Vee

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.

I remember a lot. But I have more patience for the Sonny/Carly saga (or later Robin, or Brenda and Jax and Jax/Alexis/Ned/Chloe) that unfolded than you do. I still think some of those scenes between Maurice and Sarah are immortal. Even the messy stuff where Guza and Riche were feuding over bus advertisement couples had a lot of standout material day to day. It was Stefan and Laura's early promise from '96 that they really fumbled later, but I think there were a lot of reasons for that. I said it when Mulcahey was back (as he wrote a lot of it) but it's the earlier stuff in '96 I think GH would be terrified to touch today - the casual, very candid sex between Jason and Carly when they first met, and IIRC the initial lack of understanding by the neophyte, brain-damaged Jason that sleeping with Carly would invalidate his budding romance with Robin where they couldn't be sexually intimate. Maybe I am misremembering it but I think that was the dynamic I recall early on.

I watched the show too. I didn't have to go back and watch Labine to learn after the fact, I was there in the first place. Guza has plenty of sins but no one helped erode Luke (during and after Guza) more than Tony Geary.

Guza's writing staff (partly inherited from Labine, like MVJ) as well as his own work on the day to day often kept the show afloat daily in some absolutely wretched years all the way up to his exit in 2011. At its worst (and there was a lot of worst) you could still have literate, layered scenes to watch anchored by great acting that was at times still given room to breathe in longer scenes. That ended with FV and RC and the larger purge of the dialogue staff. Yes, the show got lighter, more adventurous and broke the back of the mob (for awhile) and did many fun things that helped save the show from the axe in 2012, but the dialogue and character work went to the dogs and has largely stayed there since. That was Labine, yes. But that all happened over the winter of '95/'96 IIRC. I think she was out in March or April.

As I've said before, I am cautiously optimistic about Guza here. In their best days and even some of their worst, his team (which MVJ was a key part of for years) understood propulsive storytelling, intricate dialogue and character work, and even on a crass level pushing the envelope in terms of getting eyes on a show when it was needed during sweeps. BTG will need that, as opposed to the somnambulant pace of modern Y&R, late ATWT/GL and whatever the hell it is B&B does daily for decades. Moreover, MVJ came up under Labine as well and above all this is her show, not his. Guza has many vices and flaws but I won't lie and say don't I wish a bit more of him and his team were still in the mix at GH in the last decade. MVJ and others who worked for him have long defended elements of what happened in his 2000s run at GH, claiming certain choices weren't his fault or that he wanted to do more, etc. I've always taken many of those chummy stories with a grain of salt, though I'm sure Frons and other factors were in the mix. But now's his chance to prove himself again beyond the all-consuming obsession with the mob and the misogynistic, cable-envy flavor of many of his later lowlights. In the post-prestige TV era we're in now, where everything that used to be rarefied and mature is now commonplace and often cliche, maybe he's learned something with the time away. I have heaps of criticisms for Bob Guza, but I do think he knows how to deliver harder-hitting drama and character work than most of the skeleton crews left in current daytime. So, with MVJ still steering the ship and in control, I am willing to let him cook with her. I think very little of that was the Labines, AFAIK anyway. Carly was a character concept on paper but according to everyone involved (including Labine, I believe) it was Guza's team that fleshed it out past maybe the first few days. Jax was intended as a romantic spoiler for Ned and Lois when Labine left. The rest is all Guza.

Being deep in a revisit of GH in the mid-90s (specifically, '95) makes it that much more depressing. I am not prepared to throw in the towel on VH yet because it seems clear Carnes is not coming back any time soon, but woof this has been all over the shop already. Not that the writing or direction helps at all.

