GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

I am one of the first to complain about the OLTL characters on GH, but Tea/Sonny works for me in theory.  It really does seem like an organic, in character pairing for both characters and really anything would have been better than Connie. 

I am trying to remember all the intricacies of the baby switch storyline and I don't have the energy to even look up a synopsis, but IIRC it did feel like it was ended quickly.  I know Tea had a rough road too, but Sam was really taking the hits during that period and I don't know if I would have enjoyed the show dragging that story out longer.   I don't even like Sam and I remember thinking the poor girl couldn't catch a break.

[Vee]

My understanding at the time is that there was some concern from the network that there would be too much of the OLTL crossovers, so certain things were toned down. That was what I'd heard even before DC and Jamey came out with the Sonny/Téa reveal several years after Ron was fired. But I think the biggest factor ultimately was Steve leaving, so the story got wrapped fast. Later the network grew much more concerned about it and then the new management I believe were allegedly the ones who told Frank to waste Franco the serial killer and vetoed bringing back rapist Todd post-#MeToo.

Not that they would have ever bothered with it, but Guza's team would've had a field day with Sonny and Téa. He was exactly her type. I agree that the story probably ended when it should have though. I still can't get over Ron making Carly choose Todd over Jason. I don't care whatever other issues I had with the pairing and Carly ultimately being a Blair rebound for Todd (much as Carly later rebounded from Jason with Franco and now Drew) - Carly would never have chosen anyone, let alone a man she'd only recently met, over Jason. Still wouldn't.

[carolineg]

Agreed about Carly/Jason.  I would say I don't think Ron had a very good grasp on Jason or Carly as characters.   Maybe Steve let people know he was going to leave early on, but Jason was written horribly out of character in regards to Sam and that baby.   I could be wrong because OLTL history is not my specialty, but I felt like Ron viewed Carly/Blair as very similar and almost interchangeable and missed some important nuances to Carly and her relationships.  I don't think Ron got Sonny as a character either, but I actually think Sonny came out looking decent with his stories.

[Vee]

I think Ron and Frank at that time were just amped to make the shows deeply intertwined with big couples so OLTL could live on in some way, and also felt it would goose ratings from the other audiences (which it did in part, along with some big returns and the Robin saga) - I think their dreams of an omni-soap with GH as a safe haven for all of ABC's cancelled soaps were real, and at that time people thought they could do no wrong so they got away with a lot. I think there were good ways to utilize ABC's other properties on GH in a careful way, and then there were bad ones. They did plenty of both in that time. Frank has been forced to tone it down a great deal since, but they still sneak stuff in where they can. (I won't complain about Nora Buchanan's occasional appearances though, especially since the dialogue in her last one retroactively fixed Marty Saybrooke's character after Ron ruined her lol) I liked a lot of stuff about the crossovers, but they made a lot of mistakes and it became too much.

Re: Blair, I should really just be grateful most of the OLTL spouses/love interests didn't get killed off in vehicle crashes like Cole and Hope or Vicky Hudson or most leftover characters when their husband or wife gets ported to another soap over the decades. But you could tell even before OLTL ended that Ron had his favorites and biases and Blair was not among them, which is a whole other conversation. This was a supercouple where they had been parted for almost a decade before reuniting at the very end of the show and splitting again, and then he goes to another town and falls for a woman very much like his longtime love down to her looks, while the past fanbase is left on a perpetual string teasing the ongoing subplot instead of making any real decisions. Again, Roger and Laura absolutely had chemistry and I didn't blame LW for any of it. I just didn't buy him falling for her, I felt it was ultimately a very superficial story and easy to cast as a rebound when he left town (something Todd even alluded to without mentioning Carly by name on OLTL 2.0). I was more into the weird chemistry he had with Kelly Monaco at the time, when Sam went undercover at the Intruder/PC Press/whatever (though I liked John and Sam). The Guza writing team Ron and Frank had dumped could've made Todd and Carly more interesting to me, though. Anyway, it all worked out.

I think we've discussed the Jason thing. I was really into Jason suddenly becoming very flawed and human - being repulsed by what Franco had done and pulling away from Sam despite himself, hiring goons to beat up McBain. Ultimately Jason was a mob enforcer and a killer and that's the kind of shīt those guys do to people that get in their way. I understand why the audience and probably actors were up in arms over it. I just didn't care because I hated Jason and the show's past worship of him lol. It was a more honest and complex portrayal of the character to me, it humanized him because for the first time in decades I no longer knew what Jason might do next. And this is the same kind of gloves-off approach, BTW, that Guza had increasingly used with Sonny in the later years when he began to tire of Maurice - he began actively letting the stories and characters who loved him criticize and examine him.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee

[carolineg]

I like the idea of the ABC soaps all existing in one universe.  I don't mind crossovers.   It was just too much at once and if they introduced them more slowly it could have worked (not considering the lawsuit and other issues of course).

