Jdee43

The Laura/ Sonny scenes the last two episodes have been really disappointing. Laura losing it, and Sonny blandly reassuring her. Maurice is giving nothing, and Genie is overacting. Not only have the writers not bothered to tap into the long history between Laura and Sonny, but it's like they've forgotten Laura's long history as well. Like she's never seen a dead body before or been a party to some underhanded shenanigans. She should be suggesting that they plant the body on Sidwell, not whimpering and going along with Sonny's plans to make it disappear. At this point, Sonny/Laura scenes are best treated as fast-forward material. Maurice also really needs to be put out to pasture.

How many murders and unresolved crimes are they going to do on this show? If they had a budget, maybe they could invest in a mystery, crime writer, to really go to town on this stuff, as I'm not sure this is in the writers' wheelhouse. But then again, what really is in their wheelhouse...

Creatively, he probably should have stayed with The Doctors, where he stood out as an antihero lead. Not sure what happened with GH. He didn't have the same impact. Was it bad writing, not clicking with co-stars? Didn't they gave him a boat load of money to join GH in 1976? Was Mark Dante just a toned-down version of Nick Bellini? Were they basically the same character?

It's interesting to watch this having watched The Doctors. I'm not sure I'm seeing that much of a difference in the characters Gerald Gordon and Anna Stuart played on The Doctors and what they're playing here.

Every time I see Jacinda, I think to myself that the main reason she's on is to save money on budget. Why introduce a real character played by a real actress when they can cheaply fill time with her. I'm all for giving newbies a shot, but I don't think the Jacinda actress is it. She doesn't have enough charisma. They need to go back to the casting office..

I can't believe it's the show's 60th Anniversary. Sadly, the last time I watched was for John's funeral. I didn't really care for it. All it did was highlight how budget-challeneged the show is, with everyone sitting in a set with ultra- fake shrubbery, and especially with there being no old music cues. Has anything interesting happened on the show since, or are they just still spinning their wheels? i don't remember a time when my interest in the show has been this low..

Totally agree! And Joey might be all right showing up now and then to add humor, danger, excitement. But he seems like he's on every day and that he pretty much knows all the characters and is actually driving some story? Joey as support is ok, but as a main guy, come on. They've made the character too evil for that. He's responsible for 2 murders so far.

It's pretty ridiculous how Joey is such a major character on this show. Instead of appearing here and there, he's on almost every day, and has his hands in so many stories. I'm surprised he's not on contract and in the opening. If this was going to be the case from the start, they should at least have gotten him a decent set to hang out in.

They should have had AJ or Emily be behind Ronnie's scheme. If not, they could have used this to introduce a new, young character to the canvas, a relative of Monica's. Instead it was all a big nothing burger. The best part was seeing Erica Slesak again, and that's about it.

Definitely didn't like the turn the writing took with Tracy. It was so unnecessary, and a bit jarring given how warm and fuzzy the last episode ended and this one began. You think Tracy would be profoundly moved by Monica's gesture and let it sink in for awhile. Instead, she seemed over it in a manner of minutes and reverted to harpy form with Ronnie. Just let Tracy have a nice, warm moment, with growth and understanding; the actress is more than capable of pulling it off.

I had the Price Is Right on in the background the last few days. A contestant said they were from Santa Barbara, and Drew said that was a soap opera. People still remember!

Oh my, the show actually had a pay off today?! A story they set up wasn't left dangling or forgotten but had a conclusion!? A rare moment indeed. It has been nice seeing Erika Slesak, and Jane Elliot has been great, especially in moments where she remembers Monica. But the writers could have done much better with the story, like having someone who has a real history with Tracy be the one behind it, not this pathetic nobody Martin.

It was nice to see a little flash of early 1990s OLTL with Vicki and Joey. I did watch way back then 😥 The scenes between Lucy and Tracy were nice too. I didn't think the writers had it in them. Lucy came across as a real human being instead of a cartoon. I would like to see more of that, and her with Tracy. Lulu has more chemistry with Tracy than she does with Laura. That might partly be the writers shafting Laura though. Too bad they never gave Tracy a real daughter.

