GH: Classic Thread

[DRW50]

That might have worked. Ron Hale was always so reliable (even if I don't think I ever believed him as Sonny's father).

[dc11786]

Katherine was introduced in either late May or June, 1993 right after Dominique dies in late April/early May. Levinson is gone a few months later (October, 1993) and Kin Shriner leaves in December. Shriner and Evans had worked together towards the tail end of "Rituals" when Koty was carrying Mike's child. From what I gather, Shriner and Evans enjoyed working together. I imagine Levinson would have tried to reform Katherine at some point or just went heavy into a Lucy / Scotty / Katherine triangle. 

With Scotty out, Labine repositions Katherine. She decides to tell a variation on the Ben Harper bigamy plot she and Paul Avila Mayer wrote on "Love of Life" with the Katherine / Ned / Lois tale. During the story, Katherine and Lois each seem to absorb different elements of the Betsy and Arlene characters. Even with this, Katherine is the clear antagonist, the Arlene. It's interesting to see that Katherine meets the same fate as Arlene, aimless once the story reaches it's initial climax. 

I watched the first half of 1995 a year or two back. From what I can remember, Lois and Ned have already solidified as a couple. I think Katherine goads Lois into a fight at Outback in Janaury, which leads to a legal battle that is wrapped up in February when the case is dismissed. Lois and Ned marry during May sweeps, or their events leading to their wedding start then. In the meantime, Katherine is a pariah and so is Damian so most of their scenes are together. It isn't until Tom Hardy returns that they start pushing the Mac / Katherine pairing, but, to be honest, I don't remember what Mac and Felicia were doing in the meantime. I feel like they were still handling the latest Ryan caper as he escaped from the institute.  

[carolineg]

Lol!  I was thinking Mike Horton on Days, but Ron Hale was so good.  Not really believable as Sonny's dad, but a great performer.  He was legitimately good with everyone.

[Planet Soap]

Or some random AMC cross over woth Dr David Hayward and Project Orpheus, involve Ana Devane in it some how to bring multiple charachters back (AJ, Tony Georgie, Emily, maybe even Justus, and it would be a behicle for Steve Burton returned if he or the show were on board. Too bad Stuart Damon is gone now. 

[Vee]

I would be more than happy if they tied it into Orpheus, lol.

They actually did intend to use the Robin arc in 2012 to bring back Alan and Stuart. When Frank and Ron thought the show was going off the air within a year and brought the OLTL characters in as well, the idea apparently was that Robin was going to explore her prison and discover it contained (at a minimum) Alan alive a la Stuart Chandler at the end of AMC, along with Trevor St. John as Victor Lord Jr./Todd II, who had been revealed to be alive and imprisoned at the end of OLTL in January 2012. This would allow them to tie up the plotlines of both soaps in a grand finale when GH was presumed to also be coming to an end. They might well have ended up revealing Starr's boyfriend and daughter were alive too, something I think Ron always intended to keep in his back pocket.

Allegedly, Stuart Damon was not up for the strain of performing for such a twist. Then of course they saved GH, and the OLTL stuff all fell by the wayside when Prospect Park took control of the rights.

Maybe it's me but Labine always seemed to relish writing those Mac/Felicia and Mac/Felicia/Robin romantic and family vignettes. They would just roll and roll on that stuff, even more now when I look back at those eps. I understand why they had to break them up at the time for the drama, but I'm not surprised they ended up back together. And I'm so glad they are today.

I am glad the attempted redemption of Katherine never really came to pass. I've never liked her introduction stories.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Vee

[DRW50]

Oh right. Sorry. That makes sense actually. When I made that post I was misremembering that Mike and Kayla were related. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by DRW50

[carolineg]

Like @Vee mentioned, Mac/Felicia spent a lot of time in the Robin/Stone story during this period and wasn't there a time when Mac actually thought he was Georgie's dad as well?  Damian is a character I can't recall doing much of anything.  Aside from sleeping with Bobbie because of a bet with Lucy, I can't think of anything else he did and he was on for 2.5 years. 

Interesting.  I don't think I ever remember hearing this from you.  It sounds like Ron and I like the idea, but as someone who is only really a GH fan I am not sure how I would have felt with the show wrapping up like that.   I also always assumed Cole and Starr's daughter would reappear at some point.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Katherine certainly didn't benefit from her most memorable scene partners being exiled to PC (the spinoff, that is), but I'm not sure she would have added much to the show.  And I'm guessing MBE's contract would have been more significant for a half-hour show with much less ad revenue to absorb in their budget? 

