Vee

I have sympathy for Kelly's recent hardships in life. But in terms of the show, Kelly has often phoned it in for at least half her run because she knew she was safe for many years. Then she played with fire tanking her one safe harbor (Jason) and thought she would be repositioned. She got a C-pairing for her efforts and we see where that's left her. I think FV is petty and controlling, but I also think Kelly Monaco made herself vulnerable and irrelevant on the show. And I have no need to see Sam again.

John, no. This was as ridiculous as people suggesting Oscar or street urchin Dev could somehow be her kid and not living with her or going by some other name with other parents. Brenda Barrett is an international celebrity and the Balkan is long gone. She is not losing her child to the streets or having them live under an alias after claiming them. We do not have to prefab already existing characters into being everyone's clumsy secret child from some legacy character or family. It comes off stupid as hell 90% of the time, just like Sasha. The only time to do a story like that is when there is an immediate baked-in purpose from the beginning as opposed to some clumsy retcon edit long after they appear. If Alec ever appears he should purely and simply be Alec. I like Gio but I have no need for him to be Brenda's magic kid or some other such bullshit. I don't even like the idea of him being Dante and BLQ's kid. Whatever options were on the table at the beginning with the character is what I'd like to know about, but beyond that I don't need anyone to claim him for him to be viable. I think it could've gone either way with Ava earlier this year tbh. But I do think Ava is best as being a major dark player, and I think there is still mileage to be had from that if she is properly insulated via a power base. The issue is that the show and CVE's regime in particular seems loath to play too hard with Ava because they love Maura, and that (as I said before) her fanbase squawks when Ava is written too much as Ava and doesn't have enough friends and fluffy happiness on the canvas. For these stans suddenly it's all about the 'character assassination' of the woman who shot Connie Falconeri in Reno just to watch her die, to turn a phrase. If Ric and Ava were to couple up properly and Ric was to take back some power in town with Robert gone I'd think there is something with potential there, but as it's playing now it just feels like lighter, sillier fare to me - two schemers clucking about at each other and complaining about the town, but not doing much. This court case with Kristina is going nowhere. And I think treading water like this a lot is what this creative team (and much of her fanbase) is comfortable with, just so Ava can stay 'viable' and Maura can stay safe on canvas. Except there's other ways to do that. I will believe Valentin is gone when he's gone a few years. I think FV is just waiting out JPS' latest other opportunity. It's clear Jason and Anna aren't done with him, sadly.

I'm pretty sure VM would rebel if Brenda had not one but two secret kids. She barely acknowledges Alec is canon as is.

I'm not sure it's a huge change in the writing for Gio so much as it's what GM is bringing to stuff that is largely stale onscreen now that he's comfortable with his scene partners. I would easily make Gio cheerily and matter of factly bi, but they'll never do that.

Oh dear God. It Had to Be You. I've been dying to hear more about this.

Who the Christ is Nicola Mitchell? I remember being thrown by just Ronnie and Roxy years ago so I shouldn't be surprised at this point. How many branches does the family have?

I doubt it too, but I think it was worth finding out. Plus they could've played up the spoiled, fun-loving hedonistic child of privilege side of Spencer again with Esme gone, which is an energy GM can handle. I do think the only reason the Cassadines are on pause is because GH is terrified to recast Spencer with Trina still on canvas. They need plausible deniability on keeping that fanbase out of their hair. I do wonder whatever other family leads they had on Gio when he first debuted, because his many discussions of his dead parents were not subtle.

I think they should've tested him to see if he had enough raw talent to be a Spencer recast - Chavez was not a master thespian on Day 1 either. But I also think there was a clear agenda in not recasting that role right now. NuCameron could've worked. I like Gio and I think there is a place he could find on canvas without the needless secret child thing with BLQ/Dante, but I have no faith in this team finding it.

