Port Charles Discussion Thread

[Vee]

I think a line or two years ago suggested Victor was dead.

[dc11786]

I don't think it was smart to revisit the books on the mothership. I preface this by saying I have never thought much of Ron Carvilati's work. He seems to have good intentions, but that's the way you pave the road to hell. It would have been smarter to just pretend that the books were actual books that Lucy and Kevin had collaborated on after the success of "General Homicide." 

I also was rereading some of the biographies and I forgot how truly bad those last few books got. There was some abandoned (I believe it was abandoned) storyline about the search for Alison's half-sibling that at one point led to Alison and Rafe thinking they were brother and sister. Ugh. Of course, this reminded me that it seemed they were setting up one of the band members, the British girl Reese, as Alison's half-sister before they decided to jump ship on that story. Also, wasn't Amanda Barrington a vampire by the end? 

Also, does anyone remember how far the "Port Charles" rerun of the early years got? When SoapNet launched, they were showing I think 2 episodes in the early morning (7am to 8am at one point). I remember catching some when I was in high school. They aired on a weird schedule though like 2 back to back episodes but only one new episode a day and possibly even repeating the Friday episodes on Monday or something odd like that. From what's online, it appears it was through at least the early General Homicide murders. I cannot imagine it got much farther than that. 

[Michael]

I guess they felt they needed to address it in *some* way in order to bring those characters back to the show, but yeah, your explanation probably makes a lot more sense. Do we even know for certain if the Kevin who's on GH now actually has a daughter named Livvie, or was that all erased (or "erased" by the magic ring) during Ron's revisit of the PC stories?

[Vee]

Again, we discussed this a bit in the GH thread and the answer is no one knows lol. My personal take is she existed/exists but no one remembers. It is all a mess.

This is very often the case.

[dragonflies]

I'm STILL pissed they killed off Alison and Rafe JR, was so unnecessary 

[AMCOLTLLover]

Yes and I will never understand for what exactly they did this.. 

For me that PC mess ain’t canon to the real PC-Show. 

[gimmetoo]

Sad news - David Gail has died

In 2021 Jay Pickett who played David's brother also passed too young 

https://deadline.com/2024/01/david-gail-dead-beverly-hills-90210-port-charles-star-was-58-obituary-1235799850/

Edited January 22, 2024 by gimmetoo

[DRW50]

Some PC episodes were uploaded just now.

VintageNoSpintage - YouTube

[dc11786]

I decided to start watching "Port Charles" to see how it compares to the strong work I admire of Wendy Riche in my pre-Labine viewing as well as my Labine viewing. I have tried watching the show from the beginning before, but the Cullitons material has some beautiful character moments, not enough though to sit in day in and day out. So I started with the tail end of the Cullitons on October 1, 1997. 

Four episodes in, it appears that the Cullitons were only able to write the ship in some ways. Kevin has landed himself in the hospital for a head injury similar, but less severe, to Audrey Hardy's from the premier. This story temporarily bridges one of the issues I had with the Scotty / Lucy / Kevin material being so far removed from the interns. Karen and Bennett Devlin (Julie's dad) have performed the surgery and Karen has been accused of making a critical error just as Karen has returned from trying to see Jagger in San Francisco where she found his partner Fran entering the home with her own key. The story threads are being pulled together nicely, but I am not sure this level of intersectionality will be continuous. There are off shoot threads from this like Chris Ramsey going to Ellen Burgess about Karen's impending divorce as the catalyst for her behavior of the surgery, Joe slugging Chris for his actions in the situation, and Lucy going to town with her decorator arranging the hospital room to be more homey so that she and Kevin can have a special evening together. It's not terribl, but it still lacks something. Audrey is dragged out to state that the hospital has changed so much since Steve's death and mourns the slow deterioriation of this once grand institution. 

The Rex Stanton plot is continuing to chug along, but it is such an odd story. There are details to Rex's scheme that are very accurate and specific in terms of his scheme to get Serena. When claiming that Danielle is Serena's biological mother, Rex cites Dominique's fear that using her own egg would cause risk of spreading her cancer and that she chose her half-sister Danielle to be an egg donor. The one fact that seems to be ignored is a signicant portion of Dominique's estate came from being the widow of Leopold Taub or at least I was pretty sure it was. I'm curious what the original plan was for Rex because he doesn't seem to have longterm potential and is rather a way to revisit the Dominique story or possibly recycling what Riche had planned had Scotty stayed, though I think Katherine and Damian playing out the story as Danielle and Rex is just wild speculation. 

In another case of specific details being recalled, Rhonda shows up at Scotty's when he is undergoing hallucinations from the drugs Rex has slipped him through poisoned envelopes. Her reason is to discuss why she never told Scotty he was Karen's father. It is an interesting beat to almost play. Michele Val Jean and Tom Citrano were both on GH in 1993 and PC in 1997 so I suspect they (or Riche) were helping with those specific details. 

I feel like Frank and Juile have interesting obstacles, are played by decent actors, but I still cannot fully invest in the story. At present, Bennett has arranged for Frank to get a job in Chicago in order to separate them while also rejecting Alan Quartermaine's offer to stay on at GH as a seminar leader. I think the Devlin clan was pretty complicated and I think transplanting them to Port Charles would have made sense and provided a more reasonable long term set of catalyst for drama rather than Rex Stanton. 

