My thoughts on JJ. I don’t think he was given or asked for story control. Asking to be in story with characters he had a connection with isn’t the same as dictating a story. We know he wanted to work with Genie and Becky, and neither one are a real priority for the current writers and Frank. So any promises there were DOA. He also wanted Lucky to be more in touch with his Luke side than the Lucky he inherited on his last run from GV. What they did with that sucked, but I don’t disagree that the GV version was sent through a more generic soap hunk path that doesn’t work for JJ or Lucky.
When Luke and Laura came back Genie had several meetings along the same lines with Wendy Riche. She talked about how important Lesley was for Laura. Even in those first meetings Genie talked about the period of time Laura was with the Cassadines was potentially fertile for story. Labine had other ideas, establishing the Spencer family unit. When Guza came on, she spoke to both of them and again said that period of time would be perfect for her to have had a child, and we got Nikolas. Is that dictating story or suggesting ideas for her somewhat neglected character?
JJ’s return was when Guza and JFP were practically nihilistic in the misery on the show. He was given dark material the whole time and hated it. The show wasn’t what he thought it would be, so he left. If I were him, and again saw clear signs I wasn’t going to be acting with Becky that much, or Genie, and was going to be paired with Kristina, I would probably want to go too.
I ultimately think JJ and Kristen Storms living situations caused more scheduling problems than they were worth, and that ultimately is why both of them are off contract. JJ because he wasn’t a priority even though they made those promises, and KS because she’s not reliable to schedule. I think that had way more to do with what went down than any story demands.
And yes, a lot of this was forced on Frank. Varni became involved again, and IIRC posted that GH was going to be recognizable to longterm fans again. This was either right before or after the primetime 60th special, which was the announcement about Steve coming back, and they had already been making changes when Roger got fired. Then Mulcahey was hired. I absolutely think pushing for Lucky and Lulu’s returns was not a Frank thing at all. Getting rid of Sam was all him though lol.
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titan1978 ·
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