At the risk of coming off like a hypocrite, Imma just say it: Gio has a nice butt. And I've already called attention to his overall impressive physique they have taken bizarre, BLQ-esque pains to hide for months. But while the character still has very little discernable personality or purpose to speak of (beyond the looming fear of a pointless Dante/BLQ bloodline tie), GM's own energy onscreen is very bright and happy to be here. He's started to have more fun onscreen in scenes with the Qs as opposed to just standing around beaming and saintly like he was in the summer, and it's become kind of infectious. It's obvious they are terrified of doing anything interracial at this point since they backed off putting him with Trina ASAP after he first started, but hey, Gio's cute, increasingly fun and I'd still like to see them smash even if it's just once. Trina isn't gonna fall in love with Kai Taylor overnight and she needs a fling with a cheery twunk! (Though to be clear, Kai is also cute.) All I'll say about Robert and Holly's ridiculous exit that I haven't already is I cringed watching TR carry his own bags. Robert's appearance increasingly began making me think of an animatronic Star Wars puppet in his final weeks and I've spent days worrying a fall or other accident will happen on-camera. The onscreen decline is sad but if Tristan is happy with this HEA then I'm happy for him, even if I can't stand Holly or her whining rationalizations for her endlessly self-obsessed behavior. I don't really want to see them come back in a few months tbh but I'm sure they will for visits, and if it keeps Tristan cared for and poor Emma Samms financed that's good I guess. I've grown to hate Holly but ES doesn't deserve what she's gone through in the pandemic, and I am glad when GH can care for these actors. Anna staring aghast as Holly produced the diamonds from her wallet to once again explain herself sent me. Anna should just be like ‘remember the thing with the monkeys, Holly? Have you made reparations to them? Been by Tony’s grave?'

It hasn't started! This is planned to be a long-running soap opera! We know next to nothing about this actual show and need to chill.

I'm aware of who she is. That doesn't mean any random name in the credits is a good choice for a new EP.

Maybe we can stop picking random names we see in the credits out of a hat with no idea if they'd be any good.

We're picking songs for the show to end its run on before it begins?? Okay.

They have, IIRC. But that's because they suddenly did a bunch of big plot swerves in late summer-early fall, not that many made much sense. I do think a lot of early-mid 2024 was bogged down in BTS upheaval and conflicting visions and the stasis showed onscreen. Now it's a different kind of older stasis from the CVE/O'Connor era back again, but with more of their typical hollow feints towards movement and action. Drew has always been a cipher of a character, created as a pastiche to explain away the Two Jasons. The only character he was imbued with came from Billy Miller and now Cameron's performances, so he can basically be whatever an actor or the writers want him to be. That was a rich potential opportunity at several points in the past which were never really followed up on (as the heroic anti-Jason, a decorated Navy SEAL, etc), and again in the spring when he was remolded into a debonair political animal under PM. But the truth is the once and present creative team has no real investment in Drew as a character so they've never really bothered to flesh him out. I was all for doing more with Drew at several points including in the spring, and I think CM (and before him, Miller) has been capable of it. I think Drew and Nina and the Willow angle could've gone more fun and exciting places with the right handling. But at this point Drew feels like a poisoned chalice with so many messy stories and so many fans that are annoyed with him that if I was in charge I might as well kill him off.

Again, I don't think it's as creatively dead as Y&R. There's levels to this lol. There's still spark and some enjoyable stuff here and there in the day to day. But it's so weighted down by all the bland characters and lame stories or plotting. There's a lot of great vets or possibility just suffocated by the same old names BTS.

He's an capable (to a point) manager, facilitator and producer. Creatively he has no real taste that I can see, and it's shown once the show was left to his own devices. I do think the Ford influx at OLTL was the start of his tastes, such as they are, really bleeding through (though the Ford story was Xeroxed for Trey at GH under Ron, and I think a fair amount of that was him too). More disposable white hunks or ingenues plus gets from other networks has often been FV's answer to a problem.