I think I'll try to see how things go with Lynn Marie Latham at the helm because of some stories of interest (I want to see the introduction of Courtney, the General Homicide murders in full, and Matt's mob family past). I may not commit to any of this though because, in re-reading some of my posts in this thread, so much of the show is tough until December 1999 though I might try to see how painful Scott Hammer's version of the show is as a lead up to the greatness. 

[DRW50]

@dc11786 Love reading your thoughts. I don't remember having any real use for LML's work, although they do make some interesting choices with Julie that pay off when better writers come along in a few years.

[Vee]

The General Homicide story always baffled me. From what I vaguely recall the cast spends the entire story convinced Greg Cooper and Julie are behind it. Surprise: They are! What was the point?

The brief Karen Harris, etc. run is what worked best for me IIRC, and the Rachel Locke saga with Kimberlin Brown. I was livid when they re-paired Scott and Lucy and put Kevin with Eve though. That felt like a timewaster and a betrayal of the core couple, namely Kevin and Lucy. I knew Scott and Lucy had a history but it just wasn't nearly the same for me, and while I liked Eve she only made sense with Scott for me, not Kevin.

The DV Bordisso mess - with psychic spies, callbacks to Meg Baldwin from the '60s, etc. - was so bad.

Edited December 30, 2024 by Vee

[dc11786]

@DRW50 I am very early into LML right now, but I am not loving it. It's a show that can do some nice character beats, but it is missing that special touch that Riche applied in 1992-1993. The music isn't as atmospheric. The characters aren't developed enough even if a good amount of the cast is capable of decent to excellent work with a few outliers. It's just very generic. 

The most standout piece has been Matt Harmon's fight with Dr. Boardman and the board of General Hospital to allow him to perform surgery. The hospital sees his physical disability as an impediment to his ability to perform in surgery. Matt is championing for his own right and has the support of the fellow interns. He has researched the different devices that can be used. It's a very nice social issues story on a show that is often very shallow.  I know the general arc of Matt's story, but I wish they would flesh out some of the interpersonal relationships. They are skirting around Matt and Ellen Burgess. Matt is friendly with everyone, but it would be nice to see Matt really go in on Chris as I would imagine Chris sees Matt as no real competition for the Quartermaine residency. 

Others probably had already figured it out, but it took me years to see how the Cullitons and Riche thought that Scotty / Lucy / Kevin could carry "Port Charles." Post-Rex, I imagine the initial plan would have been Scotty / Eve with Lucy threatened by the role that Eve would have played in her life with Lucy facing off against a younger woman who was as cunning and cutthroat as Lucy was back in the day. It would have been a chance to explore those rougher edges that had been mellowed by her relationship with Kevin. I can't imagine Kevin would have had much to do without introducing a new love interest. Switching from Scotty / Eve to Kevin / Eve makes sense from a general story idea because Scotty / Lucy had some viability, but I don't remember loving Eve / Kevin nor hating them the way some have expressed in the past. 

in LML's first episode, Greg Cooper is back on the screen for his latest reign of terror, a pre-General Homicide plot to discredit the interns (he was the one who messed with Kevin's IV). It's a bit disappointing because it just is such a cheap deus ex machina style move to make Greg Cooper the cause of all the trouble in Port Charles. 

One of the stronger moves I've seen with LML is she has fleshed out Bennett Devlin a bit to make him more than just a moustache twirling villain with some genuine emotional trauma from the death of his son Buddy Devlin via suicide (the twist that is revealed later about Bennett's involvement in that is set up in this episode with Bennett revealing he feels personally responsible for this. I think there is some real potential with the dysfunctional Devlin clan as a sorta bargain basement equivalent to the Qs. I think throwing Chris and Eve into the mix makes this group fairly solid, but I am not sold on Frank and Julie. 

Besides Bennett's reflective moment, there is some nice sniping between Julie and Eve once it is revealed Bennett and Eve had once been lovers and Karen jumps on the hating Eve train because of her recent issues with Jagger's infidelity. With Jagger not being seen, I think you could have easily backtracked and claimed that Jagger had to break up with Karen to keep her safe when he got too deeply involved in one of his undercover gigs. Then, bring him in 1998 during the General Homicide murders and possible tie one of his undercover gigs to the Mancusi crime family that Matt belonged to. There is a nice moment between Eve and an elderly male patient worried about surgery who Eve assures. This is the thick of the Eve is a ho gossip campaign staged by Karen and Julie. Eve's kindness is overshadowed thoguh when Greg Cooper steals the man's watch to blame Eve. 

For anyone who is interested, in Latham's first episode, Michele Val Jean is dropped as associate head writer to be replaced by Scott Hamner and Parke Perine. In addition, this is the first episode that Robert Guza is credited as a consultant. 

[DRW50]

Thanks again @dc11786 . I think your idea of a Lucy/Eve rivalry makes sense. I don't believe the show executed it well as the result seemed to me as if it was written in Eve's favor, having Lucy behave in ways that were extremely difficult to come back from. I know some fans did support Kevin/Eve and felt they were mature compared to Lucy/Scott. I just never cared about them, and I thought Eve lost any edge they had.

Edited December 31, 2024 by DRW50

[Contessa Donatella]

I was a fan of Kevin & Eve. The thing is they didn't really exist. Their relationship was just a dream that Lucy had. I have pictures from their wedding but they were never published. For the most part they didn't even have their own fanbase. I loved PC & called it the little soap that could. I frankly loved Lucy when she had Siggy.

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[DRW50]

Thanks. Never saw those photos. I appreciate it.

I meant mature compared to Kevin/Lucy, sorry for the mixup.