she was presumed dead at the time PC premiered after her fall from the parapet at Wyndemere. I like that SK played AJ with sleaziness like an overgrown, immature frat boy. I thought it worked for the AJ at the time, but he was the first AJ I watched in real time. I also enjoyed the fact SBu and SK looked so much like brothers. I wasn't terribly invested in Rhonda/Alan. It just did seem like a story that never reached the intended conclusion. I keep hearing people speak about this Tracy anti-choice stance and I am also curious to figure out the origin or scenes when this happened.

Thanks! I wonder if the show thought they could use that down the road? Or maybe they just wanted to tie up Karen's story? It would make a lot more sense to leave the whole paternity situation unanswered so if they did bring Karen back there were multiple options for her father.

I don't feel like I watched enough of PC to be any sort of expert. I just think Jagger/Karen both returning might have given me more a reason to watch to at least see what they were up to. The interns all getting to know one another was probably ahead of its time, but it wasn't terribly interesting to me. Tying Karen to Scott was a curious decision because it happened either when Karen was practically out the door or when Kin was. I can't recall. Maybe both? Lol. There wasn't a lot of drama to squeeze out of it because the main players weren't there. I don't think Labine ever got a great handle on Jason. I think there was a thought to pursue Brenda/Jason, but I always thought Brenda/AJ would be the better match. Jason doesn't do a whole lot except romance Keesha and I think you know how much airtime that got. I don't think Jason Q and Robin was ever seriously considered at the time because Jason seemed totally clueless to Robin's romantic interest. I think Robin's flirtations with other guys were to give KMc something more to do and the show was waiting until she looked old enough to pursue a serious romantic relationship. I always wondered how Rhonda/Alan were supposed to end up. It doesn't really have a satisfying conclusion and amounted to not a whole lot.

Oh, for sure. I was only speaking in a very hypothetical sense. GH didn't even need to come back with a better offer for ASJ or Cari Shayne because they had a great teen/young adult scene without them. Did they offer Cari Shayne or ASJ to come back on Port Charles? I assumed they turned it down, but I don't know if they even tried.

I think opposite. Most Nina/Sonny fans are Sonny fans and Anna/Valentin fans are Valentin fans. Liz romance fans are usually Liz fans though lol

I think there are certain sector of Sonny fans who will follow any pairing with a woman that props him up. I remember the entire faction turning on Carly, then Alexis, then Brenda, then Kate and so on once they decided to speak up or dump him. Very loyal fanbase lol. I assume Valentin has a similar small (but vocal) fanbase as well. I don't think any true Anna fan would consider that romance much more than a blip on the radar for the character.

Yeah, I know they have a following. I just never thought it was that "real". It seems to have really tarnished Anna, IMO. Steve did some decent work on Days too. I just think like you sometimes he 'cares' and sometimes he just coasts. I imagine he's not happy with Jason's return in general. Hell, he was getting more interesting material on Days as Harris even with everything wrong with that show.

If you continue watching you will see Katherine's trajectory is just a mess lol. You make a very good point about seeing something for the first time while I am looking back in hindsight. I think it's okay they fired CC/Julia when they did, but there were so many opportunities to bring Julia back. While I do understand wanting to make a big hire like MBE work there were a lot of ways to go if you inserted Julia back into the fold with the Q's, with AJ/Ned, with Brenda, etc. Julia just fit more organically than Katherine ever could into that Ned/Lois drama. With Jagger and Karen there were definitely beats to play. I just think the end result of what we got in 1996 was better than what it would have been with them. I fear Jagger would have taken the place of Jax in the Sonny/Brenda triangle and Karen might have taken the place of Robin in the Jason Morgan story. Obviously there were other ways to move Jagger/Karen into different orbits, but I think both of those scenarios were likely. I do wonder if GH were somehow able to keep ASJ/CS until 1997 if they would have been able to help stabilize PC. I think having a younger popular established couple would have helped keep the initial idea of PC alive instead of the craziness it devolved into.

Yeah, I edited my post. For some reason I thought it was GH. I really didn't follow OLTL, but knew BB was a bit of a mess lol.

I swear I remember he taped one day and then had to be recast for "personal reasons". Maybe I made that up? I'll see what I can find on google. ETA-It looks like that was for his OLTL return. I must have gotten that confused with GH. It appears Cole was always temporary to usher Starr in.

I am not defending the Cole/Starr/Hope crossover, but I think it was so brief because there were major issues with the actor playing Cole? Didn't BB start taping and had to be immediately recast? That could have forced or made RC scrap some plans for the story.

Oh, believe me, I have expressed my hatred of the OLTL characters coming over to GH. It was just odd to end Cole/Starr/baby's vaguely happy ending just to shoe horn Starr onto the canvas. And for nothing. She was Kiki a few months later lol.

It was fine to kill off Cole, but killing off the kid was pretty harsh lol.

I think the name was just explained by the fact she was from Quebec or French Canadian lol

But I don't even think Charlotte was the original plan. She was Nathan's unknown ex-wife and all that jazz before the kid popped up right?

I think Claudette married Nathan to get her American visa because she was French Canadian and wanted to live in New York? That's.........not even interesting. I don't know how anyone think JPS is a catch lol. The only time I thought he was mildly popular is when he was paired with Nina. Yeah, I still don't know if the Pikeman story is over and I definitely couldn't summarize the details coherently at this point.