The problem with Willow and Drew is not that it finally happened (after far too much dithering post-Mulcahey), it's that in the moment that it did it made zero sense. As I said before: Willow recommits herself to her husband and takes Michael to bed while proclaiming her brief infatuation and couple kisses with Drew were a terrible mistake. The next day, Sam dies and Willow initiates sex with a grieving Drew in her baby's nursery. Huh?? Willow doesn't know Michael slept with Sasha and as far as she knows he's been totally forgiving. There was no rift, no impetus for her to 180 in less than 24-48 hours, and none of the writing since summer has built up any kind of intense enough sexual obsession between Willow and Drew that would make either of them completely flip and throw caution to the wind. She just comes off psychotic. So doing it this way, with her taking Michael and Drew to bed in rapid succession, feels like little more than a very mechanical, plot-driven timeline setup for yet another pregnancy/WTD story. Which is of course GH's M.O. - more babies, babies, babies to kill as many annual hours as possible and fill time. It worked with the surrogacy and they'll just keep doing it. I don't care about Kai and Trina so far because the scenes feel very artificially forced, the same old 'antagonism to attraction' setup we've seen a thousand times. I think not putting her with either Gio or more importantly the rumored new Quartermaine character that may have been dumped smack of keeping her in a box with a C-player, where GH would prefer she stay. I have little faith these two will not end up the new Bryan and Claudia. But we'll see. As for Isaiah I honestly think he has the most chemistry with Lucas even though Van Hansis' performances so far are uh, variable at best. While Vaganos has given some good performances I don't really care about the latest Molly or Brennan and I never will; I think Molly needs a long break from the show and I don't care about this dayplayer they've foisted on Carly to give her something to do. But that's all my personal taste. I think it was Shelly Altman who was recently quoted saying either the network or the show was very paranoid about writing anything re: little Aiden being gay a few years ago (and wouldn't even allow Julian to take on a white supremacist prison gang when he was incarcerated - a far cry from the very hokey but weirdly prescient One Pure People online Nazi storyline FV told at OLTL in the 2000s). And we know they allegedly cut scenes in the spring under Mulcahey where the teenage Aiden played by the previous actor would come out to Laura. I am pretty sure they're only going there at all now that they have an actor who is of age, to deflect any potential attacks from the usual hate groups. I think that caution and sanitized storytelling is only going to get far worse over the next four years.

Exhibit A: The definition of "Dig Up". I have blessedly had Donna blocked for ages, but the fact that she's still allowed to post here after what happened with a certain recent tragedy amazes me.

This is what I said would happen a few days ago. They won't run a lot of the character material onscreen for key stories beyond a scene or two because Frank is too busy playing Russian Roulette with everyone's guarantees and the block taping, as always. So you get an intro to Lucky and Aiden reconnecting and then a ton of it will be offscreen for weeks or months while people just talk about it in passing. It's what he's done (and Ron in the past did) with character development for years. The show continues to have many elements that could be great if watered to the right potential, and many that are beyond stale and should've been purged years ago. (And it's a wild contrast to viewing the key transitional period in 1991 to Linda Gottlieb's OLTL, where they slaughtered the cast like it was the French Revolution.) It's depressing to see it right back in the same old rut of strangled potential and storytelling that vacillates by the week between go-nowhere and furiously frenetic, speedrunning past any potential drama. I'm watching for the Spencers atm, but I skip past a lot of the Sasha Saga, etc. And I just don't have any time for half the cast anymore, including Fake Shemp Molly and T.J. or the wreck they've once again made of Kristina. Ava also appears to be doing nothing but flirting with Ric and gabbing with Nina every other Tuesday. And the less said about poor LW's onscreen prospects (and wardrobe), the better.

We'll see. I think too many voters still huff MSNBC as their lifeline, and that's not a solution. What is going to be needed is something bigger. We need to flush a lot of the norm-loving Get-Along Gang inside the party and most of all finally, finally start investing in new actually liberal media platforms a la Fox. We've been decades behind on the media war for a long time now and it's wrought a generation of more bigoted, more misogynistic and more intellectually lazy or reactionary youth, along with making many of the rest of us dumber as well. Too many Dems hate promoting liberal policy achievements, love to preach bipartisanship and then still go hat in hand to Beltway media expecting fair play and honest reportage like these are the days of Tip O'Neill. They're not. The only way through is to revolutionize how we operate to promote ourselves to the public, and stop being bullied by either extreme flank. And while I understand that making the sausage and grinding out the hard work will always be important and it will always be a big tent, I'm done with the institutionalists in the party who don't want to rock the boat with media or systemically inside Congress. We tried it their way and we're staring down the barrel of Germany in the '30s: Now with TikTok.

Yeah, I'm tuned out. It's going to be a Batman Rogues' Gallery so I expect only the worst, and if some flame out great.

God, who cares.

No. They've barely ever (if at all) acknowledged Lucky and Sam were a thing since Jonathan returned to the role.