1 hour ago, Vee said:

I think others have said the only period this could have happened is maybe in late '86 or early '87, when Robert was back in Port Charles for a short stint before returning on contract later in '87. What on Earth was Holly getting up to? Was she that bored lol? And of course it doesn't account for Holly's fake 'death' not long after.

Yes, I remember when they went to Robin and she consulted her journal and said that Ethan couldn't be Robert's as he was in Port Charles during that time. I can't remember if they mentioned Mr Big by name, but it was at least strongly implied that it was during that time when Ethan's conception took place. And tbf, I think the GH of 1987 did have Robert and Holly as having serious marital problems, in fact I think it was even said that Holly had cheated on Robert but had decided to work things out with him when she supposedly died. So in my mind it was always somewhat easy to imagine that the man Holly cheated with was Luke, even if I didn't completely buy that Luke would cheat on Laura.

What the 2009 story did ignore though was Holly's presumed death. I think her 1992 return had explained at least some of the years she was dead as being in a coma for a period of time, so there was speculation that Ethan was a coma baby snatched away from Holly, but in the end it was revealed that Holly had given him up willingly with no mention of her presumed death.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

am not sure why Tracy was so mad.

I think Tracy was just being her usual insecure self whenever another woman being around Luke was concerned, whether it was Skye, Laura, Holly or Anna. It was pretty much all the writers wrote for her back then, either she was insecure about Luke when some other woman was on the scene or mad at Luke for some scheme he had going.

I will never understand why the show is so fixated on Holly’s characterization from her first 6 months on the show, and not the rest of the time when she gave up being a con artist. What’s next, Anna comes out of this crisis with that scar back on her head and we are lead to believe it was always there?

4 hours ago, Vee said:

On a better note, this is one of TG's last scenes as Bill with Sly shortly before Bill's death (timestamped)

I actually liked this cynical Bill the best, and his terrible parenting. What I never agreed with is that Luke would be this way with any kids he had with Laura.

9 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

I don't think GH has ever been a show that's featured great writing. It's a show about charisma.

It's also never really been a show about an ensemble. It's really about lead characters. They've been lucky in casting, that their lead characters have had such charisma, that they carried the show to ratings success

In down periods I don’t disagree. And the lead character stuff is baked in from the beginning when Steve and Jessie were tied to everything happening and were apparently on every day pretty much. Even Claire Labine said they tried to keep Luke and Laura as the axis connected to every story.

What they did do in the 80’s though is you had three hubs- the main umbrella action storyline usually featuring Robert/Anna, the Quartermaines, and Bobbie being in a lead story that was more grounded with other down to earth characters. There was crossover with the hospital and each story, but those were the hubs as I remembered them. It’s been more an ensemble at points during Valentini than most of the other times.

I disagree about the writing though. I cannot speak for pre Monty, but Doug Marland wrote actua stories, as did Pat Falken Smith. It does get rocky from the Ice Princess on, but PFS’s return where she created Robin and the Robert/Anna backstory was a good period too. I would also say Labine through Guza’s exit in 1996 was good. Even Guza’s later era was well written, I just didn’t like what they did with the show. But the scripts were better, the pacing was better, and the characters had a voice all their own.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

Even Guza’s later era was well written, I just didn’t like what they did with the show. But the scripts were better, the pacing was better, and the characters had a voice all their own.

IA. It took Frank Valentini for me to (kinda) appreciate Bob Guza's work on this show. It was dark and ugly and nihilistic af, but it wasn't bland!

6 minutes ago, Khan said:

IA. It took Frank Valentini for me to (kinda) appreciate Bob Guza's work on this show. It was dark and ugly and nihilistic af, but it wasn't bland!

I loathed what Bob Guza and Jill Farren Phelps did to the show. But I can objectively agree the show looked good, was mostly cast well, and it was written with more depth, emotion, stakes and characterization. The problem was the emotion they chose as their overarching theme was misery. And it was misogynistic to the core, and Jill especially seems to gravitate towards the worst attitudes towards women on the show. She likes them needy, young, and not as dynamic as the men. You could argue Carly wasn’t that way but I would say her JFP era characterization was needy/hostile. I would blame Frons but she loved that kind of woman on GL and OLTL. I haven’t watched enough of her AW or Y&R to compare.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by titan1978

3 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I loathed what Bob Guza and Jill Farren Phelps did to the show. But I can objectively agree the show looked good, was mostly cast well, and it was written with more depth, emotion, stakes and characterization.

Exactly. I disagreed wholeheartedly with their point of view, but at least their GH looked and felt more "alive." It's as if Valentini and his team just point-and-shoot scenes without any regard for emotional arcs. (In fact, what I love overall about BTG, despite some minor reservations on my part, is the fact that someone there apparently gives a damn about putting on the best show possible everyday).

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by Khan

31 minutes ago, Khan said:

Exactly. I disagreed wholeheartedly with their point of view, but at least their GH looked and felt more "alive." It's as if Valentini and his team just point-and-shoot scenes without any regard for emotional arcs

I commented this on the monthly thread, but Willow’s recent admissions with Drew could have been at night and been even more effective. A stormy night would have been more epic and memorable, with lightning occasionally making the room brighter. And I liked those scenes. But they could have been better. Dramatized.

My complaint for years is that Valentini seems to run away from drama onscreen.

16 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

My complaint for years is that Valentini seems to run away from drama onscreen.

You know that much is true when even a blizzard - a catastrophic event that Gloria Monty could've produced in her sleep - generates little to no suspense for the audience, lol.

It's like what Shelley Curtis said on Maurice Benard's podcast about needing to find the emotional spine of a screen even under tight circumstances. Under Valentini, scenes don't have emotional spines. They start and then they stop. Nothing is illuminated. Nothing is shared with the audience other than plot - and as slowly as most plots have moved under his watch, that ain't saying much.