Maybe they could have spun her off to PC for her last weeks/months and had Katherine killed by one of the serial killers or vampires or whatever, so at least someone would have a reaction to her death.  Although I wasn't watching either show anymore by that point.

I hated Katherine at the time, but with a little wisdom and perspective (and YouTube), I can appreciate MBE's place in the genre.  She deserved a better character.

Edited April 25, 2023 by DeliaIrisFan

[Vee]

Looking at those eps with fresh eyes recently I feel like Damian had his fingers in a lot of things (uh, aside from Bobbie). I remembered him just hanging around too, but they got a lot of mileage out of him for story and Leigh McCloskey was so good at that kind of role, not unlike Peter Boynton as Tonio on ATWT, sexy but so clearly sleazy. It would be interesting to introduce a character like that today to challenge the Qs and/or Sonny - a young magnate, possibly another Smith who (like Damian, IIRC) has supposedly sworn off the family business, who is more in the mold of the rich white-collar sociopaths from Succession. That's the real criminality today.

[AMCHistory]

This has to be the first time I’ve ever read this. I do not remember even rumours about this back then. Do you remember if this was in any articles/ interviews?

Alan, Emily, AJ should have been kept alive. So much character development wasted for short-sighted death storylines. 
 

It is interesting that with Monica/Alan branch of the family tree culled, Tracy’s side of the family is taking Center stage. Tracy, Ned, Olivia, Brooklynn, they have a fun dynamic together. They are getting more screentime than many of the Q’s have in years!

[Vee]

Nah, it was floating around a lot in the rumor mill that year from some reasonable sources who had followed that team from OLTL and over the last couple years had almost certainly been inside. Take it with a grain of salt of course, but I 100% believe it.

The wilder thing that DC had a line on at that time and revealed years later (and they were close to Ron) was that before the baby swap story got truncated the plan had allegedly been to pair up Sonny and Téa Delgado, leaving Sonny forced to choose between Jason and his new love when it turned out Téa's baby was Danny Morgan. (It is no contest who Sonny would choose IMO, but bear in mind Ron did write that Carly sided with Todd over Jason at the time which would never have happened.)

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee

[titan1978]

I also remember reading that Stuart was going to have a bigger part to play in the anniversary but was not up to it heath-wise. And his episode showed that.

I also forgot all about Carly siding with Todd.  So not in character.  I really miss Tea and I would never force Sonny on her.

I remember Damian being involved in lots of stuff, but more of an annoyance until the last few months.  And as far as Katherine goes, I think her original death should have been the end of the character.  I get that back then, letting Luke/Alexis kill someone innocent, even by accident, was not going to fly.  Riche was still there and overall protecting the characters from going to far.  Just a few years later and there would have been no issue with Luke killing Katherine.

[carolineg]

I remember liking Damian and thinking LM was sexy as well lol.  I will have to rewatch because I remember him being around a lot of different characters and stories on the canvas but I don't recall a specific Damian story.  He seemed to just cause some trouble in everyone else's lives, but I guess that was the point of his character.  Just not the most memorable character to me. 

I am probably in a very small minority, but I think I would have liked Tea/Sonny.  Wasn't Sonny in pretty deep with Kate/Connie at the time though?  I remember Sonny turning down Brenda's offer for reconciliation because of Kate so it would have been a sharp pivot for Sonny to hook up with Tea and screw over Jason in such a short amount of time.  I could see them as a couple though and this feels like a Ron story, I am just wondering how they would have played it.

[DRW50]

I'd say Sonny was exactly Tea's type, but I would never have wanted to watch anything involving them.

I mostly remember Damian spending his last year mooning over Katherine. I wonder if they kept him on longer just to set up his murder mystery. 

[Vee]

I think the idea is that the baby switch was originally on the books to play out much longer across 2012-2013 but they pulled back on the story for whatever reason (maybe Steve quitting).

I do think it would've been very in character for both Sonny and Téa and that they would have chemistry, but I also think the GH audience was not there for a frontburner pairing of Sonny and an OLTL star along with all the others. I still would've rather watched that than Connie.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee