GH: Classic Thread

[Vee]

They'd just have her turn out to be Pikeman or Sidwell's new wife.

[carolineg]

She does.  Julia even knew Jagger lol.  I don't think too many people remember Julia or a waiting for her to return, but the show actively gave dead Dominique a child.  Julia could even bond with Cody since she was good friends with Dominique and give Cody that casual older woman/younger man fling we've been waiting for.   Julia should team up with Ava against Sonny.  If you gave Julia a child with AJ she would have a very strong motive to destroy Sonny on behalf of AJ and Brenda.

Anyhow, the show seemed to be toying with a Julia return during the Fluke era, so FV is aware of her history and that she exists.   I don't think Crystal Carson acts anymore, so it would probably have to be a recast.  If I ran the show I would bring Julia back first and lay the groundwork for Brenda's return.   It would be very easy to make a Barrett family return work and it would avoid the "Brenda is being threatened by a bad guy" reason she usually returns

Well, that's also possible lol.  I mean I'd rather Julia be Sidwell's wife than Natalia though.

[titan1978]

I felt Julia was one of the bright spots of Monty 2 back then. Even though Fluke was a mess, I wish it had been Bill and we got some of those rumored appearances.

I have a lot of fondness for many parts of Monty 2 through Levinson/Riche. Labine takes what was there and the return of L&L and makes it much better of course.

[Vee]

I suspect they would've gotten Carson back for a cameo during Fluke. Much more MIA soap stars have returned than her. I would be happy to see her return for plenty of visits if possible, but I see no reason to bring back Julia full-time and therefore no reason to recast. I could be persuaded for the right actor and story though. (Hell, Cady McClain hasn't done GH yet.)

[j swift]

I think of Julia and Katherine Delafield as having the same energy, and I'm not sure that type of character is well suited as a romantic interest for Tony Geary.  Using these sort of prissy buttoned-up women didn't seem like an organic match.  Bill/Luke was most successfully paired with a schemer, like Tracey or a Jackie-Templeton-type, to contrast with his iconic pairing with Laura.  Not another blond who requires his help to stay out of danger.

For obvious reasons, it was hard enough to create a sexual vibe with Tony Geary.  But, I don't think it helped that neither woman felt sexually liberated.

Edited December 17, 2024 by j swift

[Khan]

Look, just about everyone here KNOWS how much I stan for Cady McClain - and no doubt, if she were to be cast as Julia, she'd rock it, like she's rocked every other role; and she'd end up taking home another Emmy, too - but if we're gonna put this notion out into the universe, could we PLEASE give her a NEW character to play?  One that she could create from scratch?  She's always been a recast in soaps, and it's just not fair, lol.

[titan1978]

I preferred her chemistry with Ned and AJ. Bill was such a monumental failure. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, from the mid 2000’s on that’s pretty much what Tony morphed Luke into. There was some basis for Luke going dark- Laura’s madness storyline was heartbreaking, and he blamed himself so he pushed everyone away. But he tried to act like this was how Luke had always been and it never rang true to what I saw.

[dc11786]

I felt it worked for a certain vision of the character. A man who made his money going after other people's stuff lost at sea. Someone who was a bit of new money who still was at heart just a rough around the edges working class guy. At least, that's where I imagined they were going with him in the limited stuff I've seen. 

In some ways, Cole reminded me of an earlier character. He was played by Alan Feinstein. He was involved with Bobbie briefly and was the father of one of the younger characters who appeared occassionally. Someone who might have been a bigger player based on the romantic ties and the actor involved, but someone who just didn't work out for one reason or another. 

I could have sworn the Brenda references to her being away skiing were from late 1991. I really enjoy 1992, but I haven't seen much of early Brenda. I did go back and watch the episode that curlyqgrl has listed as mentioning Brenda (December 23, 1991). Julia is talking to a Brenda on the phone, but it isn't clear exactly how Brenda is connected to Julia. I might do a little more research when things slow down because I think it might have been after Christmas and before New Years when Julia explains Brenda is away. 

 

I would have enjoyed a pairing with Julia and Joseph C. Phillip's Justus Ward as power players who are working together against Ned and the Quartermaines to gain control of the company just as Jenny Hornsby becomes vengeful after the death of her husband, Paul, at the hands of some business deal that the Qs were involved in. 

Cody is such an odd character. Given how much of the end of Dominique's life impacted Lucy, the fact there is no Lucy / Cody connection is annoying. I really would enjoy a Julia / Cody relationship especially if it threatened Lucy. 

The final couple of months of Monty 2.0 through Riche's era before Labine has been a real joy to discover. Monty definitely seemed to be recognizing that she needed to readjust and finally found a vision that I think would have been interesting longterm with the addition of Linda Grover. Given Monty's propensity for turnover in 1991, I am not sure how long it would have lasted. 

