Who are the most unused Characters this year?:-

[RogerNewcomb]

Some characters time has passed. You or I may not like it but Lisa and Tom on ATWT are just never going to get another story.

I agree that Van is underused. His character has brought more press and buzz to the show the past two years than any other and he's on once a week, and that one appearance he has about a page of dialogue.

[stenbeck212]

Oh PLEASE. I don't need to read about people ready to put capable actors out to pasture. Since when did this genre's ageist, one dimensional writers start posting here??? I don't expect Eileen Fulton to have a front burner story, but this thread is about unused characters, not their plots. We all know that a third of any cast is only there to prop other people, but for someone to say Scott Holmes' "time has passed" is RIDICULOUS with a capital R. If that's the case, half of daytime is in the same boat, so half the actors need to be fired since they're apparently useless. See how the shows do then. If it's all about facing reality, how about the fact that ATWT was obviously NEVER going to give us a fully fleshed out same sex romance with decent airtime? I could have told you that 6 months ago. But I don't feel sorry for Hansis, because his tepid performances got him an Emmy nomination AND his story helps the ratings. Poor baby! When his work matches the level of everyone past their prime on ATWT, let me know.

[Cheap21]

Robin Christopher. I never expected them to backburner her as bad as they did. I expected that with Leslie C and Bobbie Z from GH bc Frons and Guza dont like the "older" crowd, but Robin isnt old. She's gorgeous and a hell of an actress and she's barely been used all year long. Id rather see Skye than someone like Carly

[ClassicsSoapFan]

wow!

Very well said!

CZP and Hunt Block were clearly Hogan Sheffer favorites. As soon as he was gone her screen time reduced dramatically. Passanante took over way before she became sick and Block was sent out the door.

[StevieM]

Matthew Ashford's Jack Deveraux is the most underused. He's the only character worth watching, and he's not even on the show.

Not that there is going to be a show much longer.

Steve

[quartermainefan]

Jackie Zeman --GH.

Gh icon/used once every 2 months.

Bobbie Spencer, despite not being allowed to speak for over 5 years, still has mega story potential and connections to the front burning characters and never stopped. It seems every time they bring on a character there is a 50/50 chance this is a character from Bobbie's past. John Durant (Corbin Bernson) came on as an ex john of Bobbie's from her hooker days. They shared one scene. Ric Springfield returned as Bobbie's ex-lover, Noah Drake, he instead shared a story with Finola Hughes. And the insult of all insults: Sebastian Roche came on as her ex-fiancee, Jerry Jacks, and he is smitten with her daughter! They've yet to share a scene and he has been on since 1/07.

GH continues to farm Bobbie Spencer's men out to these other women and refuses to even let her say hello to these people. It seems to me if all these characters (Carly and Alexis for Jerry, Anna for Noah) had even half the writing Bobbie had throughout her tenure there would be men from their own past to work with. Bobbie was just a superior character conceptually I think and JZ was one of GH's leads during it's glory days and it's revival in the 90s dramatically.

The whole thing is disgusting.

[stenbeck212]

So true. You'd be hard pressed to find a performer treated worse than her on any soap. I've seen Stuart Damon more as a ghost than I've seen her all year.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Here's an old article I found with Jackie Zeman, where she talks about how Wendy Riche got the show and created a balanced show, for both the vets and younger characters. It just goes to show that no one at GH/ABC currently has any idea what the hell they're doing to the show.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/TV_Shows/G/.../11/734248.html

LOS ANGELES -- In just three weeks, Jacklyn Zeman's hooker-turned-nurse character on General Hospital got divorced, her ex-husband started an affair with her daughter and she tied the knot again.

But better to let her explain it.

"I went to Santo Domingo to get a divorce, my ex-husband's having an affair with my daughter, who I don't know is my daughter," Zeman says.

"My brother's told me my daughter's dead, but that's only because he knew my husband's having an affair with her and he didn't have the heart to tell me. And I met Stefan Cassidine, who asked me to marry him and I've married him and my brother has disowned me and said he doesn't want anything to do with me."

Before her breakneck narrative, Zeman was inside an ambulance doing a scene as nurse Bobbie for GH's first prime-time special, Twist of Fate (Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on Global, ABC). But mum's the word on the set.

GH has undergone a resurgence, and now is ABC's highest-rated daytime soap. Not only did it win the best daytime drama Emmy the past two years, a spinoff soap will begin airing in the summer.

"Wendy Riche has a lot to do with it," Zeman says adamantly. "Before she was around, we weren't winning any awards for anything."

Riche, the soap's executive producer the past four years, engineered the long-awaited return of Luke and Laura, GH's hottest couple ever, brought in a younger cast and beefed up storylines for the veteran actors.

As Zeman says, "She's been able to take the core people who have been around a long time -- the dinosaurs like myself and the Tony Gearys and Stuart Damons -- and give them something wonderful to do. And, at the same time, bring in new people who are good and talented and hip and trendy, and who can bring that younger audience."

Riche hopes the special will entice former viewers to tune in again and nab some new ones.

"It seemed like a good time to do it," she says. "We have wonderful stories that are working right now that are culminating in big events."

Perhaps the most anticipated storyline is the romantic tangle between Jax, his new wife Brenda and his past love Miranda, whom he thought was dead.

That's why trying to find out what will happen between Jax and Miranda is well nigh impossible.

"I'm not going to tell you that," the Australian actor Ingo Rademacher, who plays Jax, says with a laugh. "I can tell you it's going to be very confusing for my character for a very long time."

Riche, who spends upwards of 15 hours a day working on GH, will oversee its spinoff, which she plans to populate with what she hopes is an equally compelling cast of characters and storylines.

The half-hour drama, tentatively titled GH2, will focus on the university's medical school in the fictional harbor town of Port Charles and the next generation of doctors and nurses. It premieres June 2..

GH2 will give longtime fans of General Hospital a chance to peer into another side of Port Charles, Rich promises.

If viewers have been looking at General Hospital in its 33 years on the air with one eye open, she explains, "We're now going to open the other eye."

[Quent]

I think oakdalelover nailed it. It all depends on who the favorites of the headwriter are. When Hogan Sheffer wrote ATWT, he took the ultra-backburnered Barbara Ryan to the forefront, getting CZP a Best Actress Emmy nod. When Hogan left, Barbara's airtime disappeared. Jean Passante found new favorites, and ATWT might as well have been called "As Jennifer and Gwen's World Turns".