Vee

I actually think she would've stayed if Frons had not played hardball on her very reasonable request for time off for her baby in 2003. I think it was you who said she had one day offscreen between September '02 and her exit. 2011 I suspect may have been a similar situation, but by that time ABC had made the decision to nuke the soap line-up and it was all Frons could do to keep GH on the air before losing his own job as well. Nobody was checking for Vanessa that spring-summer. And today they're clearly not interested.

Yes, I forgot to mention that this ep is a lovely showcase for both Leslie and Stuart Damon. I've been reviewing a lot of Leslie's key eras lately (including the Lassa Fever saga, and the subsequent quad with Rick, Alan, Lesley, etc. I've seen before, as well as her affair with Sean Donely) but her work throughout the cancer drama is stuff I hadn't watched since I was a kid. And it's still very good. I loved how Edward still called Laura 'young lady' too. There is a throughline back to the young woman (barely an adult) who answered his phones at ELQ.

Cyrus bombed half the cast, killed multiple people and put Lulu in a coma for years. Then he stayed on the show for another four. Show me the difference.

Like Cyrus was?

I can't buy Kristina running a lemonade stand.

So does FV. Liking an actor does not mean they are interesting on the show or a credible villain.

I think GH was (as usual in those days) trying to do too much at once and service too many sacred cows, new additions, etc. And they were probably once again gambling that Vanessa would stay, which didn't happen and likely could have. If you had honed in on several key couples in addition to telling something of an action story, that would've been enough. Instead they wanted Brenda to be everything to everyone (Jason, Dante, etc.), and Guza could not settle on the future of the show as his vision for Dante had already begun to get clouded. In a better world Brenda's return and marrying him would've been (and could still be) the clear signal for Sonny to officially shift into the patriarch role he has flirted with both in that late Guza period and under Carlivati, etc. off and on since. But that didn't happen.

I didn't even remember them still being 'involved' at that point. And yes, I recall that moment re: Dante. Ugh. For me the wedding scenes and then the break-up stuff make up for a multitude of sins in that year-long period. That's what I remember most, and again I was never even a big fan of the couple BITD. One of the final gasps from the longtime GH writing team that was dissolved when Guza exited and then FV/RC came on.

Well, yes, that part was terrible! But I didn't hate seeing Brenda's celebrity life over there, though it did go on too long.

And I am still convinced that all of Pikeman will eventually be pinned on either a) the French-not-French? (come on, Frank) chick, b) Chris McKenna's surely short-term Brennan* or c) both to get Prince of Tides off the hook so he can come back and reunite with Anna amidst floods of mutual tears. It's too bad because Mulcahey did a pretty good job last spring of being very specific as to how they both had done it all, but it was clearly intended to write both JPS and Mesure out and we couldn't have that. (*Yes, Brennan actually was the co-head of Pikeman but atm they want us to forget that, having conveniently elided the entire topic in Brennan #1's long recitation of his history with Valentin to Carly last week. I expect this to come back eventually when it's time to get rid of him, much like the show magically remembered 'hey, Nikolas pinned Hayden's shooting on an innocent Black man' and 'hey, we never figured out who killed Austin')

I think as time went on Guza got more and more resentful with his place in the industry, and it definitely showed again and again. It's been a long time and he's done other things, maybe that's changed. I do remember Adrienne's role with Vanessa. It got very silly too but I was always glad to see her. I think she could've had something better on the show overall. On paper I liked some of the Brenda return story (even the extended Rome interlude at the beginning, don't hit me caroline!). But the execution was a debacle, in part because it took forever for VM to force them to commit to Sonny and Brenda marrying. Then you had other stupid elements like Siobhan, etc. But Sonny and Brenda grown up was always the meat for me (and still is, despite not having been a big fan of them as a kid); the crime story mattered much less than seeing those two actually having to live a life together as grown people, which was a big shift. And of course didn't last, but still gave us Mo's last best work.

I think everyone wished Weitz was a little shorter-term tbh lol. His run ended after like five years with Garin Wolf trying to marry Anthony to Tracy(!), then Ron and Frank came in and iced him very quickly. And I think hiring those big primetime names was all Guza. I understand the impulse for marquee names to get eyes, but the writing was messy at best. Still, as I say, you got a sense of who the Zaccharas were as this gothic, perverse dynasty whenever you saw them together, or you at least understood that the Balkan was this massive menace even when his story got very tedious and you were beyond tired of watching Sonny and Jason vs. Villain of the Year. There was still some unique flavoring to these characters even when many got half-baked. You don't get any of that from Cyrus or Sidwell (or Shiloh or Peter or Valentin), who all fail to impress or intimidate.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Selina Wu is a case study in not elevating too many dayplayers. That woman has one tone of voice and the range of a water pistol. I love using the Asian Quarter and all but you need better actors. All she does is slink around showing up at people's homes or restaurants asking for their petty cash. Don't get @Darn started on this, believe me. I mean the Balkan had a pretty massive global apparatus, lol. And that story got real silly. But at the end of the day he was in and out in maybe a year after getting up to a lot of crazy shít. Anthony was a pure cartoon they did keep around because they loved Bruce Weitz, but at least they kept him locked up a lot of the time til the end. Unlike Cyrus or Sidwell, who just stroll around town while Anna and Laura say things like 'our hands are tied' and they show up at Kelly's weeping for their lost families. Claudia would probably not be remembered nearly as well if not for her big exit, which I think only came about because Sarah Brown may have fallen out with JFP, Guza, etc. It was a great conclusion to a rambling, meandering storyline which also vacillated between her being sympathetic (I remember some wacky, stupid virus hijinks with Claudia, Jason, Spinelli and Monavie) vs. pure evil. Nonetheless Sarah played the character to the hilt and Claudia made real moves, and in the end she was out in under two years. Nobody Frank introduces today has the kind of impact of even the weakest Guza villain.