Michael Knight has always been a flop on GH. I don't know what they were going for, and they probably didn't know either, but none of it has ever worked. They should have just had him play his character from All My Children. Same for Eva La Rue.

Super rare episodes of the short lived 1975 CBS game show Musical Chairs are resurfacing on YouTube. Mary Stuart appears on a few episodes from September 1975 as one of the singing celebrities!

This show writes plot, not character. Take Brennen. Why would he recruit the daughter of the woman he loves for his agency? You'd think he'd try to recruit Anna's granddaughter for it, a woman he hates. Stuff like that makes the character plain stupid and nothing but a plot point. I'll give the writers credit, there's less of the stupid in their set-ups than there was a couple of years ago. But the stupid is still there.

Pat Falken Smith was credited as the "story editor" on the first 13 episodes of Bonanza in 1959-1960. That show was run by a particularly strong minded producer too. Maybe that's one of the reasons why she lasted only 13 episodes with that show? Is it the consensus that creatively GH was a mess in 1981 and 1982, but by 1983 it was back to being very watchable, with 1983 being their best year quality-wise since 1980?

Imagine how on fire the show would be if it was AJ returning instead of who cares Nathan. Probably the only way Frank would ever be interested in AJ is if he could pull off having Michael Easton play him.

The way you wrote it, too bad this isn't what we saw on screen the last 16 years of Geary's run. They really lost the character circa 1999. With his earlier run, especially once Luke became super popular in the early 80s, I think there were times where he seemed more cartoonish than anything else, under Gloria Monty and her mix of screwball comedy and action/adventure. Luke's original run, in 1978-1980, I don't think he ever gave off the vibe of "sleazy, evil rapist." That they went there was such a failure on so many levels on the part of the production team, especially Gloria Monty. It was all about amassing an audience with her, not so much about the quality of what they were watching.

Nathan has been back for a couple of weeks and it already feels like his storyline is played out, that there's no where to go with the character 😴 Why did they bring him back? I would have rather have seen them bring back one of Monica's dead children, AJ, Emily, or even Dawn. Hopefully they still do that, and reveal one of them as the person behind Ronnie. I love Jane Elliot, but she really needs to add a little nuance and empathy to scenes where she's full on attacking someone. It gets grating 😖 The writing is to blame too. This Ronnie story and its dialogue is so cookie cutter and predictable; we've seen these scenes a thousand times.

I was reading the interesting comments on Luke and Laura in the main thread. I think the issue with Luke is that he never was a consistent character. When he started, he wasn't really that sleazy or get out evil. There were periods where Luke wasn't much of a character at all, where he was more of a cartoon, trying to imitiate the everyman leading men of old Hollywood movies from the 30s and 40s. I thought this was especially true from 1980-1984. When Luke returned to the show in 1993, I could sympathize with Claire Labine not knowing how to treat the character, as there was barely a character there at all. I think she did a good job grounding Luke and giving him a character. I liked her version, and Guza's attempt to darken him in 1996. But by 1998, the wheels fell off, and Luke being such an inconsistent cartoon for most of his run, coupled with bad writing post 98, really did the character in. I think given the history of the show, Laura has had more of a consistent character than Luke has been, even though her character was a bit of a cartoon too from 1980-1984, trying to imitate the leading ladies from classic Hollywood movies of the 30s and 40s.

With Ric holding a knife to Alexis's throat, was the show trying to pay homage to Julian doing that years ago? It feels like some of the producers would really love to see Alexis get her throat cut.

The show is gravitating towards the worst mistakes of soaps from the 80s through 00s, seen on stuff like Santa Barbara, GH, B&B. I thought they could do better. They should look more towards the P&G soaps from 60s and 70s, like Guiding Light, Another World, Edge of Night.

I guess the show can't afford to spring for clips that include Alan.

The Doug/Vanessa/Joey story is such third rate Sopranos, without the budget, the lighting, the acting, the nuance. All characters involved act so stupid. Joey is the biggest fail. He's always mugging the camera, his demeanor screaming "hey, I'm a mobster." His character should have more humor and charm; there should be some question as to how evil he is. To have him so quickly resort to murder and get away with it twice now is the biggest fail. There is no point to having him be such a monster.