In regards to Jason, I don't mind him being human and flawed, but it felt like this character change was literally made to prop McBain and Sam.  Who were honestly good on their own and I have no idea why GH has never gone back to an Easton/Monaco pairing since then.  I am not retroactively turning into a Jasam shipper, but it was a pretty crappy way to give them conflict when you have been told for years Jason is awesome and Jason/Sam are the greatest couple ever.  Your points are very valid, but I was definitely part of the audience that felt like Jason was deliberately thrown under the bus for an OLTL character.  But, I mean, how many GH characters were thrown under the bus for Jason/Sonny, so I guess it's fair.  

[soapfave06]

Wow, that’s interesting.

I hate Sonny (haven’t enjoyed him since Kate 1.0) and love Tea but I agree the Guza writers would have hit gold with that. 
 

It never would have happened but I would have preferred Guza stay for the mob side of PC and Carlivati for the vet side but both would have imploded regardless.

As for GH as a quasi soap, I would have liked to have seen the Hubbard’s and David Hayward at GH, been okay with a few OLTLers and then revamping GH as they did. 
 

I am one of the few who adored the Prospect Park shows though and was sad to see they failed. 

I never looked at it like that at the time, I was so over Jason and Sonny they could have stayed under the bus and I never would have looked back but one thing that kept GH sailing was the almost solid dialogue and character focus that Guza and writers did and that, sadly, went out the window. 

[Vee]

Oh, he totally was lol. But how many people had gone under Jason's wheels? I just didn't care. I also thought it was, again, a human and complex reaction the likes of which Jason hadn't had in decades. It made him more compelling to me when he was allowed to be wrong.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee

[AMCHistory]

A good story is a good story, cross over or not. The OLTL-ers did a lot revive the Port Charles canvas around the 50th Anniversary. Todd and Carly were the unexpected pairing that we needed. The chemistry between Roger and Carly was so hot. The characters, two town scoundrals, working together, worked.

McBain was more interesting in Port Charles than he was on OLTL. I still remember the rain scene at the end of the water poisoning storyline, the fire between Sam and McBain was palatable.

The tongue and cheek of the Tea, Blair, Skye reunion was the nod longtime fans wanted. Throwing Carly into the mix, realizing she had a tense relationship with all four characters, was the character-driven storytelling at its finest.

I can only dream of how many more "good" RC years we would have gotten if his plans were not so de-railed by Prospect Park. GH was on a creative renaissance then. It was such a disservice pulling the OLTL characters. The actors (KA, RH, and ME) have all suffered in their new role(s) since then. 

This has been a long-time fan dream, even when VI left AMC in the mid-00's. He is a doctor, he is a pot-stirrer, he and Finola's chemistry is off the charts.

I wonder if VI would be open to returning to Soaps. Days did him no favours. His son has had a lot of personal issues. 

[Vee]

I liked the initial crossovers but I loved the Prospect Park soaps and I thought GH was on a healthy upswing when they left, so I have no regrets. But that's me. I did like John and Sam (and I had despised John on OLTL) and Michael and Starr, but here we are.

I would have Angie appear today tbh, if Debbi Morgan was willing, as a guest as part of an abortion rights story with Portia challenging local law at GH. But that's totally OT and more related to GH's current abdication of its responsibility to relevant medical stories. You could even be cute and have some people think she's Ellen Burgess, who knows.

I do think David would've been great to bring on mixing it up with people from time to time. But unfortunately Frank and Ron going too far with the crossovers and multiple failed roles for Howarth and Easton has poisoned the well, I think, for any more of that.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee

[soapfave06]

I love that idea, a shame it will never happen! 

It would have been cool to see Jesse working alongside Mac, Robert, etc and Angie at GH as COS with David causing problems for Liz, Monica, Patrick, etc at the time 

I think Anna and David were great from what I’ve seen and David/Angie/Jesse were fireworks for me from PP.

I agree, I don’t know what they did different with John on GH as my memory fails me but he was fun, I do kind of hate they made him the center of Faison’s unmasking though. 

