We have discussed this before but I don't think we have any new answers lol. I remember the Bobbie rumor but I just don't know more than that. I do think Pratt had tried to put over a ripoff of his own Melrose Place story (which I clocked the instant it began appearing onscreen) and I am glad Genie allegedly vetoed that. I think elements of the story were worthwhile - a suburban mystery digging back into the town and Laura's pre-LNL past - but it was a ropey sell in hindsight given how much she had already very visibly been through with David Hamilton onscreen in those golden years. There wasn't very much real estate to work with for a retcon (but still more than the terrible ones this team has tried to put over with Cody and Sasha in the last couple years).

I do wonder what the whole Rick/medical consortium subplot, with him repping for a group trying to take over GH, might have led to in the original iteration. What was really insane was 3-5 years later, they casually had Alan and Monica reveal in some C-plot scenes that Monica and Rick had actually briefly picked up their affair again in the summer of '02 entirely offscreen. I choose to ignore that ever happened.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Vee

27 minutes ago, Vee said:

What was really insane was 3-5 years later, they casually had Alan and Monica reveal in some C-plot scenes that Monica and Rick had actually briefly picked up their affair again in the summer of '02 entirely offscreen. I choose to ignore that ever happened.

That was deeply stupid and a waste of time. Now if the full rumored story had happened I could see a Monica/Rick interlude, leading to Alan being a credible suspect when he died. I think the ending was always going to be Rick dead, I just think they were setting it up to be more of a mystery. I could see even Lesley being roped into this mystery (but not as a major player). Scott, Laura, and Luke being set up as the main suspects. I could not bring myself to watch more than the first vid, but even then they were being very heavy handed with Scotty/Rick.

It did feel very Melrose Place Pratt. And I think the Bobbie stuff was maybe the second version of the story that also didn’t fully play out, that she was who Rick was sleeping with. But when they decided Laura (later Scotty) killed that nurse, they shifted away from Bobbie except as a red herring while Laura tried to piece it together. Although JFP was more than willing to destroy Bobbie as a character, I cannot imagine her knowing Laura was molested and keeping it to herself for decades.

In all the retcons, I know they decided Laura didn’t kill Rick. But she did still kill that nurse, correct? Or was that reconned away too?

@carolineg Brenda’s return really saved several jobs, JFP especially. Because they were able to use that as a reset and momentum to carry them out of a real rough patch that had lasted over a year, from the end of Riche to that dreadful first period with JFP. Then they established the big sweeps event storytelling that kept them going for several years.

4 hours ago, titan1978 said:

In all the retcons, I know they decided Laura didn’t kill Rick. But she did still kill that nurse, correct? Or was that reconned away too?

I believe so, yes. Cyrus brought it up a few years ago.

I think the only reason JFP survived the catastrophe of her solo tenure in 2001-2 was her skill as a line producer to execute Guza's vision. They could've found others. Guza had power over her creatively, having learned from the Riche wars. It was the best comeuppance Jill could ever have for what she'd done to GH, OLTL, etc. IMO.

45 minutes ago, Vee said:

Guza had power over her creatively, having learned from the Riche wars. It was the best comeuppance Jill could ever have for what she'd done to GH, OLTL, etc. IMO.

It’s one of those times where Pratt walked in the door with a high pricetag and the clout from his primetime career to demand power over the stories, and from what I have heard back in the day Guza got favored nations with him when they came back as a team. Which was very smart on his part.

But we know that power was not total and Jill could use the budget to override them. Alan Quartermaine’s death being and example of her vs him. Thanks to MVJ spilling that tea. Same thing with Vanessa Marcil’s contract extension- JFP got in the way there too. I suspect she was more the reason Laura didn’t fully return than Bob Guza too, based on what he used to say about Genie and the fact that he seemed to write for her several times.

13 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

But we know that power was not total and Jill could use the budget to override them. Alan Quartermaine’s death being and example of her vs him. Thanks to MVJ spilling that tea. Same thing with Vanessa Marcil’s contract extension- JFP got in the way there too. I suspect she was more the reason Laura didn’t fully return than Bob Guza too, based on what he used to say about Genie and the fact that he seemed to write for her several times.

Maybe. I'm not convinced much of that wasn't Frons, unless someone explicitly said it was Jill. In fact I thought Vanessa explicitly said Brian Frons and ABC wouldn't cover her.

29 minutes ago, Vee said:

Maybe. I'm not convinced much of that wasn't Frons, unless someone explicitly said it was Jill. In fact I thought Vanessa explicitly said Brian Frons and ABC wouldn't cover her.

