Khan

The fact that you've spelled "Valentin" with an "e" on the end sums him up precisely, @titan1978. Valentin isn't threatening; he's like a big, squishy valentine; the kind you receive along with a heart-shaped jar of candy kisses with a Snoopy plush toy attached.

It's the era of Carlivati, Vee. Give into the madness.

What if Victor IS Luke and Helena has brainwashed him?

I don't believe Luke is dead either. Didn't Shane, I mean, Mr. Sheffield, I mean, Victor push him from a cable car or something? If Luke could survive an avalanche and a swordfight, he could survive being pushed from a cable car. Meanwhile, if Victor stays, then I want Frank to bring on Fran Drescher as Fran Fleckman, Diane's cousin from Flushing, Queens, and be his new love interest. I want this, because it's been a year, and I've given into the madness and accepted that Carlivati-esque camp is what these shows want now.

CM, as in Chandler Massey? Chandler deserves way better than eternally constipated Peter Porte. And I'm not a fan of Chandler's.

Robert L. McCullough has talked about how Abby Dalton would know next to nothing about what was happening on the show, because she'd read only her scenes and no one else's. I don't think any solution to the murders was entirely satisfactory.

To be fair, @Soapsuds, you don't need to know how to act to act in a Hallmark movie or TV series. You just need to know how throw snowballs and bake gingerbread convincingly.

Now, I'm hearing echoes of announcer Alan Berns' voice at the end of every GL episode ringing in my ears: "Tell us what you think!"

And that's okay! If Frank wants to rebuild all of GH around JPS, be my guest! Just give him a character to play, not an American Greetings card or a Michael Feinstein Spotify playlist!

I'm watching again for one reason and one reason only: Jane Elliot. I'd watch JE in anything, because she can make anything work. Even Tracy Quartermaine as GH's answer to the old puppet "Madame." (Fortunately, her Wayland Flowers is still back in Amsterdam.)

Or just someone who can't be bullied by Frank. (Pete Lemay, wherefore art thou?)

Peter Porte is a handsome man who is dead behind the eyes. He isn't a "get" for DAYS; he's the quintessential DAYS actor.

As headwriters, Chris Van Etten and Dan O'Connor have trouble knowing when to cut their losses. They finally offed Peter August, but only after everybody else in the known universe begged for him to be gone. The same thing's happening now with Valentin and Willow. Their take on these characters and others is clearly not connecting with audiences, yet they show no signs of course-correcting or just getting rid of them altogether.

Another idea or approach would be to say that Willow has cancer but goes into remission rather quickly, only no one, especially Michael, knows she's in remission because she's still pretending to be sick in order to continue receiving all the attention from everyone.

Are you talking about her cancer? Yes, that would be good, lol. But what would be even better, I think, would be that she THINKS that she's pulling a fast one but learns later on that, no, she really is dying -- but this time, because she's been outed, absolutely no one believes her!

For me, it all boils down to this: Jack Abbott, as portrayed by Peter Bergman, is not worth faking your own death for. He just isn't. At this point, I'd be okay with Nina dying and Watros returning as her twin; and if you want to pair her again with MB/Sonny, that's fine, although I think it'd be more interesting to see her possibly in a triangle with MEK/Martin and KS/Scotty.

I think Josh Griffith attempted to do just that at Y&R with the Jack/Diane/Phyllis triangle, but it's all gone kablooey now that Phyllis has gone to the trouble of faking her own death, which feels in character for Phyllis, but also feels awfully excessive and cruel. But, you're right, Frank Valentini wouldn't go that route, even if it played to Cynthia Watros' strengths, because he sees her and Nina as worth saving, for some reason. (I like Watros, but I've never liked Nina, and I never will.)

If Lana Turner had been too much of a handful BTS for the cast and crew, then why not just replace her with someone else from that era? Why kill off Jacqueline when it was clear that more could have been done with her?

As a character, Brenda is too savvy and resourceful to be a heroine, and not cruel enough to be a bitch or vixen. In these days, when characters on soaps tend to be one-note, that makes her a difficult character to write for. So, I wouldn't want VM to return under the present circumstances, because I don't believe the current regime would know how to write her in a manner that wouldn't make us hate her in the end. (Look at how they've reduced Tracy to little more than Tallulah Bankhead without the dry martini.)

I wouldn't mind seeing Laura tied (for lack of a better word) to a new family, the same way they originally tied the Quartermaines to Monica through her marriage to Alan. GH could use a new, core family, preferably one with ties to the hospital. MEK has proven to be a worthwhile addition to the show. I wish I could say the same about James Patrick Stuart and Valentin. I know from watching AMC for years that JPS can do menacing if asked. Killing off Will Cortlandt might have been fool hearted in the long run, but we got good work from him in the meantime. I think the problem is how the show sees Valentin. They want him to be like Stefan, when he should be more like Stavros. But I'm even more sorry that Kim Delaney's grand return to soaps in Demi Moore's old role turned out to be a nothing-burger. I saw TR/Scorpio in scenes with CH/Diane and I thought, "He should be doing this stuff with Kim as Jackie."

TG didn't believe that Claire Labine understood who Luke was, but I think she understood him better than anyone (save, of course, for Douglas Marland). When she wrote for him, he wasn't the bitter, child-killing drunk who blamed Laura for his own miseries; or the low-level hood who spouted corny dialogue straight out of a Jimmy Cagney movie; or the queasy action-adventure-sci-fi hero who was dealing with weather machines and mythic swords. Luke was simply a husband and dad who'd grown up on the streets, and now was doing his best to raise his son and daughter not to turn out the same way. That's real, and relatable.

Similarly, I hate the retconned narrative that Lesley knew that Rick was a serial womanizer and just looked the other way. We saw that Lesley was too destroyed by Rick and Monica's affair to be that passive about his alleged, multiple, other affairs. All in all, I don't look at any of Bob Guza's three tenures as a "golden era" for GH. I think Guza and everyone else involved shared a very corrosive view of women that ran counter to how GH (and ABC soaps in general) had regarded them in the past. That's why I like the Ice Princess storyline going on right now -- which, in the History Repeats Itself Department, is climaxing as a real-life WGA strike is underway. Chris Van Etten and Dan O'Connor aren't terribly creative writers, but they get that soaps are a female-centric genre where women should be allowed to take agency over their own fates.

I think this is the best that Laura has been written since the end of Douglas Marland's tenure on the show. For the first time as a GH viewer, I feel like I understand her. Furthermore, I think GF is finally being vindicated after decades of behind-the-scenes mistreatment, and I love it. GH could survive without Luke or Tony Geary, but it can't without Laura/GF, and this current storyline proves it. I only wish Laura had a more interesting husband/love interest to play off of. I also think this is the best that Holly has ever been written. I never understood why people loved Emma Samms so much -- and that includes when she was on DYNASTY and THE COLBYS -- but now I do. I wish there were some way to keep her around permanently and pair her with TR/Scorpio for good.

Done.

I'd have to agree. I'm not proud of the way I behaved, and I probably SHOULD be banned for insulting his looks alone. The thing is, @Darn, I didn't just decide out of the clear blue to go off on him for one statement he made that I disagreed with. There is a history of at least one other encounter between us where he was equally rude and dismissive toward me without proper cause, even if he chooses not to remember it.