GH: Classic Thread

[Vee]

GH did Genie a disservice, but they also were scared of L&L IMO. It's a fact. Which I can understand, bc I was still all about Luke and Laura at the time; as a young viewer who'd been reared on their return under Labine, I did not buy how they were being kept divided against each other even after 1998, and I hated Luke's affair with Felicia on an intense level (today, a lot of that story seems like a fairly realistic portrayal of a bad midlife crisis for both parties tbh - the mistake was the show attempting later in the story to treat it as legitimate love). I resented Stefan with Laura and their boring picnics and [!@#$%^&*] on a profound level, while also loving Stefan with everyone else. Looking at the show today, I think SN and GF had great chemistry with botched story - it's just that the show neutered them together because they weren't sure where they were going with Luke and Laura together or separately for a long time, until it was too late.

[amybrickwallace]

GH should really have hired younger actors to play Laura and Stefan for flashbacks. Those flashbacks did not make them look younger.

Please register in order to view this content

[titan1978]

The flashbacks worked for me.  SN really brought a lot to making Stefan a successful character.

That was a great year for Laura on the show.  First the Damian Smith murder mystery and trial, then Lulu was sick, which lead to Nikolas and Stefan.  Even though her faked death was stupid, I did love the confrontation scenes she had when they returned with Nikolas, Bobbie, and then the rest of the town as they were dedicating a wing to her and the now not dead Lesley at GH.  I loved those two scenes when Audrey and Monica came to visit Lesley too.

 

I miss all that gothic smog on Spoon Island and the creepy Cassadines.  And what happened to Luke and Laura only worked for me because of the groundwork laid by his very in character reaction to Nikolas, and Laura’s push/pull with her other son and the real feelings she had for Stefan and all her guilt.  But pairing them as an actual couple was a disaster.  The year of grief when Lucky died didn’t help either.

 

I think I’m going to go watch her confrontation with Katherine at the ball and the first parapet fall- it’s the only time I felt awful for Katherine and MBE played it so well.  Laura telling her the dress and the ring were hers, Stefan was molding her into Laura’s image- Since when did we ever look alike?  So great.

It was the hedging their bets.  I did not get the impression that Riche would have gone as far as divorce, due to their iconic nature on the show and the wedding.  So they spent a lot of time not really moving them fully on, or at least not enough to make other relationships work.  Because until JFP divorced them, it was pretty clear they would eventually be back together.  And as Genie has said- they lost interest in writing for her (again, the holding pattern hurt her more than Luke) after Lucky died. 

[amybrickwallace]

May 1998 - just before my high school graduation. Great times.

Please register in order to view this content

That is such a shame. Genie should have been - and still should be - to GH what Susan Lucci was to AMC and Erika Slezak was to OLTL. I don't know why ABC/GH doesn't treat both the actress and the character of Laura like the legends they are.

[titan1978]

At the time it made sense that Laura would be as devastated as she was by both losing Luke and then Lucky dying.  She wouldn’t just get over it.  But they just left her directionless and morose, half pining after Luke and half still upset about Lucky.  She and Stefan felt very temporary to me at that time.  They dug the hole and then didn’t know what to do with her.  She was also an island- they never invested in a career for her, or female friends, so she just kind of sat in her house and cried.  And back then, the best Luke & Laura stories Guza wrote were about Laura- once she went on that endless maternity leave and came back Luke was back being the focus.  Even when they revisited her rape.

 

There was a brief period before Lucky’s death, the show bought her a bunch of new clothes, they had new publicity photos made with her, Tony, and SN, she had a flattering hairstyle with long bangs, and they were trying to give her more glam for a bit.  Then it was back to frump town.

[amybrickwallace]

Here's a screen cap collage that I found on Twitter of the 1998 Bacchanalia Ball - with Katherine Bell falling off the parapet.

Please register in order to view this content

[carolineg]

She actually does favor Laura a lot there but I have never thought they looked alike previously.

I loved that ball. 

