November 22-26, 2010

[DRW50]

The main problem with Guza is he really seems to hate all GH history, not just certain couples or characters.

[Sylph]

We talked about it in the monthly thread. It might not be true.

[Saving ATWT]

Guza wants to create his own GH history. I'm sure he dreams of creating his own Luke and Laura, the sort of characters people will be talking about thirty years from now. I doubt it. Guza isn't a bad writer but isn't exactly cleaver.

I honestly think he along with Frons thought they needed to loose vets in order to surge in 18-49. GH has seen a huge plunge in HH ratings but currently isn't all that far behind (.5) Y&R in 18-49--not so much of a difference. GH, along with most other soaps, has embarked on a 'Newsweek' stategy where they droped overall circulation in favor of target demos. It hasn't worked well for the various media who have tried.

[remos]

Nah… I know that's a popular opinion but I don't think it's accurate. Guza has made certain characters almost a Greek Chorus at times to tell newcomers the history of the show and characters. I remember after Kelly's was burned that Lulu had the role while speaking with Johnny. It was accurate history, none of it retcon or white wash. I think he respects it but he doesn't feel duty bound to pay homage to it, and that's hard for some fans to take.

We weren't happy with the Webber house being destroyed, but what history does that represent now? There is a whole new group of viewers who doesn't know anything about Ginny Webber or Steve Hardy or Aunt Ruby, and why should they? Those are the memories of we old-timers, and new fans have to create their own memories with this show. In additon, with Mac's home gone it does open a potential door for the AlMac relationship to happen.

I do think Guza has pushed the envelop too far - Rick Webber being the biggest example - but there was a noticeable shift about 4-5 years ago away from destroying historical characters and towards explaining history to newcomers. If you look at all the returns, while unpopular his characterizations of them were somewhat accurate - they just weren't the part of the personalities fans wanted to revisit. In response he gave fans the Scrubs Christmas with Anna, Robert and domestic bliss around the Christmas tree - thus closing doors on taking those vets into new places. That's the thing with story - you can't have them happy and well rounded AND create story as you go. Not with the number of characters on the canvas or the short amount of time he's got to work with.

i just shake my head sometimes at those calling for former favourites to return or happy marriages or pregnancies. That does not fit into the nature of this beast. Soaps are perhaps the only medium where you finally get the pay off, then need to wake up the next day and say "Okay, what happened next?" And in that reality, history can only take up a limited amount of space.

[skiman12082004]

I don't think GH is a bad soap by any means, but lately it has been incredibly unbalanced. I was so excited about Brenda coming back to Port Charles but now she is one of the reasons I am finding the show boring. I enjoy the promos for the show more than the actual show. I'm also thrilled about the recent renewals (DAYS/Y&R/B& and it looks like the ABC soaps are almost in a virtual tie in total viewers. Glad that AMC is ahead this week though.

[Saving ATWT]

Agree so much with what you say. So much of this is generational. I get that long time viewers feel neglected and because of this a few vets should always stay central; however, eventually, some characters do eventually run out of story. I'm 34, can barely remember Ruby, and would guess that people younger than me have no idea who she is. Character love is an age subjective thing and, if you missed these characters at their zenith, the viewer probably can't relate.

[DRW50]

The problem isn't so much not remembering Aunt Ruby as it is that there is no real sense of family which has replaced these memories. I don't believe in the relationships between the Spencers, and when GH decided to expand the family, they decided to let us know that Luke cheated on Laura when she was pregnant and that this child was superior to anything Lucky could ever be.

The other problem is that GH has not so much moved on as it has whittled away at anything which does not focus on a select few. How many on GH are stunted because of the obsession with Jason? Is this really about generational when many characters have not changed in over a decade? Jason Morgan has been a messiah for almost fifteen years. Sonny has been unchanged for ten years now. Brenda has been regressed to somewhere around her emotional level in 1993. Luke has long been regressed. Lucky was regressed when JJ returned, basically in some fantasy land which means he never really had a history with Liz or helped raise her sons. Jax and Nikolas have been bumps on a log for years. Carly is basically an untouchable Mean Girl with no real motivations beyond moving the plot forward. Spinelli is forever an awkward sycophantic hypocrite. Maxie is forever an airhead. Lulu is forever in existence only because of the latest man in her life. Michael is basically just a mini-Jason. Sam is Jason's appendage. Liz now exists only to trade caustic remarks with the latest women her lovers/husbands are involved with.

When was the last time GH made a bold step forward? Who was the last really great new character who was allowed to flourish and not sucked down into a black hole? If it's about clearing out characters who no longer have story, why is Steve Burton still employed?

[Saving ATWT]

I sometimes think Guza has a serious problem writing for women in that the female characters are always in some manner underdeveloped. The show is too male dominated and, instead of using say Lulu or Carly to add balance, clownish men like Luke and Spinelli are used to relax story. I agree with most of what you say, particularly when it comes to the Sonny, Jason and Brenda vortex of suck.

With my post, I was agreeing with a comment posted earlier about the idea of history being a relative concept depending on the year you began tuning in. The 20, 40 and 60 year old will all define GH history differently. It seems like quite a few soaps have moved away from traditional family as the core and adopted a Grey's Anatomy circle of friends/co-workers approach to relationships. Maybe this reflects the ways in which family has been redefined within our culture? Certainly, the 1980's ATWT vision of the Hughes family seems gone forever with Y&R's Abbots as the only (dying) remains. Most shows now seem focused on various forms of cliques, serial monogamy and mini-nuclear families that quickly implode.

