Was Gloria Monty or Wendy Riche the better GH EP?

[MichaelGL]

I'm not a long time GH fan, however I feel as if Wendy didn't do a good job with GH production wise as Gloria did. Gloria seemed to be more hands on doing more to improve the show and some might say leave a mark. Wendy just seemed to be there, not going beyond the call of EP IMO.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Riche was extremely hardworking at GH. A lot of the cast and crew bragged about how she would spend 15 hour days at the studio, just to do things right.

[titan1978]

Monty was a pioneer, and innovator. She gets the edge on that note. The Monty formula was a little Hitchcock mixed with a little Capra.

Riche was more nuanced, and her show had heart. Her formula was more the human condition reflected in the lives of the people of Port Charles. No matter the story, her vision was more grounded.

Monty could get what she needed no matter whom the writer was. Riche was not as successful in that regard.

Monty's GH was not gritty, it was escapist entertainment. Riche brought out the best in all her actors, and the cast during most of her tenure was stellar. Monty had lots of "soapy" actors, but they committed to anything, from DVX to Ice Princesses.

The funny thing is, I can see Riche telling Monty type stories her way, but I can't even imagine Monty telling Riche stories, even though I think Monty was more innovative and groundbreaking, in good ways and bad.

Not enough can be said about Monty's first great HW- Douglas Marland, and the same with Richie/Claire Labine. Marland wanted to be an innovator too, and you can see his spin on traditions with Tracey Q, Monica/Jeff/Alan/Rick/Lesley, and of course Laura/Scotty/Bobbie. His impact was huge, but Monty kept the show together after he left, and continued innovating.

Riche got lucky with Labine- She was already moving the show in a more humanist direction, finding a center and heart for Scotty and Lucy Coe (who went from entertaining to beloved in the span of a year) being one of her first inclinations, and giving Bill Eckert some emotional weight before they decided to kill him off. Labine was free, and the two clicked together with the GH characters. Who knew some of these people had real, emotional acting chops until they got ahold of them (Tony, Lucy Coe, Felicia Brenda, to name a few)

Both EP's were great for the women character on their shows- Independence, strenght and intelligence over constant catfights and skanks, which is what the show is now. Only room in a Phelps/Guza world for a saint or a whore.

I miss this show. Either one would be so much better than what we have now.

[Cat]

I totally agree with you. I always thought that Alias could easily have become a soap, given its emphasis on Sydney's love and family life. The show also saved a lot of money with its stunts and "location" stuff by not going on location at all and using a lot of CGI.

However, my GH ideas were from the point of view of a transition from Guza's GH. The ruination of GH is so far gone that, honestly, the setting up of another GH would take ages. I was almost tempted to suggest that Jason wake up in hospital and jump back in time so that AJ and a bunch of Qs are still alive and take it from there. Much as I would like it, the show cannot jump from the mess it is in today to a whole new show tomorrow with a bunch of newbie spies running around that viewers do not know and couldn't care less about.

ITA about the mob, it is a total joke (the coffee-importing, non-swearing mob who look after babies and help grandmothers across the street but threaten the Qs with knee-capping and death) and I wish it was long gone (or on the periphery like Frank Smith's mob once was). Also, if MB, LW and SBur decided not to re-sign tomorrow, I would not be shedding any tears.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Britney Spears was a pop culture icon 10 years ago, and since then she descended into a joke and fodder for tabloids. Now she's rebounded somewhat...people remember that she's still there, there's not a page 6 story every other day about what insane thing she's done this time, and she still makes money for her record label I am sure. But many people don't think she had any talent or artistic merit to begin with, and see the fact that she was able to be turned into one of the most profitable recording artists out there by singing pitch-corrected songs about nothing, written by whomever, that we were inundated with on every radio station until we could not get them out of our heads set a disturbing trend that has caused a decline in the music industry and prevented up and coming talented artists with original music from getting ahead. I think in some ways Gloria Monty's GH was like the Britney Spears of its time...including the part about eventually descending into a complete joke: By all accounts, Monty's return in the early '90s was a disaster, and she was in fact fired because of low ratings. But I can't say what I have seen of her "heyday" in the early '80s seemed like something I would enjoy, and even her initial "success" set a trend that IMO was not necessarily good. That impact can still be felt across the genre today: the emphasis on young characters; short, action-packed scenes for viewers with no attention spans; the commitment to more primetime-like production values (but never really reaching that level) even as budgets are driven through the roof to the point that Susan Lucci has to take a paycut(!).

