They were clearly under pressure to cast a hotter, hunkier Lucky and it was a huge mistake. He was terrible in the role and should never come back.

I thought Faison had a lot of menace early in his '99 stint, but it got silly pretty quickly. The Felicia angle was awful, and Laura not being involved for whatever BTS reason.

TV Guide Dec 17 1994

Is James GH's guiding light?

seems like everybody in Soapland has either come back from the dead or had a long-lost twin—and for that we can thank Francesca James. As All My Children heroine Kitty Shea, James was bumped off with a brain tumor in 1977 but proved so popular she became the first suds star to “rise from the grave” and return as a look-alike. As Kitty’s identical twin, Kelly Cole, James won even greater acclaim, as well as a 1980 Emmy. And then she gave up acting altogether. Out of guilt for what she'd wrought? Hardly. James, a theater-trained Carnegie Mellon grad, was determined to get behind the camera, and now (after directing and producing soaps for 14 years she is making what many consider an unparalleled contribution: Last May, James signed up as supervising producer of General Hospital, where the difference was both overwhelming and instantaneous. This is not intended to downplay the importance of GH executive producer Wendy Riche (after all, the best bosses hire the best talent and then let 'em do their thing) or the soap’s divine headwriter, Claire Labine.

But with James hands-on in the production booth, guiding actors, designers, and technicians five days a week, General Hospital is soaring like no soap in memory. We're talking movie-quality work here. Timing crackles. Humor and style triumph. Nuance—layers and layers of it—shades every performance (some have become so brilliant they're intoxicating). Camera work and lighting (which James has overhauled) are now so rich and textured they're practically characters unto themselves. In short, we're in heaven! But enough with the superlatives: Clearly, what's paying off in spades here is experience—the kind that knows exactly how to take it off the page, get it on-camera, and then send it shooting into the deepest part of our hearts. Just one question: Why is this so rare?

Thanks @Paul Raven

I remember James getting praise for some of the same when she took over AMC, but production values are not enough.

I do find her fascinating in general.

Edited Tuesday at 11:58 PM2 days by DRW50

19 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @Paul Raven

I remember James getting praise for some of the same when she took over AMC, but production values are not enough.

I do find her fascinating in general.

Yes, thanks @Paul Raven

Her AMC was a mixed bag, but I thought it was better overall than Burke or JHC.

ABC really wanted Wendy Riche to succeed at GH. They clearly stacked her show with talent. Key directors that were from the Monty era stayed. Shelley Curtis came back to the show after being at DAYS a long time. Francesca James, Claire Labine. All those talented women who knew the genre, drama, and Curtis who knew the DNA of what Monty did there in her heyday. And they gave her time to get it right. Had she arrived after 1995 the entire experience would have been different.

I loved when Olivia Rodrigo was first blowing up and was on GMA (or the Today show, cannot remember which), wearing the dress Kimberly McCullough had worn at the Emmy’s as a teen when she won, which was a wedding dress Francesca James wore on All My Children. Kimberly has talked about how important James was to her during the Stone storyline. I just found that so cool.

The Decline and Fall of the Monty Empire

Week Eight (Feb. 17-21, 1986) -- Part I

Terry: "Well, there's no clouds, no shadows, and no ghosts from three years ago in my life now."

Patrick: "Everything's been put to rest?"

Terry: "Everything. What about your ghosts?"

Patrick: "Well ... they're going."

-- the new in-laws, prematurely declaring happily ever after

Laurelton: Just one heading for this week, as the relationships and mystery elements were pretty much integrated. Anna learns that the Purity Water medallion used to kill Earl Moody had what is likely to have been an "O," which apparently was someone's last initial. Actually, it could be either an "O" or a "Q," but obviously they weren't going to plug Edward, et al. into this mess. (I suppose Celia could have done it, as she was the only Quartermaine not preoccupied with Susan Moore's murder.)

Anyway, because of the letter's placement on the medallion, Patrick and Kevin O'Connor are considered more likely suspects than Terry Brock, Jennifer Talbot, and Ted Holmes. Now that we're supposed to take Kevin seriously as a potential murderer, his aggression is ratcheted up several notches. It's things like saying he could kill Patrick for seeming to lose Terry's wedding ring (Frisco was hiding it), or holding Terry too tightly when he puts on her necklace and later gives her a massage, and getting into a fight with Patrick over his failed sexual encounter with Terry on Valentine's Day 1983. Kevin's behavior is plausible, but it would have been more effective if it didn't seem to come out of nowhere.