[DRW50]

GH has never been a "core family" soap. The "core family" on GH at the beginning were all at the hospital, Jessie and Steve and then Audrey and her older sister Lucille. Later you had the Webbers, the Spencers, the Quartermaines, but there was always the coinciding elements of the hospital, and of action and adventure. Even now it could be there, with Robin, Patrick, Steve, Lisa, Liz, but look at how that mess turned out.

GH had a successful formula they didn't need to adapt, but they chose to anyway, because Guza is obsessed with candy-corn versions of the Sopranos. And that's what GH has been for 15 years -- mobsters as heroes, good mobsters, and the women who serve to wave them off in "wartime."

I'm not sure if a 20 year old and a 40 year old would define GH history differently, because most of what a 20 year old would have seen and clearly remembered is what a 40 year old already saw on GH, and generally saw better versions of. GH has not changed or adapted with the times as much as it has wept into the same old faded leather jacket and pretended it is still watching a young Jason Morgan roaring off on his messiah motorcycle. That has been Guza's general mission at GH, to condition viewers into believing Jason and those around him are the beginning and the end of GH and that little else mattered in the years beforehand.

There are other moments of history, and you can still see that with Tracy and other characters, but I often feel like Guza has no time for this and simply recycles stories for them because he can't fill up every minute of every episode with Jason and company.

[remos]

I'm wondering though if he is in love with Jason OR if he's aware the character doesn't truly work and has to keep tinkering in the hopes to make it right. Because in all honesty, the way to make Jason the lead is to write for him and that hasn't happened in longer than I can remember. Has he lead anything since the car accident with AJ?

There is a lot wrong with GH, and Lord knows we can all point to problems. But I'm increasingly convinced that it's more than merely a Guza-obsession. I think Guza, TG and a few others are "Company Men" who try to sell it in terms of highlights but even they know the focus isn't working.

I also think there is a measure of fear. What happens if the MB/JaSam fanbases leave? What happens if one final, definitive, "we are never going to entertain LnL again" statement is made? I think they are worried that every single one of those fans will leave and who will be left. This is not the environment to mess with vocal fanbases, and it takes the desperation that Days of Our Lives was in a few years ago to fire your biggest stars and focus on those who have been backburnered for years. GH isn't at that place of desperation.

[DRW50]

I think Guza sees Jason as being above all, and he has struggled in recent years to keep that myth going, which has been more and more evident onscreen. I'm sure many of Guza's flaws are also down to the problems in daytime now and at ABC, but even when Wendy Riche was there and the show was better produced, the hallmarks of today's writing for Jason were still there. I don't think he can be objective with Jason, but since there is no story you can give Jason at this point, that means cutting Jason off from most material. I also think that is the reason they put him back with Sam, because if he'd been with Liz the character would have been forced to mature, since they had a child together.

I don't know how much of GH is about fanbases now, because there are no real strong couples with long-term fan followings. Liz/Jason fans were very vocal - even now when the ratings fall, you will hear people say reunite Liaison - but the show went away from that. Spinelli and Maxie had fans but GH was very uncomfortable with actually writing for that relationship and instead stagnated them and made them both into jokes. When JJ returned GH took the opportunity to once and for all destroy any following Lucky/Liz ever had. Now Sonny and Brenda are back together but it's very forced and no one has their heart in it. The only couple I think is together based on fanbase is Scrubs, and there I wonder if the show doesn't really know what to do with the characters if they split up.

They just seem to constantly be stumped as to how to write for characters.

I think that Guza is as drawn to Sonny and Jason and the mob as ever but increasingly the stories he wants to tell with them do not suit any type of format which a daytime soap will explore. He wants to tell stories about prison rape and about children being shot in the head and about getting off on murdering your stepmother with an axe, but this is rough stuff, even if it is written well, and whether through his own inabilities or through daytime censorship (or network censorship), it won't happen. I think that's one of the reasons they recast Michael, because the vision of Michael Guza seemed to have was way too much and getting even worse. And that's why stuff happens like Sonny shooting his own son and it pretty much being shrugged off by most of the other characters, and the car bombing being a sign of fatherly devotion. They are always dangling over the edge, then someone yanks them backwards.

[Sylph]

I've always wondered how this works: how does he do it? Say to himself openly: <blink>Hey, if I put him with Liz, he will have to mature and I don't want that</blink> or is it something more subconscious? Same with agenda-pushing: does he say to himself <blink>I'm gonna trash this idiot because I hate women or...; I love mob, I love violence, women are useless and I hate them so I'm gonna pull all the stops in my misogyny, mob-love and make sacrifices at the altar of violence every day – that's my mission and I'm gonna make sure it's successful</blink>? What's the mechanism?

[MontyB]

[Saving ATWT]

Think Guza has been on this mission impossible to transform daytime--shift away from 'love in the afternoon' and towards Michael took an ax and gave his (step) mother 40 wacks. Since 1995, ratings have been on the decline, and maybe he thought his efforts would get ratings gold. (It is as if Guza has a hard on for HBO, hopes that they see his work and gives him a show of his own.) Personally, I like te fact that Guza has thougt outside the box by exploring the social issue of prison rape, this actually happens way too often, but, as you said, daytime TV has limits.

I never realized just how much Goutman tried to copy GH during his time at ATWT. For a time, World tried to be edgy by doing things like using an 11 year old Will 'accidently' murder Rose; Craig kill with no punisment and much love; and even Jack, at times, somewhat mirroring Jason whenever it came to Carly or Craig.

[JaneAusten]

I think Carl brought up an excellent point. Guza does try to push the limits and with limited success. If anyone can remember as far back as 2005, you will remember the story of AJ's demise and how Michael killed him.(his son). There was so much backlash on that they had to retcon the story to make it someone else. I think they believed by demonizing the character of AJ the audience would be ok with it. Sadly they tried the same thing with Michael killing Claudia except the difference was no retcon but a recast.