Say what you will about Monty or JFP, but at least those two know how to edit scenes in such a way that it fools you into thinking the scenes have a spine or an arc when they otherwise don't. Does Valentini even EDIT his shows, or does he just compile them digitally and then email 'em to whoever needs 'em?

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Khan

2 hours ago, Khan said:

Exactly. I disagreed wholeheartedly with their point of view, but at least their GH looked and felt more "alive." It's as if Valentini and his team just point-and-shoot scenes without any regard for emotional arcs. (In fact, what I love overall about BTG, despite some minor reservations on my part, is the fact that someone there apparently gives a damn about putting on the best show possible everyday).

I'd agree up to a certain point, but by Guza's last few years I think the show was close to as meandering as the current show - there were some stronger actors and scriptwriters, but there were also some ill-advised characters like whatever the hell Emily's double was meant to be, or anyone tied to Franco, the whole Ethan and Luke mess, etc. Beyond the Dante story, which did have a lot of strong moments and should have cemented him as a core character (likely would have if Guza hadn't left), I didn't feel like the show had much of a throughline.

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by DRW50

3 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I loathed what Bob Guza and Jill Farren Phelps did to the show. But I can objectively agree the show looked good, was mostly cast well, and it was written with more depth, emotion, stakes and characterization. The problem was the emotion they chose as their overarching theme was misery. And it was misogynistic to the core, and Jill especially seems to gravitate towards the worst attitudes towards women on the show. She likes them needy, young, and not as dynamic as the men.

A lot of Guza II, especially later Guza II, was nihilistic, edgelord and miserable. But they still had a very strong daily team in place, and you could still find great scenes and explorations amidst the dross. It's why we refer back to it so often around here, because that dialogue team was often stellar and the actors were there with them. There were stories that had potential. And yes, there was so much more texture and layers to many of the characters, and a long sense of institutional memory. For better or worse. That and a more adult sensibility is what I miss most about the Guza years, even as I hated a lot of them. And I miss that skill level a lot these days.

I think some of the sins of that regime are attributable to Frons, as some people in that era (MVJ, etc.) so often like to point to him. But not enough of them. I think it was a perfect storm of misery.

I think part of the reason they kept fixating on Holly's first 6 months on GH is because of Tony, frankly. I think he was clearly enamored with revisiting that last Laura-less period when Luke and "English" were traipsing about, and it got inflated into more than it was. This idea that she is an inveterate con woman ended up defining the latter half of Holly's existence.

It's notable that Laura had also just come out of her catatonia for good at this point, in fall '08. Genie had returned (at her slimmest and very confident) and had clearly had a hand in crafting her return after being unhappy in '06; the Laura that came out of her illness was strong, forthright and took no shít from Luke or Tracy. It was a very solid return and ended up with Laura in a good place, leaving Luke behind. I don't think Tony phoned any of that in onscreen, but maybe he'd felt some type of way in its wake.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by Vee

5 hours ago, Vee said:

It was a very solid return and ended up with Laura in a good place, leaving Luke behind. I don't think Tony phoned any of that in onscreen, but maybe he'd felt some type of way in its wake.

I don’t think he phoned it in then either, and I don’t believe his issues were intentionally directed at Genie. They were his frustrations with his career being so much about GH when he didn’t feel fulfilled by most of what was written for him over his last twenty years. They all knew that Laura return was finite at the time, so he didn’t have to worry about being pulled from Tracy. It seemed to me he was proud of the work but also stifled creatively by the constraints of the genre.

8 hours ago, Khan said:

You know that much is true when even a blizzard - a catastrophic event that Gloria Monty could've produced in her sleep - generates little to no suspense for the audience, lol.

It's like what Shelley Curtis said on Maurice Benard's podcast about needing to find the emotional spine of a screen even under tight circumstances

Nobody’s car even slid off the road! Monty would have wiped out some of those kids in a bus crash!

I think about what Shelley Curtis said all the time when I watch the show. It was so real too. There is plenty of needed exposition for the plots, and those scenes can easily be knocked out quickly with these tight schedules. But every episode should have a set of scenes that are the emotional core that are filmed with a little more care.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

Monty would have wiped out some of those kids in a bus crash!

And she wouldn't have so much as blinked, too, lol!

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

There is plenty of needed exposition for the plots, and those scenes can easily be knocked out quickly with these tight schedules. But every episode should have a set of scenes that are the emotional core that are filmed with a little more care.

I think your last sentence should be applied to every scene, even the ones that could be knocked out in no time at all.

The truth is, if you're watching a show for the plots, then you're watching a bad show, because a GOOD show, and a good soap in particular, isn't about the plots; it's about the relationships between the characters, and what they say about our own relationships. You don't need characters spouting off reams of clunky exposition just to keep the audience abreast of everything (and believe me, that's about 80% of GH these days, lol). Just write the hell out of the relationships between or among the characters, give the actors some subtext to play with, and the exposition will take care of itself.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Khan

11 hours ago, Khan said:

It's as if Valentini and his team just point-and-shoot scenes without any regard for emotional arcs.

THIS.

5 minutes ago, Taoboi said:

THIS.

I swear, I've seen snuff films that took more care in their production and gave their actors more to work with than what Frank, CVE and Korte keep giving GH and its' actors everyday.

(Yes, I've seen a few snuff films. I was a freshman in college, everyone on my dorm floor was bored one night and, well, you can fill in the blanks.)

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Khan

Since it was pointed out earlier online and we know how much I love her...

...today is/was the 49th anniversary of Genie Francis stepping into the role of Laura.

In awe, but I do hope that we are getting something for her 50th next year.