On the other hand, what appears to be the big reveal about Terry and Patrick has been anticpated for several months. During her intended cathartic journey down Main Street (Sherman should have had such a march), Terry remembers that after fleeing her and Patrick's motel room, she went down that same street while naked, hysterical, and being seen by various Laurelton citizens. It's like the daytime TV version of Isabella Rossellini's nude scene in Blue Velvet, but the similarity is obviously coincidental. After this, Terry once again sings "I Am So Happy (His Way Is My Way)," apparently achieving genuine catharsis while this time, various Port Charles folk watch.

While Anna is literally running through Laurelton to get to the right church (and GH's directors are trying to make it look like Finola is traveling farther than she actually is), and after Terry's fainted (because sure, why not?) and Frisco and Felicia have tried everything to stall the wedding short of hijacking it for themselves, Terry and Kevin are wed. I smirked at how after all that buildup, the actual ceremony's done after five minutes of screentime.

I can understand why Hilary Edson left GH after her contract expired. All of the other Brownstone residents at least have something to come back to in Port Charles. Right now, Tania exists to wear a boring bridesmaid's dress and have her turn with the "Those Laurelton folks are strange!" dialogue.

Similar to Kevin's emerging tough guy routine, there's some tweaking going on with the old guard in Laurelton. It's revealed this week that Terry's pre-wedding march included her seeming to be fixated on the town hall (where her reception ended up not taking place). Later on, Terry says she recalls hearing angry voices at the hall on Valentine's Day 1983. I know that eventually, it's going to turn out that the Laureltonians are more afraid of Terry than she is of them, but that's not coming across on screen. We kept hearing about how Jennifer had to twist arms to get those people to come to the wedding, and it would have been so much more effective to see this apparent tension in a way other than rehashed observations from the Port Charles gang.

Wednesday's episode includes both a meeting of the Purity Water board, which is mostly an excuse to gang up on "weak link" Sarah, and Terry and Kevin's ill-fated wedding night. It's sort of fascinating that in the end, almost everybody eventually got some kind of harsh punishment for Laurelton. Jennifer, Kevin, Ted and Sheriff Broder died. Sarah went to jail. Mrs. Russell lost her husband. Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor lost one son and ended up permanently alienated from another. Patrick and Terry faded away as characters. The winners would be Lucy, and of course, Nestlé, which undoubtedly bought Purity Water for a song at some point.

Tim O'Connor: "You ask the lawyer. Until Earl Moody's will is processed, you are nothing. You are nothing to us, and you are nothing to Purity Water. You don't even belong here. ... You come off that high horse, boy! You don't even deserve to have us give you the time of day. I ought to take you by the collar and bodily throw you out of here."

Patrick: "Watch it, Dad. You're not dealing with your little skinny Patrick anymore."

Jennifer, a little later: "You were a very wild young boy, Patrick. Your father's right. You haven't changed. Too bad you aren't more like your brother, Kevin."

The hatred for Patrick is being presented as a result of Valentine's Day 1983, but I can't shake the feeling that it's all a barely concealed allegory for long-term homophobia. It certainly would have added a bit more nuance to what happened at that motel, if one or both of Patrick and Terry were closeted. Terry being a lesbian would also add an extra wrinkle to why she's resisting sex with Kevin, although the in-universe explanation that she's got trauma works well enough on its own. Anyway, the 1986 audience is being asked to believe that Kevin's decent enough that married or not, he'll wait until Terry's ready for sex.

Kevin and Terry's honeymoon is postponed for an especially contrived reason, even in-universe. Alone in the Brownstone's attic apartment and having just found out about Terry's emerging memories, Jennifer throws herself to the floor. This gives Ted an excuse to call the newlyweds (who are in NYC prior to leaving for the Caribbean) and get them back in Port Charles. It turns out Jennifer's only got a sprained ankle, but naturally, Terry wouldn't even think of leaving her ... and oh, how I loved Bobbie's barely concealed exasperation with the old crone and her lackey. That's what I'm kind of looking forward to in Martha Scott's last weeks, if there will be a time where Jennifer realizes she can't influence the situation or has found out the truth and is now horrified. What can I say, I like when a villain realizes they're powerless.

On other positive notes, I was digging the jazz versions of "It's De-Lovely," "Someone to Watch Over Me," and "Blue Moon" playing during Terry and Kevin's reception. And Kevin Bernhardt had a cute body, so thanks for the underwear scene. It was also fun when Jennifer called the Brownstone a commune.

Note: These commentaries will eventually receive their own thread.

Come to think of it, the big scene with Terry naked on the street does scream JER. It's his kind of dark, psychosexual setpiece. (I don't mean that as a diss, as he did some great ones on DAYS) I don't know why I never thought of it before.