March 17-21, 2008

[RalphOrtiz]

Intrigue???

Mob family comes to town.

Jason: Let's kill them.

Sonny: The timing isn't right. (but never a rationale for why it isn't right)

six months later:

Sonny: Kill them!!!!!.

Jason: No, the timing isn't right.

The following year a new mob family comes to town

Jason: Let's kill them

Sonny: The timing isn't right...

LOL!!

[shawn Perez]

if you notices i haven't been on here in ages. i just come check out the ratings and leave. whatever i think of DOOL is my opinion. but when i express it on here. i get bashed for doing so. which is ok. i don't take soaps seriously anyways. for me it's all about what entertains me. not for certain actors/characters. i watch GH for the whole cast. i get the fustration that people feel when their favorites get killed off. but isn't that how the soap world works? oh well. JMO.

[Roman]

IA 100%.

And......just like that is your opinion, others who hate GH and what it is have the right to their opinions. Youdon't like being bsahed......and neither do they.

So, I agree that you have your opinion.......let'sjust see if they are allowed to have theirs.

[SoapQueen89]

Ya know, then all I gotta say is this .... YOU are Guza's wet dream come true. Keep drinkin the kool aid and I'm sure Guza will reward 10 fold with more mob, more Claudzilla and Yawnny, and more saintly mobbies. I hope you enjoy it all because 1.5 million viewers haven't.

[shawn Perez]

i mean really. if that's all you remember. then you don't know GH at all. that"s not how it works. it's the action the mob brings to the show that i watch for. not to see who kills who. yeah SOnny will win in the end. but mainly it's about the thrill of watching gunman battle for territory. like the old school Lorenzo/frank smith/mr big/moreno/faith/the ruiz brothers. and soon to be the Zacharra's when the mob war heats up. they all brought incredible action/intrigue to the show. don't take my word for it. youtube can help you out. GH villains are not on the show for months. their on for years if fanbases like them. especially Lorenzo who stayed on the show for 5 years. that's longer then what you stated in your post.

[CathyT]

The problem is that GH is no longer an 'entire cast'. It consists of Jason/Jason POA, Carly/Carly POA, Sonny/Sonny POA, Mob Enemy du jour! Since you weren't even a gleam in your daddy's eye at the time, let me refresh you on what an 'entire cast' is!

1. First and foremost, it includes MULTIGENERATIONAL FAMILIES!!! There are kids, parents and grandparents and they ALL are involved with s/l's!!!

2. It involves a VARIETY of s/l's. Family conflict, Corporate Intrigue, Medical Drama (Since the show IS titled General H OSPITAL) and Mob issues.

3. S/L's ALTERNATE!!! Mon, Wed, Fri you have s/l's ABCd, with three front burner and 1 supplemental. Tue Thur you have s/l's DEab. This is done so that the cast is BALANCED!!! You don't have 4 characters on 75% of the time with the remaining 35 sharing the 25% of airtime that is left!!!

Now, I was a LOYAL ABCD viewer for the last 35 years and have recently abandoned ship and occasionally tune into Y&R. While personally, I really don't see how they get 4.x, but I can see where they are LOADS better than ABCD. WHY? Because they follow rules 1, 2 and 3!!!

[aMLCproduction]

I thought this a ratings thread. Where is all this side bar coming from? There is 4 pages in this tread but yet no ratings

[shawn Perez]

ok i Agree about Y&R. the part about them following the rules. which is fine if that's what viewers like. I'm just saying calling ABC bad b/c they may show things that you don't Agree with is alittle harsh don't you think? Y&R may have those three rules you just mentioned. but as far as other soaps go. that's where they fail also. it's not just GH. sometimes i feel like it's a personal hatred to the fans that like the mob on GH. it gets picked on here bye so many posters it's amazing how they can leave out other soaps. isn't it kinda odd? GH is the only soap that goes full force with the mob S/L's. but when you have other soaps trying to emulate the mob. they think it's fine. why? b'c the GH mob justifies violence scenes? what do you expect. GH was doing the mob since the 80's. i started watching in 94. 2 years after maurice bernard made his GH intro as a low level mobster working with frank smith. it was until that day i loved GH. it set the soap gene apart when Sonny rose in ranks hiring Jason. his hitman. taking over territory after territory. shootouts after shootouts. bombs after bombs. hits after hits.. now he's the mob boss of Port Charles. realistically GH earned the right to have the mob. although i Agree it shouldn't be the sole focus of the show. it's still something that is way different then your average soap opera. if people like romance. baby drama. family drama.."etc" then more power to them. i find it depressing and stressful for my taste. bad enough i deal with those issues in my everyday life. why should i have to watch it on a soap opera to?

