All: Claire Labine Interview

[CSF]

GH had higher ratings under Labine, but it wasn't until her last year there that the show dropped to number 5. Yes there was a large drop in ratings, but the same happened to all the other soaps around 1995. GH's ratings may have gone up a tad when Guza took over, but it remained consistent throughout the end of the decade. I don't recall any significant high points ratings wise under Guza.

[CSF]

Well said! He is by far one of the worst daytime writer's ever! The only thing he did was bring in plot driven crap and if ratings went up for that, they weren't up for long. History is true for GH, what worked in the 1980s, cannot work again and ABC needs to realize that. If people tuned out of GH under Labine because they thought it was too depressing, then fine, they're entitled to their opinion.

Labine made GH real, she made it into a critically acclaimed medical drama, something that should be taken seriously. I would have never watched GH in the 1980s because I could care less about plot driven nonsense like the Ice Princess or Luke and Laura on the run and Holly and Robert, etc. I want drama in daytime, not action packed crap, save the world nonsense.

Riche and Labine turned GH into a socially relevant drama, a show about humanity, it was real, it was compelling. The scene's where Felicia walks into BJ's hospital room where Bobbie is standing besides BJ's hospital bed and Bobbie turns to Felicia who looks at her with tears pouring down her face saying "No, not BJ's heart." That's real drama. When Monica rips open her robe and says to Alan, "Do you want to go to bed with this?" during her breast cancer storyline, that's a scene that's so special because it's real. When Stone dies of HIV, that's real. People complained that Robin become HIV positive. Well of course she had to become positive. Fans watched her grow up, they care and love her. What's the point of the story if she didn't become positive. It also teaches the viewer something very important about themselves and society. You loved her before she contracted HIV, should you love her any less now that she's positive? These are things that are relatable to everyone. Whether or not a loved one dies in an accident or someone you care about has cancer, in some form, we can all relate to a loss. It educates the viewer, not only on the issue, but internally, to be able to connect with one another and reach out to people. The stories under Labine were realistic. People may argue, they don't want reality when they turn on the TV, well it's too bad because it is what it is and Labine wrote an incredible show.

Agnes Nixon once said, "when you write, you shouldn't just write to entertain the audience, but to inform them and educate them on things that are important in society."

I'd rather spend an hour of my day watching something compelling and heartfelt, then some guy who mumbles and degrades woman and imparts that upon his adopted son.

[R Sinclair]

"SHUT UP, YOU LYING WHORE!"

Sonny fans: (swoon)

[Mitch]

Most likely that had something to do with it. Add in a little of the bias against the vets and that they were "old." However, I have to say, as much as Labine praises it, the triangle made no sense other then the fact that they were all in the same age range. Why would the neurotic Holly have any interest in Billy (who had become a comic foil had that time) or Buzz (ditto.) Add in the fact that, despite the industry love that Justin Deas has,he makes any romantic scene kind of gross (I couldn't watch him paw poor Holly.)

A big agree on the shoot out in the Bauer kitchen....no shots or violence should happen in or near the Bauer house..thought E & B introduced it by having Carmen "shot," in the Bauer backyard. All in all Labine's time there was a mess, but it seems there has been a lot of net interference. Would love to know what they were saying about the "princes," that Labine refers to. Who the freak at CBS/P & G thought Brad Cole was the bomb all the time?

[DRW50]

Yes, Mitch, I think that was the prevailing view at the time of Buzz/Holly/Billy. It just seemed like having to put the vets together. Holly was a very odd fit with them.

I wish they had asked her about when Anthony Abaddo and Patti D'Arbanville were fired and basically went to the press and praised Rauch and blamed her. I thought that was very odd at the time, almost calculated.

I hated Selena's exit. That whole story put a very black cloud over the show for me at the time. It was just OTT violence and ugliness and plot over character.

[Cat]

Claire, you know I love you and I know you're bitter about NBC passing on your bible. But don't be dissing Sunset Beach unless you watched it! It wasn't Ryan's Hope but it was fabulous.

[CSF]

Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!!!!

[Cat]

Followed closely by that 2003 favorite:

"WHORE! YOU'RE DEAD TO ME!" *smashing barware*

and regarding Faith Roscoe: "I am gonna FINISH that B!TCH TONIGHT!"

BTW, OT but did you know that a Sonny-Faith fanboard actually exists out there? Because nothing is more romantic than your hero putting out a hit on your life.

[Ann_SS]

Doug Marland also felt this way. During Hank's coming out story on ATWT, he gave an interview where he talked about the importance of showing that people were just people. It was why he established Hank before he came out and showed intolerance from the most unexpected people like Lisa and Paul. He also had other social stories like Courtney's bulmia and Angel's incest. To this day, Iva is the only rape victim who had any prolonged on screen therapy on the soaps.