Hard pass! I think it's a pure survival mode he settled on once Ron was gone. FV has always been a chameleon EP who adjusts himself to whoever he was working with. He did his best to facilitate Malone II's attempt at more high style and concept episodes. He hated Dena Higley's work but wholeheartedly stood by her show in public and did nothing to mitigate the damage. But since RC exited I think he became the central creative, a la JFP at her shows pre-GH - I think it's now Frank driving the narrative, and thus the narrative often feels pretty bland and soulless. I think a lot of the joy at OLTL or early 2010s GH, for better or worse, came from RC - I have huge criticisms of Ron and do not want him HWing again, but I knew he did love the shows despite his own massive flaws and it came out in some of the work at that time. I think Frank can still deliver some very good special episodes, memorial tributes, etc. But day to day I think at this point FV is not interested in rocking the boat unless it's to push his latest acquisition or favorite people. it feels like an assembly line, not too far off from Y&R's utter lack of passion. It's not there yet, but it could be.

I don't think the later years at OLTL, as rocky as they could get, were nearly as bland, confused and listless as this GH often is. There was a very clear voice and flavor amidst the chaos of those times which put a lot of rough stuff or good if flawed material over. I think the scheduling setup at OLTL was probably less spartan than it is today, and frankly I think some of those staff writers were more adept at dealing with it to infuse character even when things got real spotty in terms of the block taping merry-go-round (and they did, particularly with vet stuff). But it was never as slapdash as it got during some of the Cartini GH years or again over the last few years. The scenes are even shorter now, many of Frank's preferred characters/hires are far more colorless and bland than at OLTL or even early 2010s GH (and we both know there were plenty of lowlights in that crew, but still!) and that all contributes to the larger systemic issues. I know you are eternally down on Lucky lol, but I don't think his return in 2009 would be classified as a failure for the character or actor. IIRC fans have always treated that time as JJ doing great work and the show letting him down with bad story, and (except for Liason stans) the audience has always wanted him back since. Lucky remains a fertile character IMO, it's how they're handling him that is as weak as any recent return. It is still so insane to me that Rena Sofer has been back for over a year - long an impossible dream - and still has no real story or pairing to speak of. The same principle with Lois applies to Lucky. It goes back to management and creative choices.

This is what I'm talking about, though: A lot of those fans only cared that she has the big pairing with Sonny, even though that story never made long-term sense to me. (Or they liked her with creepy Valentin which, no.) And Nina spent those years getting shít on and humiliated by the rest of the show because Korte (or someone) was pissed she was with Sonny at all, and she isn't nearly as much now (though she's on a lot less post-PM). Why is she less mistreated? Because they moved her away from Sonny. But the stans don't seem to notice with their supposed 'supercouple' gone. Sonny and Nina had a loud but small fanbase for a very weak, inexplicable couple AFAIC. I think the Quartermaine mansion being used as an active social hub again over the last few years is healthy and good for the show, as opposed to how much of a death zone it was in the 2000s under Guza II. Do I love that everyone on Earth's kids are there, no, but at least it feels central and vibrant to me.

Same old show from last year, then.