If they could have maintained a balance of recurring rotation of GH 80s vets in a good spy mystery alongside the mob, the hospitals and the community social issue stories GH would really be the show to watch. They try, but they play too safe and build up to absolutely nothing. I still applaud them though compared to the sister soaps. 
 

Honestly the merry go round of OLTLers playing new characters every year, moving Liz to the sidelines, failing on the social issue stories (what happened to Terry? And what about Jake or one of Liz’s kids being gay?) among other soap mistakes (Y&R wasted their chance to modernize and diversify their cast circa 2017-2018, B&B wasted the Avants circa 2016, so on) led me to drop soaps period. 

[carolineg]

I thought FV and RC did enough at the beginning of their run on the GH side of things that I didn't miss the OLTLers at all.  It was more jarring the way they left and couldn't be spoken about than me actually missing them.

And while I love an idea of a hybrid soap I do think it should be online or in a different space than actual GH.  They have so many characters that are vets of GH they can bring back.  There are absolutely characters that could fit, but I'd be pissed if David Hayward joins the show and Frank won't bring back friggin Brenda Barrett.  To be fair though, I am generally pissed when anyone is cast and it's not Vanessa, so I probably don't speak for the entire GH audience.

[Vee]

I just think it was the right character on the right show. It amused me to no end when half the town acted scandalized when John would run Jason or Sonny in on random crimes and he'd just shrug and be like 'why not?' That's who he was, the job was always his first love, that and the latest unattainable woman. I despised him on OLTL and I hated his treatment of Natalie and others, but in a place where he could be in his element, he worked.

Terry is still around, but while I think she's lovely representation to have I would not give that actress major story lol. I found the whole 'Aiden likes pretty things - is he, you know 

Please register in order to view this content

' story offensive and a lead balloon because it went nowhere and had no real message. I would give Jake the gay story because he'd be a surprise after the whole Aiden thing, because it would make Jason's kid LGBT and because Hudson West is very good and could carry major youth story if they invested in him and locked him in, which they won't.

I rag on it daily but it's improved a lot since a few years ago. There is a lot of potential in the current show, and some characters and elements I really enjoy in addition to a ton of crap and boilerplate stuff. They are very afraid of rocking the boat and wrecking their delicate survival balance, so they cater to a very conservative audience existing largely in their minds as well as Frank's own fascinations and preferences dating back to the first Obama administration.

It's an easy and bold story to tell: Some local politico in the Port Charles area of NY state games the state courts, like the GOP are doing all over in real life. This politician gets a temporary abortion ban across that cross-section of the state. A week later: Joss’ period is late. She gets an infection or some other pressing medical problem, like so many women are currently dealing with in those states while given no help. But the staff at GH’s hands are legally tied. They can't wait because of her condition, and because it will take months or weeks for the ruling to overturn the temporary ban to go into effect, again like many other parts of the country atm. So Portia and co. (with the aid of Special Guest Star Angie Hubbard, whose final Agnes Nixon-inspired story on AMC 2.0 was also a direct assault on the GOP forced birth movement) break the law and do the operation. That’s a hot button story, it features a popular current lead of color that the diverse audience the show has always had is behind, and it's the kind of story GH used to be unafraid to tell.

But hey, they ain't payin' me!

Yeah, that's the fundamental issue at this point. They took it too far and now no one wants to see it. Nora from OLTL is one of my favorite characters of all time but every time she turns up now even I'm like 'really?'

Edited April 25, 2023 by Vee

[carolineg]

I think another issue for me in regards to the OLTL characters, is that I felt like GH was on borrowed time.  We were not sure how long GH was going to last and I was wondering why so much of the story was being eaten by characters that were from a different show that was also cancelled.  Obviously, here we are 10 years later, but at the time everyone thought GH was not long for the world. 

Honestly, a lot of these ideas about bringing characters from different shows into GH arcs sound good and I would probably watch them, but I would absolutely prefer Lois or a Quartermaine come back from the dead than see Angie Hubbard.  Everyone's mileage may vary on this, but there are probably 20 GH characters I would prefer to see before any characters from other shows.   On the other side of the coin if you switched out, say, Valentin for David Hayward/VI I wouldn't be mad lol.

 

[Vee]

I completely agree. But I'd also only have Angie on for a couple days! 

Please register in order to view this content

[carolineg]

Well, if you were in charge at GH I would have full confidence in you.  I know you would cut 90% of the characters I find useless and the show would have room for Angie.