GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

You make a lot of interesting and excellent points.  The more that I think about it I don't think he resented his coworker or the show exactly-as long as he got to do what he wanted.  

I would agree both Mo and Tony probably stayed a little too long.  Mo especially.  I have always said when Mo left the first time in the 90's that was the perfect ending to the character.  The last 25 years have been a descent into awfulness for the Sonny character.

Also, Baby Ace has a bigger spine that Valentin!  Stop crying all the time!

I think Tony probably resented his own failures more than the show, but Bill Eckert was a silly idea from the jump.  That's not want anyone wanted to see.

[Khan]

I think it was a little of both.

In my wildest dreams, Bill Eckert returns with a new face, and the actor portraying him is actually more successful in the part than TG was, lol.

[Contessa Donatella]

I just pull out these two totally true & in retrospect obvious things! 

[titan1978]

The network and the show knew it wasn’t working either. They had Genie fired from All My Children and told her that she was welcome to come back to GH. And it pissed her off so much she held them off for like a year, while we suffered through more Bill.

I actually did LOL at your Baby Ace comment @carolineg!

[Khan]

In retrospect, GF should have held out indefinitely.  Then, when TG's contract was up, they could have written out/killed off Bill and let him go.

[OzFrog]

Funny you should bring this up - I just finished watching the 1997 Sonny/Brenda playlist, from the Jax/Brenda non-wedding, to stupid Miranda, the catacombs, the Tin Man craziness, and finally the Sonny/Brenda non-wedding (“tell her it’s been a ride”). God damn Sonny was a callous dick!

[carolineg]

I am sorry you had to sit through the Tin Man saga.  It's rough-for everyone lol.

So, yes, Sonny was being a callous dick, but he was doing it on purpose.  I am not defending him or anything, but he clarifies his actions a bit when Brenda/Sonny meet again in 1998.  I won't lie. Those are probably my favorite Sonny/Brenda scenes of all time.  He tells her he had to leave her in the worst, most humiliating and heartbreaking way because otherwise she would have followed him and found him and he would have let her.  And there was a hit on her and she would have been on the run forever and she would have eventually died.  So he did all this to save her life.  In 1998 as a 15 year old I was all over it.  It was a coward's way out and the last 25 years of Sonny have not helped his cause, but those scenes were fantastic.

If you want to skip through Brenda's awful, awful breakdown and 6 months of cat and mouse games with Jax it happens in May 1998.  Otherwise be forewarned the breakdown is the most cringey Brenda story of all time.  Even worse than her possibly sleeping with Dante.  And Jax/Brenda drag on (romantically) for endless amounts of time to lead to the obvious eventual reunion.  IMO, GH massively wastes VM's 1 year extension on her contract, but that's an entirely different post and subject lol.

[titan1978]

I agree 1000%! And the end of that contract story with her mother was just stupid IMO. Her mother wasn’t cast well either!

[carolineg]

Don't even get me started on Veronica and that unnamed disease.  I was only up to May 1998 in my grievances

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.  The show couldn't find anything better for Brenda Barrett to do? So much time was spent on her and Jax (which I loved Jax/Brenda), but it was boring as hell.  Jax was obviously always going to forgive her.  Her other time was spent yelling at Jason.  Julia re-appearing was probably the only bright spot.

I can't really say if I felt Veronica was miscast.  We knew so little about her.  Obviously, looks wise she was.  

Edited December 22, 2023 by carolineg

[DRW50]

https://archive.org/details/general-hospital-december-19-1996

[Vee]

I thought Veronica was cast well - the great Jennifer Hetrick, formerly Picard's (and Patrick Stewart's) paramour on Star Trek. I just felt the story, while interesting, was very rushed. I had forgotten it was like less than a month of screen time lol.

[carolineg]

I felt like I didn't know enough about Veronica before she appeared to make a judgement.  Brenda mentioned her, but only in passing until the month or so up until her appearance.   I didn't think JH looked anything like Vanessa and this was the shows one chance to cast a Hispanic actress in the part.   Anyhow, it felt like an unnecessary complication to the end of Brenda's run.  It's not like she was really ever mentioned much again after Brenda returned.  I guess the show used the disease as an issue during her 2002 return, but Brenda could have just drove off that cliff and had memory loss or something and you could have essentially told the same story.

[Vee]

If slightly hackier writers than the current ones (or Ron) had been able to bring back Brenda fulltime, you'd 100% have seen a NuVeronica turn up as some Big Bad in the 2010s. I'm still not ruling it out!

I thought the disease/lost mother story was an interesting idea. It was just very poorly sped through.

You apparently can't receive any, or I would!

Edited December 23, 2023 by Vee

[carolineg]

I think Vanessa is mostly to blame for the speed of the dead mother story.  I think she waited until the very last minute to confirm she was leaving and was going back and forth about re-signing.  Guza could have had a plan in place that was more thought out, but we saw in 2003 that wasn't his strong suit.  

You know, there was probably a pretty easy way to make Veronica the Balkan's wife instead of whatever we got.   You tweak the motivation to "protecting" Brenda from Sonny, Jason, whatever the Balkan's son's name was, etc and it actually would have been a decent twist.  I am fine, however, with her staying dead.

[titan1978]

That would have worked much better for me. Although I do love Adrienne Barbeau.

I have not really enjoyed Hetrick in anything I have seen her in. I just thought Brenda’s mother should have been a bigger deal. The pace didn’t help, but I don’t think the actor did either.