Jdee43

In its first 7 months, Santa Barbara fired its leading man, Dane Witherspoon; fired its leading female, Ava Lazar; dropped 2 of its original 4 families; recast the patriarch of the one family that lasted, the Capwells, 3 times; recast the Capwell matriarch twice; tried rebooting with an earthquake; then tried rebooting with a serial killer storyline. The show ended up being about a handful of long-term characters, all connected to the same family. It was a rocky start from which they never really recovered.

Totally agree -- Lemay's Another World from 1971-1974 was so good because he was working with what Irma Phillips and Agnes Nixon had set up. When he started doing his own thing, it wasn't as rich or as appealing, especially not in the long run. The death of Agnes Nixon's Another World started with the spin-off Somerset. Many of the interesting characters went to that show, pretty much never to return. The final blow was 1975 with Another World expanding to an hour, and Raunch and Lemay being allowed to change the show however they saw fit. Their new vision worked for a few years, but by 1979 the show was pretty much a hollow shell of itself. The end result was 20 years of mediocrity, where the only history the show had to pull from was some of the Lemay stuff from the 70s. Agnes Nixon's AW was forgotten. Whatever few characters were still around from the Agnes Nixon years, such as Aunt Liz and Rachel, it was only Lemay's version of them that we got.

If they pair Dante with Liz, it would be a sign that they've given up on his character, and that the next step will be recurring or him leaving the show. It's just the fate of anyone who gets involved with Liz. Since Ric's already on recurring with no story, they should just pair Liz and Ric. If they gave them cute scenes three times a month or so, I'm sure everyone would be happy.

Having seen Shepard Strudwick on episodes of The Twilight Zone and Have Gun Will Travel, I have a hard time believing he could have been the lead in anything. He didn't have the charisma, definitely not like what Macdonald Carey and James Pritchett had.

Nathan's return has been consistent with his last run. Nothing too deep; the actor just tries to be polite and emote empathy and lets his scene partners do all the work. There's nothing there, there's never been anything there, so not surprising the writers chose not to bother to explore anything. If Nathan turns out to be the big bad, it ain't going to work. A polite, befuddled bad guy? They better be ready with the rewrites.

With that writing staff in 1986, the show should have been much better. It was strange in 1999 to bring back Faison without Robert and Anna. Trying to turn Faison into a Luke villain never worked. Faison's interactions with Lucky had none of the menace of his interactions with Robert and Anna. It was a waste all around.

They need to end the Lucy and Sidwell stuff. Are they setting up Lucy to get killed off just in time for her 40th anniversary on the show? Sidwell and Lucy have no chemistry. It's not funny, it's not dramatic. It's more cartoonish and embarrassing than anything, and just sad. Sidewall has more chemistry with Ava. It's amazing how Ava just has chemistry with everyone!

Laura was definitely the star of the show from 1977-1981. Perhaps it was a bit of misogyny, favoritism, and being fed up with all the backstage drama that led Gloria Monty to say in 1982 that it was Luke. It's wild to think that with all the hoopla, the big wedding, the big ratings, Luke and Laura at the height of their fame survived as a married couple for only 2 months.

I don't think GH has ever been a show that's featured great writing. It's a show about charisma. It's also never really been a show about an ensemble. It's really about lead characters. They've been lucky in casting, that their lead characters have had such charisma, that they carried the show to ratings success: Leslie and Laura in the late 70s, Luke in the early 80s, Robert and Anna in the mid to late 80s, into the early 90s. The closest it came to ensemble and good writing was the mid 90s. By the 2000s though, it was back to lead characters and banking on charisma, writing be damned.

Frank Maxwell outlived Norma Connolly by 6 years. When they were honoring the passing of Aunt Ruby on screen in 1999, did they ever mention Dan Rooney? In fact, was Dan ever mentioned again after he retired and left the show, circa 1988/89, after a 10 year run?

The stuff with Willow and Drew was fun today! Solid acting! The only drawback was didn't they just do this with Ric and Alexis? Maybe they shouldn't have done that D level story if they were going to do this. Since it seems they consider Ric strictly D level nowadays, maybe they'll give him a nice affair with Liz that they'll feature once every two months or so. They can become the modern day version of the old Dan Rooney/ Aunt Ruby "romance," if they are not already!

I'm not really enjoying the Anna stuff. It's pathetic the blubbering mess they've reduced her to. I'd rather Faison really be alive, Anna face it cooly, and they have one final scene together where she cuts his throat or something. That would be memorable, and start to give Anna back the toughness and coolness she had back in the day.

Hard to believe it's been year! This show broke my DAYS habit. Being able to easily watch a show on broadcast, that had a budget and good soapy writing justa did the trick.

I guess at the time, Don Galloway was something of a get for the show, as he was a prime time star. He was on Ironside in the 70s. Not surprising they would try to make his character something of a lead. I wonder why he would want to put in a couple of years on GH. They must have paid him nicely.

I don't understand, what would inspire Monty to want to pair Don Galloway with Finola Hughes in 1986? They are 18 years apart in age. Finola was 26 in those early 1986 episodes. Finola and Jack Wagner are the same age. We were supposed to see him as some young guy beginning on the force, and Finola as an experienced vet heading the force? Her as the police commissioner was always a bit of a stretch.

It is rather disappointing that the big bad is apparently this WSB dayplayer who also seems to be impersonating Faison with Anna. If they couldn't have come up with a big bad that has a history with the show, they could at least have tried to cast a stronger actor, someone much more dynamic, creepy and weird, like Faison during his original run.

I think making so many of the characters be related made this rather impossible. Having three generations of the same family, with all of them being adults, was a bit of an overkill.

That they are doing so much to remember him now makes me wonder why they killed off his character prematurely in 2022. Because of that, they can't really honor him as much in the story.

The writing for Britt is soooo bad. Did the writers really need to bring in a random dayplayer to threaten her so she could go back to being shrill and obnoxious, to supposedly save the ones she loves? Give me a break 🤢 This is what people want to see? 🤮 Just let Britt act like a normal person for awhile for goodness sake. The writing for Willow is so heavy-handed. Obviously she's going to cause multiple deaths. I'd guess Kai will be first, and that since it's her first killing, it'll be accidental. Didn't her adopted mother, Harmony, accidentally kill someone as the first step to going full psycho? Since Chase is so expendable now, they should totally unravel the character -- have him have an affair, lose everything, discover that Willow's evil and then be killed by her. Hopefully the performances will be memorable!

It seems like the show is setting up Willow to be its next serial killer? I guess they really can't do nuance. She could plausibly get rid of Kai, Chase, maybe a few dayplayers like Suzanne. It makes you wonder about her longevity. The show doesn't have that many females in her age range to begin with.

That 2022 rerun was a bit coma inducing. The show is much more entertaining today than it was 4 years ago. It was nice seeing Scotty. If they can have Faison's voice over a loudspeaker, maybe they can have Scotty do a zoom call with Laura or Lucy, to check in and give updates about Serena.

I liked Faison back in his 1990/1991 heyday. He was a formidable villain for Robert and Anna. Unfortunately, all his returns since then have been abysmal; they've sucked big time. How Frank has handled the character has been the worst, turning him into a clown, and giving him boring, good looking children. If Faison had to have offspring, they should have been as weird and creepy as he was back in 90/91. Still, I think they should have Faison be alive and be the big bad, anything to save from the embarrassment of venturing into trying to make severely limited Nathan be the real bad guy, or to avoid it being no name dayplayers like the new WSB guy.

They should just air the 1983 episode where Luke says goodbye to Port Charles from 12/26/83. It's full of flashbacks and him saying goodbye to Bobbie, Robert and Holly. It might give the current audience a slight clue as to why Luke was so popular in the first place.

They should have Nathan just stay the clueless good guy. I don't think the actor can play much more than that. With Nathan being back, I guess that makes Chase expendable? Maybe go darker with him then? I think the actor could handle it better. I expect Chase to eventually be killed off by Willow, once he finds out how evil she is. The show can't do nuance, so I bet they'll make Willow a full on killer once she gets off.

Another place where the show has dropped the ball is with Ric. His return in 2024 was better than the returns of Jason and Lucky combined, and now he's barely on, with zero story. I guess the show only has room for one male sleazy lawyer at a time, and that position is currently being taken up by Martin. Sad to see Ric fall in the pecking order to Martin, but I guess that's Frank for you.