Darn

Genie Francis was on Days and Y&R and is of course currently on GH.

Has any other soap done what GH did from 2000-2013 and become nearly solely focused on the lives of four characters? First Sonny/Jason/Carly/Courtney then Sonny/Jason/Carly/Sam with the other characters largely supporting their A stories or used as filler. Even soaps with clear cut leads didn't feel as suffocating as the constant sturm und drang as what they all went through.

Sonny and Brenda (don't kill me @carolineg) but I just hate everything Sonny does. Maurice was off the charts hot back in the day but his acting isn't remotely impressive to me, Vanessa had charisma and spunk that made him okay to tolerate. And they had one of those annoying soap romances that suck all the air out of a room. Brenda always seemed on the brink when it came to him, actually most of the women he's paired with act like that. It's just annoying. Nick and Sharon have no appeal to me. I don't think either actor is very good (everyone overpraises Sharon Case, I'm sorry), they're both so bland and generic. I don't get the appeal of most couples on Days. They're all so saccharine when they're in love and their obstacles are always external.

I always thought it was just the classic way soaps punish women for having agency. Erica Kane got an infection and almost died after her abortion. Pat Matthews' abortion made her infertile. Any vixen who knows what she wants and is unapologetic about it gets raped eventually, the consequence of being self focused and upwardly mobile.

Can someone explain why Victor has kidnapped Lucy? I can't follow this story and I'm not sure I care. I've never been a big fan of the adventure stories on this show and now they don't even have location shoots so it's even harder to hold my attention. Cynthia Watros was so good today she almost made Maurice tolerable.

Chase, Willow, Michael and Sasha don't have one discernible personality between the four of them.

What stories?

@Vee has mentioned this quite a bit, the generic leads of the youth set. It's crazy to think that soaps were willing to take risks with legacy characters like Robin by giving her HIV (this was a game changer and it would never happen today) or Jason with his amnesia (no matter how you feel about him, permanently changing the personality of a lead character just doesn't happen) or making Bianca, the only child of the One True Daytime Star™ a lesbian. Daytime used to be so much more willing to make big swings or tell challenging stories with people we'd spent years getting to know. They would never do something so dramatic to Joss for example, that might impede her ability to marry 7 different guys in 10 years time. Now it's mostly mired in paternity/maternity reveals and baby switches, plot points that don't matter or won't last. They feel dramatic and are dramatic but ultimately weightless because nothing sticks. I've been enjoying the Nina/Willow conflict and the reveal but knowing that Nina and Willow will eventually be bosom buddies will make the new few months to a year kind of tedious. She'll be calling her mom in no time.

This is kind of old now but I just learnt about it, apparently Kimberly McCullough is a mentor of Olivia Rodrigo's and wore her Emmy dress in a Good Morning America performance. A family heirloom that was gifted to her by director/actress Franchesca James the day they shot the scenes where Stone died.

I can feel the boredom already.

I've been thinking lately that the hospital as the center of all the action on GH has kept it alive and in better shape than the other soaps still around (in my opinion of course, the show is certainly not great right now but it's the most watchable daytime drama by a mile at this point). Is it absolutely ridiculous that characters who aren't medical professionals are constantly at a hospital? Yes. Do I care? No.

She was in mourning for her post-menopausal baby. You missed that scene.

If the money isn't being spent on sets or background actors, what IS the money being spent on? Are salaries still that high? Let some of these people go. That's this show's problem though. They've done nothing to build a new generation of leads. Name a character introduced in the last decade that's as interesting as Jack or Lauren or Michael or Nikki.

The number of kids who have aged almost in real time is nice. There aren't any 5 year olds who are suddenly 20. Cameron has aged completely in real time, mostly because Becky looks so young and Liz had him so early. The SORAs-ing on the show hasn't been so bad thankfully. I always think soaps can get away with aging kids a bit more when the parents are older. So Kristina going from 8 to 16 or Josslyn going from 4 to 9 was nothing to me. The other soaps have much messier timelines. My powers of deduction prove me right once more!

Yes, the show has gone out of it's way to pretend her pre-Amelie life didn't matter. Her stories and characterization were essentially erased.

Ryan died, Victoria grieved and then the show didn't mention him for years. I'd be surprised if the show has mentioned him more than 3 times in the last 20 years. In fact Victoria's life in the 90s doesn't seem to exist at all. Cole is never mentioned, her baby is never mentioned. She just started existing once she got with Billy.

Man, soap fans have long memories lol the first nail in a show's coffin happened 30 years before its cancellation. Only in daytime! *This was not a dig at you, I'm still mad at stuff that happened 20 years ago

I think this is what Hayley and Mateo would have become if Ripa hadn't become a star. Whenever they returned it felt more like "Kelly's visiting!", they were even written differently.

That's exactly what I mean. They wish they could mine more story out of it but it's very well established. There is no more there there.

You can tell that the show wishes Carly’s backstory was more of a mystery.

Nina only lasted as long as she did because of Michelle Stafford (not her talent or the story but her being Michelle Stafford) and they're only investing in her now because Watros is better than the material. And Sonny needs some woman in his life. All four are very hot and very boring. And Sasha info dumping her life tragedies on a man she just met is so bizarre. Especially if they're an intended potential couple. Now you know everything about this stranger. Where do you go from here? I don't know why Brook Lynn is written to be so tepid. She needs some of her mother or grandmother's fire.

Nina was pretty monstrous to immediately after finding out Willow has cancer to go the home of a woman with stage 4 cancer to yell at her and her husband with the idea that they hid her cancer because their baby is more important than her grandson. Cancer. She's psychotic.

Brook Lynn and Michael technically but you're right...I'm mad I didn't notice.

CBS/Sony could if they wanted to. There's no reason why Y&R's cast and crew wasn't at the Television Critic's Association event.

I meant to comment that, it's really stupid and shows a lot of hubris to write these stories without securing the actor.