The problem with a lot of modern soap social media is that most fanbases of characters simply want all things to go their way or for them to be safe and insulated within the show and have lots of friends, regardless of whether some of those moves or relationships make sense for the character. If they're actually played true to character sometimes those fanbases squawk. The Ava Jerome fanbase is near the top of that list for me, along with the frankly probably meager but loud Nina fanbase on Twitter (most Twitter fanbases in this day and age are small but act like they're huge). They want Ava to have friends it makes no sense (IMO) for her to have, they want her to be on top but stay in enough people's good graces. There was so much talk about how Ava or Nina's characters were being 'assassinated' in the spring. First of all, Ava is not Carly Snyder even though her fans often act like she should be a slightly elevated version of that. She is a stone cold killer. She is bad news and the show was again writing her true to who she really is, not just keeping her relationships civil and her actions soft to keep her safe. And her relationship with Nina, which spanned decades of psychosis, was always inexplicable to me. I tolerated it (and do again) because Maura and Cynthia Watros are fun together and both characters were strange enough to make it work, but I wasn't weeping for it being gone at the time. Then there were the people who only cared about Sonny and Nina and claimed she was 'ruined' by being moved to Drew, when Nina has barely ever had a viable and coherent character to speak of under two different actors over a decade on the show. Don't get me started. The point being, yes I agree with all of the above re: what was done for MW, Watros and CM under Mulcahey (and definitely Kirsten Storms). I think both Cynthia and Cameron could've had a real future on the show together as daffy socialite Nina and that schmoozing politico Drew Q. Structurally little has changed for the characters since, but the focus and tone is off now and Drew just comes off slightly skeezier, the whole thing feels just slightly off the rose and spoiled. So at this point I'd probably do Who Killed Drew Q? in a splashy setup and move on, and write Nina out too.

The twunk playing Aiden seems reasonably capable and talented thus far, and God knows the prior Aidens were dreadful so I can understand using him. I'd still de-age him a bit (or at least dress him differently) simply because he can easily look ludicrous opposite both William Lipton and Hudson West as their little brother, or any contemporaries of theirs we can assume might appear as their future recasts (both of which NuAiden could have played). But yes, they've squandered both talented brothers and I hate it. There were a lot of hard and at times awkward character resets during that brief era, from the job merry-go-round which seemed based in BTS conflicts over cutting people to how the entire community began to view Sonny (and Kristina once again regaining her blinders for him, which given both past and now present post-PM behavior I still found in character and typical for her). But it was still more compelling to me to see Anna and Laura (or Molly or others) reckon with who and what Sonny has become vs. not, and long overdue. Anyway, it's moot because we're back to factory settings again. I expect in another year Ava, Carly and Sonny might inexplicably be besties once more too as they'd become under CVE's last run. Which is idiotic and always was.

Kristina confiding in Future Trump Appointee Natalia was insane. Natalia sabotaged her relationship with her ex-girlfriend and is on record as being a fundamentalist bigot. Yet suddenly they're great and Kristina is comforting her re: Blaze not talking to her anymore?

I mean, I think they are pretty well positioned to reinvent heavily in the Spencers with all of them but Luke now back. The issue is execution. But I think we can hardly call them done when they're all right here. Whether they should do it is a matter of personal taste. I think they can and should, but I also have little faith in this team executing well on what should be a layup with a series of popular individual characters and couples all from the same family. They've already bungled a lot of the Lucky stuff, though his return should deal with his flakiness. It's true Carly is totally adrift and so is Joss, but I really don't care about either of them right now. They (particularly Carly) can float around at best and not be in any real danger until something presents itself. But I couldn't care less about Brennan, and I am more inclined to write Joss out for a little break than Dex the cop tbh. He could always hang around a little while and be a pleasant enough stud for some women to sleep with at this point, then he can vanish and you can bring Joss back as a schemer. It doesn't have to be too profound. Carly should be totally overhauled (and probably recast, but I digress) but that is a problem for another day.

I think there's always (currently, anyway) a reason to have Lucas around. He is a core Spencer and a surgeon who can play well in good story. I don't think he should be relegated to the dustbin just because these shows are so often cowardly. The problem for me is story and in this case atm the actor. The material is not great but Van is ropey too, and in my admittedly limited experience with him from the past I suspect he is highly dependent on material. A lot of which at ATWT was bad as well. If they wanted to put him with Isaiah I'd be for it - they're both attractive and Isaiah isn't a sniveling toad like what Brad has basically always been despite some better days before his regression to form. But I have no faith in them doing much substantive with him besides maybe counseling Aiden. Still, I would rather have Lucas around than not. Dog days don't have to last forever, for any of us.