BetterForgotten

Kim Zimmer Shares Her Battle With Breast Cancer

That was a horrible cliffhanger today. Are we still supposed to believe that Sonny can beat up a man half his age? Maurice’s acting was so bad. 

1 minute ago, Khan said:

"Guza unleashed," with no one for him to answer to, was dark, ugly and misogynistic af.  But it also was a helluva lot more entertaining than everything that came afterward.

Agreed - also, at least he had great taste in Scriptwriters who could ground that sh!t and make it work somehow on a day to day level. 

19 minutes ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Frank Valentini needs to be fired. Today. That b.s. that the enablers have been spewing for years has got to stop. He’s good with a budget. lol He saved GH and can manage a budget. 
Well so can others! I’m glad Mulcahey was fired because he cannot headwrite a soap but Frank needs to also be fired. He’s burned out. Time to go Frank. Someone else CAN do your job. 

If DAYS can still limp along with a budget of belly button fuzz and couch pennies, then anyone can EP GH and bring it in under budget. 

Back when Wendy Richie and Guza had their power struggles, I blamed Wendy and thought she was burnt out. But I was wrong once we got to see Guza’s true intentions at play in subsequent years. 

It’s too bad FV has gone unchecked for so long and continues to have a job when the show has failed with multiple HW’s under his watch at this point. 

6 minutes ago, TEdgeofNight said:

While that is a great idea, why would an 81 year old woman subject herself to this MESS? She deserves better than what she would walk into. 

Wendy is 81 and needs to enjoy her life, so I agree.

That said, GH needs people like Wendy Riche and Shelley Curtis again to come in and clean this sh!t up like they had to do in 1992-1993 when the show crumbled after Monty's second stint. They need people like that to help rebuild and refocus the foundation. That said, I'm a realist, and I know no one gives a f.uck for that type of change to happen in the modern era. 

GH has failed with 5-6 Head Writer changes since Frank Valentini has been Executive Producer. Tell me how that makes sense that he’s still there and bullet proof for this show’s bad ratings?

I need more than he keeps the show on budget. GH will never evolve as long as he’s there and not held accountable for the failures that have happened during his 12+ years as Executive Producer. 

Everyone knows PM is/was a superb dialogue writer. But, his HW experiences at both GL and GH were never set up for success as far as I can tell with both shows being a messy situation behind the scenes during his HW-ing stints. I don’t think he ever really got a fair shot as both instances were messy and he didn’t have producers that supported him or whose vision gelled with his.

Did anyone think Chris and Dan moved the needle at all on this show? Does anyone except Korte to turn this show around? I don’t. PM being fired doesn’t mean GH is in for some type of renaissance, especially with people like both Valentini and Korte who’ve already been there for years and likely to just keep the status quo going. A lot of GH’s issues started before his stint and will continue after. 

I agree that the show lacks energy and momentum, but is that all down to PM? When there are internal conflicts, little gets done. If Korte wants to be a yes woman to Valentini and Varni, I don’t see how that would be beneficial for the show either. 

5 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

I just don't think the match of Mulcahey with TPTB at General Hospital & Disney-ABC was a match in 2024.

It wasn’t and tbh, I felt that way when he was hired - my initial thought was how was this going to work? And if it doesn’t, we’d know because he’s soon quit than put up with it. 

We still don’t know if he quit or was fired. He could have very well quit on his own accord and we don’t know it - which would help explain the unusual timing. 

Agreed, the wedding was a missed opportunity for some real dramatic development and tension, especially with it being the rare time most of the cast is together. That said, yesterday’s episode did have a good community feel and mixing up of various characters, which I can appreciate as well. 

Personally, both seasons of Night Shift put me to sleep. 

What GH desperately needs is a producing team like Wendy Riche and Shelley Curtis to come in and reshape the show from the ground up like they had to do in 1992-1993. There would be some dark days and growing pains - but with enough care, you could get a respectable core and focus again. 

Unfortunately, execs and audiences don’t have that type of time or patience anymore, and no one with any power cares. 

I’d love to learn the story about who from ABC sought PM out of retirement to get him to come back to GH as HW, and why they were so quick to see him go or foster an environment where he was being sabotaged and had to quit ~5 months in. Why even bother in the first place? 

I seriously doubt Varni had any f.ucking clue who PM was before this and FV never wanted an intelligent writer on this show that couldn’t cater to his shallow and off-putting vision (or whatever it is, because dude has no clue how to steer a soap opera for a quality product). 