By the time Wendy Riche started, I think GH just was kind of "there," like Britney Spears today - a lot of people remembered watching it when they were younger, probably many of them ironically; plenty of people still watched it; and I'm sure it made money for ABC (way more than any show today) but not nearly as much as in its "heyday." Remarkably, Riche and Claire Labine turned it into a respected, acclaimed production and along the way, as has been mentioned, inspired performances in several cast members from the Monty era that nobody would have thought they had in them. I don't even know that there is anyone in the music industry who could do anything like that with has-been pop culture icon Britney Spears today.

Did the ratings go down toward the end? Yes, not that just about every other soap didn't experience the same thing at the time (during the OJ Simpson trial). But GH was actually in the top three in household ratings for much of the Riche-Labine era, and in its own way I think GH in the mid-90s was as in tune with those of us who came of age in that time as it probably was with teens in the early '80s. We just had more choices of things to watch, and the internet was already becoming a competing media - no soap was ever going to attract the following GH attacted in 1981 again.

In hindsight, I really disliked Wendy Riche by the time she left, because I felt she had dismantled everything that Claire Labine's time as head writer had represented, but seeing that the same trends have continued - and gotten so much worse (I can't imagine Riche ever killing off Alan Quartermaine) - since she left, I would say I was wrong. I'm sure she made her share of bad/desperate judgment calls, but I think that is pretty much universal in the panic-driven era that this genre has turned into, and a lot of times I'm sure her hands were tied. Much of the cast clearly respected Riche, and for whatever part she played in translating Claire Labine's stories onto my tv screen I applaud her. Although I think they must have had a falling out toward the end - I don't see how else to explain whatever went down with the competing GH spinoffs that eventually resulted in Riche's Port Charles. But, seeing as how PC is gone, now, and Riche had been forced out of it as well as GH years earlier, I can't help but wonder if she didn't ever think about what might have been if she'd just let JFP have GH and she'd up and moved to NY to produce the Labine spin-off that was all set to go? I won't go so far as to say it might still be on the air today - ABC wouldn't have had the patience not to destroy it in desperation - but I bet they would have done some incredible things with it while they could.

For the life of me, I also don't know why Wendy Riche has never worked in daytime since she left GH? I don't see how even her biggest detractors could not agree that there is so much worse out there?

[titan1978]

I would describe Monty as more like Madonna. An innovator of the form os Soaptainment , while Ken Corday and DAYS in the 1980's was the Britney (this is not meant as a slam on DAYS, just the originator vs the immitator, both with their successes).

I do have to add that while Monty did focus the show around Scotty/Laura/Bobbie, she did that with Doug Marland, and he worked that formula on all his shows after GH. I know Steve/Audrey/Jessie no longer had major stories under Monty's tenure, but we did get Leslie/Rick, and Edward/Lila always were in play, we had characters ages ranging from a few teens, many 20's, mostly 30's and 40's during her time on the show. Most of the soaps of the past during that time and before focused their major storylines on the same age brackets, blaming Monty for youth overload is not fair.

The thing Monty did best was give us great friendships! The people of Port Charles were great friends, and I miss Robert/Luke, Anna/Tiffany/Sean/Felicia/Frisco, etc. Labine had some good ones too. I miss GH.

[Cat]

Honestly, I don't think JFP has as much autonomy as Riche had during the early Labine days. She certainly doesn't have the power Monty wielded.

A few years ago, when Guza was co-HWing with Pratt, somebody told me that JFP would come to the SLing meetings and just knit. She wouldn't say a word. Her position has essentially been usurped by Frons and G&P, to a lesser extent (weren't they also consulting producers on GH?).

Obviously she oversees production (the new nurses' station ), hiring and firing and editing the show according to the script she's been given. But she can't dictate SL like Riche and Monty especially once did. That would be her micromanaging boss's job. The only time she had a hand in the SLs was during last year's writers' strike. Something Guza was publicly pissed about.

Anyhoo, just some food for thought. I don't know if JFP would be able to stop the rot if she DID have more power -- or take it to a new extreme. The fact is, GH right now is being micromanaged from above and written by somebody who, I assume, is somewhat ashamed to be writing a Daytime soap.