[amybrickwallace]

I did, too. The costumes were incredible. 

[Vee]

That was around when they first began teasing Nikolas and Robin - something I think Guza wanted for a long time, along with Nik and Emily. They didn't pull the trigger on Nik/Em til the recast though, and the writing and some of the acting ruined what could've been a great couple. Guza kept teasing TC and Kimberly McCullough together even in the late 2000s, when they were under the thumb of Jerry Jacks, but he still never broke the seal on that pairing.

[amybrickwallace]

Yes, I remember. Nikolas had been shot in front of Luke's nightclub, had a tracheotomy and for whatever reason, Robin was enlisted to help him learn to speak again.

It was certainly an interesting couple concept - Nikolas and Robin did not usually cross paths in the storyline, and it was fun to see each character in somewhat different surroundings with fresh scene partners. It's too bad that the potential pairing never really went anywhere.

Edited July 11, 2021 by amybrickwallace

[carolineg]

I really thought they were going there with Robin and Nik.  And even people like brenda and Jax commented on.  I feel like the show was really stuck on Jason/Robin as endgame until they weren't. Lol.  They had decent chemistry.  It just seemed to be dropped but kmc left not too long after.  She was gone within the year.

[FrenchBug82]

I totally hear it but on the other hand I think of Nichols having a Wally Kurth type deal now and it would have been fun. It is not like they are overwhelming him with stuff to do as Patch anyway.

[titan1978]

Something I learned on Burton’s podcast when he and Bradford interviewed KMc made me laugh.  It was his idea to see if Kimberly was willing to return to the show, he went to Guza and pitched it.  And she said she would but didn’t want to be paired with Jason again, because it was all about him.  So she came back and was why they didn’t go for Robin and Jason again.

It did seem like we were going to get a Nikolas/Robin pairing but they just never followed through.  I liked her with Patrick though- plus we got to have actual hospital stuff again.

[Vee]

The vets got nothing to do beyond stupid little romantic foibles and slapstick with their C or D-level subplots at that time. There was no point and it would've been beneath him and Laura. Genie left that year because Valentini refused to give her a contract, as she was absolutely right to do.

As for 2006 and Robin, they introduced Patrick almost immediately so I am pretty sure he was always the intention for her and was hired to be her love interest. But I do think Guza flirted with using Nikolas there, he just never pulled the trigger on that. I also think that whatever Kimberly's feelings (and I've heard about her request there before), Guza and Jill would never have paired her with Jason again - they considered Robin too uncool for the mob characters. (But it still should've happened at some point)

[carolineg]

Whenever Patch appears in an episode-I am like oh you are still on the show lol!  Him and Kayla rarely have anything to do.  I guess Kayla has stuff with the hospital, but the last thing Patch did was yell at Rafe about dating Ava I think.

I actually think the beginning of Jason/Robin was very balanced.  It was about both of them.  Then it became about Carly/Michael and Jason/Sonny treated Robin like crap and she left.    I did hear KMc wanted no part of a Jason/Robin/Sam triangle, so I guess they just hired JT to play Patrick.  Maybe if that didn't take off they would have paired her with Nik?

Anyhow, I am assuming the Nik/Robin stuff just got sidelined in 1998 when Vanessa left, KMc wasn't far behind,  Sarah Brown went on maternity leave, and MB came back.  I feel like all this stuff happened sort of around the same time or a few months apart, so I just thought things got shuffled around because all those characters and casting changes did sorta effect one another.   I am fairly certain Nik/Robin was the plan with just by the way other characters would talk about it insinuating it was more than it was.  Oh well, what might have been.  I remember Nik being into Katherine for a long time before anything happened though.  He kissed her when Laura faked her death and that was a full year or so before they had sex.

I honestly still ship Jason/Robin and I am probably the only one.  Jason has had other good pairings and I like Scrubs, but I loved me some J&R back in the day.  And I would not be sad if they got back together again.  Stupid Carly has managed to ruin so many things I loved lol!