1 minute ago, Contessa Donatella said:

I think to myself, Soap Jesus, can you bring Nancy Curlee out of retirement BUT they would just screw her over, wouldn't they? Oy. 

She made the right choice to get out of daytime when she did. She had one great stint, and that was enough. The Harper Lee of daytime, in a weird way. 

No self-respecting writer is going to waste their time on this show if the existing power structure and systemic issues persist. You'll probably end up with a garden variety hack like Garin Wolf or Dena Higley before you get someone with a formidable reputation again.  

What needs to happen is Frank Valentini's ass getting fired for years of deteriorating ratings and quality under his watch. Just because he keeps the engine "on" that doesn't mean he gets to have a job for the rest of his life and no accountability for any failures or mistakes. 

2 minutes ago, Errol said:

I didn't write this in my article, but since Digest is alluding to it, I'll say it outright here: Don't be surprised if an entirely new writing team is at the helm. Right now, it is 50/50.

As I said earlier, "there's more to the story."

Ha, and if a completely new writing team does happen, it will still probably be filled with friends of FV or upping people already writing for the show. 

1 minute ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Just when I would have preferred to be wrong! 

If we break it down ... 

A struggle behind the scenes ... 

Varni & Korte stand with Frank. 

Patrick stands alone (unless there was someone unknown from either ABCD or Disney). 

Someone or something prevented suitable trimming of the cast. 

Patrick was (I was told very reliably.) struggling with the size of the cast. 

Disagree over scene length.

Disagree about other unknown elements of writing & production. 

Patrick & Elizabeth would have been together on Jason, Carly & angst. 

Dan & Chris had left a huge mess to be cleaned up. 

Neither Patrick nor Elizabeth have HW experience when it comes to either big stories or to long story or even to an umbrella story. <--- Here they are so vulnerable. 

But, Chris is bad at that, too!

If we sum all this up & add in a huge dash of stuff we don't know about what you have is the clusterfuque someone mentioned, last week I think it was. 

It must have reminded PM of 1994 GL all over again. He’s already been in this situation, sadly.

It makes his quote about Wendy Richs and the honorable woman she seems to be all the more significant now:

Just now, Errol said:

https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2024/05/patrick-mulcahey-out-co-head-writer-general-hospital
 

TLDR: Elizabeth Korte, who became co-head writer alongside Mulcahey, will assume sole head writer duties following Mulcahey’s exit.

Although reports indicate Van Etten is replacing Mulcahey as the show’s new co-head writer, sources tell us that is presently not the case, and Korte will retain sole head writer duties.

 

Thanks, @Errol!

I am going to infer that Mulcahey saw all the crap he had to put up (and the people involved) and jumped the first chance he got. Feels like he left in his own accord, or did ABC outright fire him? 

Also, I guess this explains why no one at the show was talking to the press. No one wanted to stand behind what showed up on screen (even if there were improvements), nor did the ratings provide a safety net for them to do so regardless.

Also, @Contessa Donatella, I guess your sources were right about the BTS turmoil and FV hating to produce PM’s “longer” scenes…

In light of today’s news, I’ll look at today’s episode as “what could have been” had this show not had so much BTS turmoil and a full vision was allowed to take hold. 

Frankly, Frank is the common denominator for why this show has sucked through several writing regimes at this point. I’m not sure why ABC and Varni don’t see that and continue to safeguard his job.

Van Etten back is not going to change a lick, and Korte has been on staff for like 30 years - she’s a company woman that will write whatever she’s being told to write. 

I hate to say it, but this is what I’ve saying all along with watching GH. There was a clear power struggle at play - and the show was suffering for it and it showed on-screen IMO.

I am not surprised PM quit, this is consistent for when he is being sabotaged behind the scenes.

This may be the last we ever see of PM in daytime. But maybe hoping Steve Kent remembers him from their SB days and asks him to consult or replace Griffith at Y&R? High hopes, I know. 

An increasingly surprising op-ed piece in NY Times that encapsulates what I’ve been thinking recently:

The Nerve of Madonna to Pull It Off, Again

It’s definitely not millions tuning into GH on Hulu or any of the soaps on their respective streaming platforms for that matter. Let’s stop the false narrative that streaming is somehow making a significant dent to the bottom line costs for these shows. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. Soaps still generate most revenue from the advertising on their respective broadcast networks, hence why these ratings still hold weight. That business model has not changed.