[Southofnowhere]

If the soaps had as much drama as the ratings thread the ratings would be up across the board.

[aMLCproduction]

AMEN to that. It's madness I don't understand how EVERY week the ratings thread is turned into the shoulda, coulda, woulda blame game thread.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The ratings might be delayed until tomorrow, right? Since a lot of people had last Friday off in preparation of Easter...

[CathyT]

No one has ever denied that the Mob has always been a part of GH. The problem is GH has turned from General Hospital to General Mobsterville. Now, I am a fan of Maurice Benard and have been ever since he played Nico Kelly on AMC in the early 90's. However, I was a fan of GH LONG before he arrived there and so I want to see s/l's involving OTHER characters in addition to MB.

The ENTIRE ABCD lineup has the SAME PROBLEM!!! The show centers around too few characters who are made out to be greater than God and the only purpuse of the rest of the cast is prop their sorry backsides up. Beyond the natural attrition of soap viewers, the focus on such a small minority of characters to the detriment of the rest of the cast is the BIGGEST cause of the drop in ratings.

[emilyq]

Touchee. I liked the mob when the show had balance. Luke and Sonny back in the 90's were great. But you also had wonderful family and generational stuff involved. The Quartermaines - Alan's drug addition, Monicas breast cancer, Emily's drug addiction, Ned and the 4 some, BJ's Heart, Laura, the Cassadines(Stefan, Hells, Alexis, Stavos), Robin and Stone(yes Stone was Sonny's protege so to speak) - there were stories and the entire cast was used. Now it is violence round the clock. I enjoy action but I want it balanced with romance and family stuff. And when you look at the top 10 actors on daytime in terms of airtime, 9 of these were from ABC shows, primarily AMC and GH. There is no balance anymore and that is a shame. GH and AMC were once great soaps and ABC was the cream of the crop of all soaps and now nothing. And going to France? Well England produces great soaps still so why the hell would GH be welcome in France. Well if Frons's idea of improving the show is this, I am not the viewer they want

[shawn Perez]

actually their is allot of balance on GH. it's just that people get so fixated on hating the mob. their mind is set on only hating the mob characters whenever their shown. but what their leaving out is the rest of the cast that does get screentime. prop or no prop. like it or not. most of the cast is related to the mob. you can't help if they mention Sonny/Jason's name at the thought of going through another dangerous mob war.

[emilyq]

I am not trying to pick on you Shawn because I was a GH fan for years and finally I had to give it up. Not because of the mob but because the stories are so plot pointed and disjointed and I got tired of seeing the same characters day in and day out. It's interesting because I was even at an event of Steve Burtons where even he admitted he was on too much and his character should be on no more than 3 days a week and he thought he was on too much.

All you need to do it look at that top 10 list of which actors are on the most and 9 out of 10 of the top 10 were either AMC or GH characters. I think that is very telling.

My favs - the Q's have been decimated and the Cassadines the same. I did like Jason and Sonny at one point but 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year has burnt me out. Even Luke and Laura who by the way saved this show from cancellation were not on that much if that tells you anything and that is when GH was raking in 18 or 19 million viewers a day not the piddly 2.5 or 3 m they get today.

I commend Frons for looking at other channels for his soaps. I am not sure Europe is the answer because I have seen their TV and I just can't see this show playing well over there. England has some great soaps on where many great actors originated from(Ben Kingsley for one) and they are nothing like GH more like Y&R . lots of family stuff, romance and not a lot of violence. But to each his own.