I don't think Vanessa specified. She wanted more time off for her baby son plus more pay and GH wouldn't give it to her. I always assumed it was more JFP than Frons, but I could be wrong. I do remember a mag (magazines) saying Vanessa wanted a Tony Geary type contract with the same outs and same money. I always assumed she had known outside interest for work and shot for the stars in her new contract and was denied.

9 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I don't think Vanessa specified. She wanted more time off for her baby son plus more pay and GH wouldn't give it to her. I always assumed it was more JFP than Frons, but I could be wrong.

Whereas I always assumed it was Frons (and thought I'd heard such at the time, but who knows.) To me there is no way the ABC of the 2000s would've let Vanessa Marcil walk if he didn't sign off on it. He was that heavily involved at that time especially. With that kind of caliber of decision IMO JFP is just the hatchet man.

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by Vee

9 minutes ago, Vee said:

Whereas I always assumed it was Frons (and thought I'd heard such at the time, but who knows.) To me there is no way the ABC of the 2000s would've let Vanessa Marcil walk if he didn't sign off on it. He was that heavily involved at that time especially. With that kind of caliber of decision IMO JFP is just the hatchet man.

Perhaps. IIRC, Michael Logan broke the exit story and had an interview with her and Vanessa was complimentary of everyone. I got the vibe that it was Jill who wasn't onboard with what Vanessa wanted, but that doesn't mean Frons didn't have the final say. For all I know VM's demands could have been out of reach for the show at the time and Frons or JIll thought they could keep the momentum of the show going without her.

14 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Perhaps. IIRC, Michael Logan broke the exit story and had an interview with her and Vanessa was complimentary of everyone. I got the vibe that it was Jill who wasn't onboard with what Vanessa wanted, but that doesn't mean Frons didn't have the final say.

Jill was never a huge advocate for women lol. And I am sure she contributed to Genie walking. I have no doubt she could've been in agreement with playing hardball on VM, but given how huge Brenda was to GH at that time, how all in they went on her return and how heavy a micromanager Frons was at the time I just can't see him leaving that up to her. Especially when she was routinely shut down on stuff she tried to put over post-2001 (like repeatedly trying to get Kale Browne back onscreen).

59 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Funny to see Alan with his train set after it came up in the recent stories with Monica’s estate.

5 hours ago, Vee said:

Jill was never a huge advocate for women lol

lol. I think Frons had a simpatico minded producer with Jill. She produced a splashy show, and that was what he was always trying to force onto AMC and OLTL and it just didn’t work the same way because they are all three fundamentally different shows at their cores. Nobody in their right mind would think Pratt would be a good fit for AMC.

Cutting vets to impact the budgets is something both of them believed in. The fact that Alan Quartermaine died and then shortly came back as a ghost just reeks of ABC getting cold feet and wanting to lessen the blow, forcing it on Jill. I know Laura waking up was an ABC thing to capitalize on the 25th anniversary of the wedding and also to get Tony and Genie to Super Soap Weekend in 2006.

The stuff with treating the women like crap bts, especially over the men was absolutely JFP. Again, Frons had no problem with misogyny, so he wasn’t going to stop her. I also think the overall nihilistic approach to telling stories fits both of them- they both acted like there was no future beyond a handful of years for soaps so they stopped training new bts talent and had no problem decimating the shows.

There are many little things that you can add up along JFP’s career and see her fingerprints on stuff that happened at GH during her tenure. But Frons shared so many of the same values that it’s hard to fully tell who made which errors.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by titan1978

32 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Nobody in their right mind would think Pratt would be a good fit for AMC.

Even Bob Guza would've been a better fit for AMC than Chuck Pratt.

22 hours ago, Vee said:

I do wonder what the whole Rick/medical consortium subplot, with him repping for a group trying to take over GH, might have led to in the original iteration. What was really insane was 3-5 years later, they casually had Alan and Monica reveal in some C-plot scenes that Monica and Rick had actually briefly picked up their affair again in the summer of '02 entirely offscreen. I choose to ignore that ever happened.

Do you know before I got on this board I assumed the affair did happen on screen and I missed episodes or something lol? I couldn't imagine GH making that up years later lol. I was so naive back then.

9 hours ago, Khan said:

Even Bob Guza would've been a better fit for AMC than Chuck Pratt.

I don’t know, both sound terrible. Maybe I could see Guza on OLTL, with a greater focus on Angel Square and the newspapers. The only soap I can see Pratt on other than GH is DAYS. He would have loved Carrie/Austin/Sami and turning Hope into a bitch!

Pratt absolutely turned Melrose Place into the show to watch when I was a teenager. He’s the one that told them they have a soap, and they might as well take advantage of it. I do think a good writer for GH in modern times should be better at balancing character development and growth with the spectacle and crime elements they are known for, slow it down a bit too! Pratt is too much trash all the time.

Edited 51 minutes ago51 min by titan1978