[JaneAusten]

What a glorious write-up and so true. Claire Labine's GH was the GH I fell in love with. While I know Luke and Laura were and still are such a daytime phenomenon and people loved the WSB and Ice Princess stuff, it never grabbed me like Claire Labine's writing did. And my loving GH in the 90's under her tenure is probably why I loved AMC for so many years. AMC has always told socially relevant stories. And I loved AMC because the show had so much heart. That's what GH became to me under Claire. Yeah it was dark but it's no comparison to the dark shown on GH today. Te show had heart. And you cared about the characters. But it was also filled with fun. One of my favorite couples on GH was Ned and Lois and lordy Claire loved them. They were fun and sparly - I loved the whole Eddie Maine storyline. And Wally Kurth is by far one of my favorite daytime actors. He was so wasted on GH after Claire left on such utter nonsense under Guza.

I just wonder if today's audience really has the patience to stick around for this kind of writing and story build up.GH has so changed from even just 5 years ago to now. And AMC don't get me started on how that show has been gutted. OLTL it the only show able to hold onto something and even that at times can be challenged. I think the audience or their perception of it has changed a lot.

[quartermainefan]

It's attitudes like this that I think is one of the reasons why shows like Passions get unfairly dismissed. How is Plot driven suddenly "nonsense" and action now "crap"? These narrow parameters that all soaps must be ___ and not only that but all shows must sort of feel and sound exactly alike is where soaps sort of went wrong I think. GH in the 80s was a far better written product than anything that came after it, and the writers of The Prometheus Disk story or the The Susan Baldwin mystery or whatever always made sure there was drama, comedy, action, consistent characterization, and mystery if called for. The beautiful thing about the 1980s was you could turn on GH and watch Luke save the world and then rewind the VCR and watch Karen Wolek on the stand on OLTL, and then rewind even further and watch innocent romance with Greg and Jenny or Cliff and Nina on AMC. Then Edge Of Night comes on you have your mystery to try and guess.

Holly and Robert were two well written characters in an adult relationship who just so happened to solve crimes. The fact they solve crimes did not make them less adult than Robin and Stone or Alan and Monica. It just means their relationship resided in plot oriented stories much the way Nick and Nora had their relationship within plot oriented movies. There is nothing wrong with shows that have a plot, and the problem with Guza today is his show is virtually plotless.

[bellcurve]

Yeah, okay.

Passions was initially dismissed because it had horrible acting and dialogue. When they clearly saw that wasn't working, they headed in a Santa Barbara/Sunset Beach-esque direction, which again, was dismissed because of the horrible acting, dialogue, and execution of these inane plots.

Again, this is from a fan of what Reilly did at DAYS and still have no apologies for getting hooked into soaps that way. But at the same time, there was also a semi-decent technical team behind him and a boss and network that told him how far he could go.

It's the nature of the beast and not everyone will agree on the direction that the genre should be heading in. I get into arguments all the time with friends regarding sitcoms...whether single camera or multicamera is good, whether the "live audience" hinders the comedy.

But what I want, regardless of a show's tone, is for it to be well-written. That's all I ask.

I absolutely agree that there should be more diversity in programming. That no one show should look or be the same. But the 80's are over.

Oh come on! GH's stories may suck, but there is lots of PLOT on GH.

[quartermainefan]

I see very little plot on GH. The characters tend to just exist in storyless vacuums. Carly has been married to Jax for two or three years and on practically every day. And I could not tell you what story she starred in that warranted that screentime. Had there been any sort of a plot, we would then know what story it was she starred in all this time. Same for Jason and all the others. Maxie and Spin? On all year long and you got me what story they starred in. And without a story there can be no plot because all a plot is is what happens in a story.

[CSF]

That's my opinion on General Hospital. To even bring up Passions and say it was "unfairly dismissed," what does that have to do with this topic? Let's be real now, even on GH's worst day, I wouldn't put it in the same category as Passions let alone compare them. No offense to Passions fans, but that show was a joke and I didn't need to watch it to know it was a joke. The witch with the doll who came to life, that thing with the clown mask that was having sex with it's father, WTF? I believe there should be variety on television, but something like that is what makes soaps a laughing stock.

I do recall I said, what worked for GH in the 1980s wasn't going to work for that show in the 1990s and that's a proven fact. If the show was able to sustain storylines like that, it would have never lost the number 1 spot to The Young and the Restless in December of 1988. You may have enjoyed GH under Monty, that's your taste and you are entitled to enjoying what you want. Like I have stated, Labine gave GH critical acclaim. The storylines GH aired in the 1980s would have never worked in the next decade and viewership would have bled like nothing else if GH continued to air plot driven stories in the 90s.

The bottom line is, nothing lasts forever. There are transition periods, in time we often look back and reflect differently among things. Just like we didn't see shows like Dallas, Dynasty and Falcon Crest replacements in the 1990s, the world had moved on and GH did too.

[quartermainefan]

I wasn't really addressing the notion that things last forever. What caught my eye was the notion that action is crap, plots are nonsense, and that somehow there is an implied and inherent superiority in stories where Felicia and Bobbie weep together over stories where Robert and Holly examine clues together. I don't think that is true at all.