March 31 - April 4, 2008

[emilyq]

All this criticism about GH and me being one of the major critics I wanted to give everyone a different perspective. I think GH has tried to differentiate itself from the others. I can't criticize them for trying this. I can understand it. What I can criticize is what they have elected to change.

It seems to be to have a successful soap, you need to have characters people care about no matter how much violence exists. Slowly this show has taken away that and with that the heart that every soap needs to sustain long term viewers. I remember the days when I used to run home to watch GH and would not want to miss a second of it because it was so compelling. Even the characters I hated I enjoyed watching. BUt with the exit of Laura Spencer and the insulting way she was written off the show and the murder/killing of legacy characters like AJ, Alan, and Emily Quartermaine, Georgie Jones, characters long time viewers grew up watching and cared about, 3 of which still had loads of story left to tell, the show lost it's way. The problem is just not the violence, it is the way women are portrayed as simply extensions of the men they are with. Years ago women had careers that mattered and were part of their essence. Today, that the heck does Lulu Spencer do. Nothing. She is the prime example of what is wrong with this show. The daughter of an icon has ever reason to be a root for heroine yet she is the one of the most hated polarizing characters on this show. There is example number XXXX as to why this show is sinking.

I frimly believe that all the show cares about is the demo it is targeting and sweeps is it's attempt to lure viewers in and hope some stick. The thing I don;t think they realized is that they would be unable to sustain the long time viewers they relied on for so many years to sustain them while their approach changed. But as part of their coveted demo, I find nothing remotely likable about what they are doing.

I guess the complaining is due to sadness. I stopped watching GH when they killed off my beloved Emily after killing off my beloved Alan and AJ and soon to come Georgie. I still am sad when I think about this and my ideal side hope that sometime someone who actually cares about the show and the genre will correct all the mistakes made in the last XX years. Sadly I think TPTB will let this show continue it's downward spiral before they even think about changes. It almost makes me want to cry thinking about it.

[JackPeyton]

GH may have started out as a hospital soap, but it became a huge hit as a action adventure secret spy mob war soap. the differnce between that and this is that sonny and jason are not robert and luke. the heart is missing, and when you take the heart away from something everything else fails.

[SoapQueen89]

Fans of GH need to realize things are NOT going to change. TPTB don't see a problem with the way it's written, the way they portray women on this show, the way the mobbies are glorified and held to the highest standards of sainthood - they don't see how it all looks on screen - and just don't care if they drop like a stone.

It's Guza's way. He and his cronies have run this show for far too long and I don't foresee fans of this show making a bit of difference by complaining, campaigning, or bitching on message boards. This is it folks, like it, love it, or hate it.

The Gooz could care less about what we think, he only cares about his own agenda and what he wants.

Those who have been complaining about GH don't want to see this show canceled - we want change, want the show fixed, we want a new regime, we want GH to recapture it's heart - cause it left this show a very long time ago!

10 years ago something changed with this show and it's gotten worse over the past 5 years - the violence, mobbie sainthood, abuse against women and children, lack of veterans, lack of creative storytelling, inconsistency with stories, lackluster dialogue, lack of romance, families, and an increase in a single focus center character/story.

If you don't love Sonny, Jason or Carly, you're pretty much screwed cause God forbid another pair, character, or story gets frontburner attention.

[Jess]

I think a focus on a narrow few characters is true of all ABC soaps. I also think it's true that all ABC soaps pander to a certain demographic and kill off characters. Viewers like the demographic they pander to and the characters or they don't. they get angry about who gets killed off or they don't. I hate what OLTL did to my favorite character and now it is no secret (in spite of the spoilers of a surprising murder) that my favorite character is going to get murdered. OK, I hope it is not true, but I've pretty much bowed out of that show anyway. OLTL is going to focus on people in the more senior demographic it looks like.

My point, other than I finally will be through with OLTL forever, LOL, is that GH isn't the only show that focuses on a few character and has everyone else as background noise. In fact they have stories for Alexis, Scrubs and other characters so they aren't as bad as some. You either like who they focus on or you don't. ABC would be wise to appeal to a cross-section, but ABC has never been wise.

[Money]

Sadly I feel the same way about OLTL. I don't hate the show, It's actually my favorite soap. What I hate is the insipid writing masquerading as the best soap on ABC, if not Daytime, and being told it's an improvement from Higley and the years gone by. Frankly, it isn't.

I have stopped being angry and apathy has set in. Judging by the ratings, millions feel the same way. Contrary to what many think the genre isn't dying because there are other options to compete with, it's dying because fans are frustrated. They are frustrated because they keep being ignored and they have opted to walk away. It's as simple as that. When the writing is good they return but it's always with one foot out the door. The know how the game is played and they continue to be skeptical.

Frons doesn't care. He really doesn't and that will be the downfall of OLTL and the rest of ABC Daytime unless Anne Sweeney finally decides to give a damn and replace him with someone with actually loves the genre and is willing to listen to the fans. I certainly don't want to see OLTL cancelled but I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't give me satisfaction when I see the dismal ratings knowing it's a direct result of Frons not caring about what I think. If that doesn't make me a "real" fan then so be it. I could care less.

The minute RC said he was going to focus on the "Cores" the show hasn't been the same. But in actuality it's been eroding long before that. The vision of this show is ghastly and I blame RC but the bigger problem is Frons and always will be. Unless he is gone, all of ABC daytime including AMC and GH, will continue to bleed to death

[emilyq]

Sadly you are right. I slowed my watching of GH back in 2005(and actually some time before that) when they destroyed and killed off my beloved AJ. I then started moreso only watching the parts of the show I enjoyed, FF though the rest. Slowly I found myself FF through more and more of the show and then they killed off my beloved Alan and I still stuck with it, as little of the show that I actually watched. The last straw was in Nov and Dec when they killed off Emily and Georgie. At that point I said enough and disassociated myself from this show for good. Despite the complaints you read on message board after message board nothing changes and it is sad that ABC has a man running daytime that cares not one iota for the fans or genre. I never was a Michael Eisner fan but at least he seemed to give a crap about daytime. This current Disney and ABC regime does not and they continue to erode viewers.

OLTL I have not watched in years and I keep hearing how much better it is but from posters here it sounds like they use the same approach the others do, focusing on the same core characters 90% of the time.

It makes me very sad to see how much apathy seems to exist at ABC and I fear when cancellations hit, they will be the first casualty.

[wiccachick_1]

but at one time even when the show began to incorporate action/adventure stories with the WSB and DVX and all of that, the show still had a good balance of other things. During that same time we had things like Tony and Tania, Tony and Bobbie, ELQ and the power struggle, multi-generational families, etc. There was something for everyone. Now there's very little else but the mob stories. Any other stories are not fully developed stories any more. They're filler and you can tell.