I was going to say I don't expect her back, but I wouldn't be shocked if Frank has her appear at Pride Month or something just to make sure everyone knows she and Kristina will never reunite again. I don't care about her at all, but I would nuke the entire family.

From what I recall, Joe Phillips did play Justus' downfall very well. I remember tuning in one day after school and Justus was drunk and messy, bitter about something and for a long while I thought it was a different actor. He was very good. I didn't mind Justus going dark but they didn't have anything for him after that. Mfundo Morrison (the last Justus) was very weak and was just another mob lawyer, in between scenes of him having impromptu prayer sessions in burning hotels. He had a weird, pretty sexist C-romance with Kent Masters King's Lainey Winters (I wonder WEHT her - she was close to Scrubs, Liz and many of the hospital crew in those years when they were rebuilding that side of the canvas) and then a past with Faith. Then they killed him needlessly. I would still dump Curtis and bring Justus back tomorrow to help shore up the Qs and to add a new entry point for more Wards - and I'd probably bring on his illegitimate kid with Faith that was rumored during Mulcahey's run last year, to play with both Trina and Emma, maybe as a scheming techbro type (not in DOGE, don't worry). It could be Joseph Phillips as Justus or you could go a bit younger, which I might to try and put him with Portia who I think needs much more story. Brook Kerr works very hard and gets too little. Anyway, there's many Wards you could bring on - from Keesha and Justus, to Maya again or her little sister Zoe (who Guza had allegedly intended for Michael when he was young), to all sorts of entirely new people since it was a gigantic family tree. Here's the Kwanzaa ep mentioned recently, BTW. I believe this is MVJ: They also do the long transition into the Koz theme and the credits here. GH used to have these transitions into the opening down to a science, I miss this kind of attention to detail.

Say what we will about even lower lights like the Balkan or Anthony Zacchara, there was a specificity to those villains and who they were and they made actual moves, and most had a relatively short shelf life even when some of them were pure cartoons (like Anthony). Even Faith Rosco, who is deeply problematic today, was a force to be reckoned with and could be scary as hell. Frank's villains today are all just these mid character actors* he likes who can't quite project any menace, yet hang around forever trying to garner sympathy to extend their stay while continuing to commit mostly weak crimes. What did Cyrus even do for years after blowing up the bar? Just stands around whining about his dead parents and then becoming born again. It's weak. And it's gonna be the same thing all over again. (* - and it's sad for me to say that, because Jeff Kober was the king of playing weird creeps in the '80s and '90s lol. But he comes off like a feeble old man as Cyrus.) He will absolutely be the excuse to bring on Natalia's musician son who Mulcahey mentioned, and who knows, maybe the return of Blaaaaazzzzeee. Cue the next two years of scenes where Sidwell weeps for his lost relationships with his children while also I don't know, sending thugs after Jason and Sasha.

I don't care! That has nothing to do with him being on this show.

Sidwell is of course Natalia's ex and the father of her kids. As some of us predicted months and months ago. Zzzzz. He's the new Cyrus (or Valentin, or Julian) who will now spend 2-5 years on the show because Frank likes Carlo Rota, whining about his kids while also firebombing people. These villains are so [!@#$%^&*] lame and they never go away.

The lighting looks fine to me. The sets, from what we've seen, look distinctive enough so far. Could you adjust the lighting a bit, sure, but I don't think it's giving Rauch's GL and that's all I ask. From there we'll see.

I can't recall who from here who's also on Primetimer turned me onto this (or rather I don't recall their SON screen name, sorry!) but Demi Moore was on Marc Maron's WTF podcast this wek. She briefly talks about GH around 55:40 in and is fairly complimentary about it.

I doubt it would be hard to get RC to appear from time to time, which is fine. But Skye never had any contract place on this show. It was always so grating.

Skye doesn't need to be recast because Skye doesn't need to be on this show.

I remember this page well. Ellen Holly wrote a wonderful book, but she took what Erika said totally out of context here - Erika was critiquing the state of the show at that time. When asked about it years later, Erika began her explanation in her newsletter with the immortal opener "yes, that's bullshít." She explained that she'd taken issue with how white the show had become at the time, and added that she'd loved Holly's work on the show. I give Holly a lot of credit and credence to a lot of what she had to say, but she was wrong on this passage. And I honestly think she was speaking facetiously (and angrily) in what you refer to in the oral history.

lol Cyrus was the most obvious choice for killing Austin (along with Ava). I guess it's good they're at least putting that dangling plotline to rest.