Early Riche is just really fun even if its mostly just characters going about their business with only loose story threads keeping it all together. The cast was strong enough to carry that sort of day to day writing even without the big story that would come later under writers like Bill Levinson. Early 1990s "General Hospital" is like an elevated "Loving" of the same period with so many shifts in the control seat with each iteration being so wildly different at times and yet mostly enjoyable.  

In watching pre-Labine, it is just very clear that Riche was a true visionary still managing to get the kind of show she wanted even before Labine. Levinson had guided, I believe, "Loving" for a period after Marland's departure through a very seedy storyline involving a former prostitute being led to believe her long lost  daughter was in the care of child pornographers. The fact that Levinson's work doesn't completely teeter over the edge (though it gets pretty close) speaks volumes of Wendy Riche. 

[carolineg]

I have no doubt you are correct.  It could definitely establish a pattern of behavior for Brenda.  I do remember a scene for sure where Julia chided Brenda for being too busy to attend her father's funeral and was only around to collect her inheritance.  I could have sworn it was due to skiing.  Brenda being a good skier was a silly thread they kept around in the 90's when her an Jax went skiing in Canada so Brenda could stalk Sonny.  She intentionally got lost so Sonny could save her and everyone thought it was ridiculous because she was an advanced skier.

There was an implied relationship between Julia/Jerry in 1998.  I think Jax explicitly said they were once involved.  Julia also clearly adored Jax, so I could see a very messy Jerry/Jax/Brenda/Julia quad happening if Vanessa decided to stay.

I agree it's weird there is no Cody/Lucy interaction.  

[titan1978]

Riche clearly wanted gritty, realistic drama, and Levinson enjoyed seedy. When Labine got there she got excellent character driven writing, and Labine was already a more grounded writer. She brought depth and heart.

As we have discussed here in the past, Monty’s instincts were correct. The show needed to be more grounded, it needed class distinction, and did need a shake up. The problem was she didn’t want work with strong enough writers to get her there, mixed with anchoring her new family around Tony Geary not playing Luke. Another actor might have helped the Eckert family.

I think her earlier legendary run is pretty solid all the way through thanks to her fast pace and casting talent saving down periods. But it is at its best when she has Marland, then both Pat Falken Smith tenures. I think her best writing partner was PFS to be honest.

[Vee]

I agree, which is why I think some of the immediate elements of that big splashy revamp with the S.S. Tracy sinking in the harbor work as an umbrella story shaking things up in town with the accident fallout, and bringing in some new people. The problems were many of the characters or actors, the execution and in many cases the follow-up story.

I suppose Stephen Nichols could've worked as a Bill character. But you would still not have an immediate buy-in for an entire family.

[DRW50]

@dc11786 I'd never thought of early '90s GH as being similar to Loving, but I can see it now.

I think Crystal is now an acting coach, so she's not entirely out of the business. 

[carolineg]

She is or at least that's what the internet tells me.  It seems like she's doing quite well.  If the pictures on Crystal's website are anywhere near current she looks fantastic.  I just don't think she actively seeks out jobs on screen anymore.  She seems pretty proud of her GH work and I think she would be game to return-just not full time.  I also don't think Julia would be a particularly hard role to recast.

[dc11786]

Julia Barrett as a construct is interesting. Groomed to be her father's successor, she has an Electra complex that manifests itself into a relationship with men who are very much like her father (Bill, Ned), who having a level of business accumen who respect her own business sense enough to partner with her in the boardroom, and the bedroom, but rarely let her be in control of the situation. Bill killing Harlan adds a near Oedipal twist on it with Bill as the pseudo son killing the tyrannical father that complicates the relationship with the daughter he loves. Throw in the complicated dyanmic with Julia and Sly, the loss of Nancy seems to cause him to attach himself to his father's girlfriends even once Bill has passed them over. 

I'll be curious to see her relationship with A.J., which is set up quite nicely in May, 1993, between A.J. resolving the Nikki scenario so taht he can move on and Dominique's death propelling Julia to recognize her own desire to have a grand love like Dominique and Scotty. 

If Labine didn't join the show, I am curious if Julia had more mileage in her. With Riche's interest in exploring more modern issues, I could easily see Julia becoming artificially inseminated to raise the child on her own only to have to rectify her position in the business world and how society views women executives raising children.  

Here's where Julia mentions having a sister. 

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I think Harlan may have mentioned having daughters early on to Tracy during a conversation about his family. 

A Monty-less GH between her two stints falls into the trap that "Days of our Lives" fell into between the two Reilly stints. There is a desperate attempt to maintain that energy that Monty 1.0 brought to the table without all the flourishes. Hardy and Palumbo's GH doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the table in a positive way. Casey the Alien was a flop. Dawn and Decker fail to ignite becasue you rotate through 3 Dawns and Michael Watson's film career. The domestic stuff with the long term characters was great. Scotty / Tracy. Lucy / Alan. Tony / Bobbie / Lucas. Harrison / Simone / Tom. Ned / Wendy. Rita Lloyd Jones. The big stories though just never really worked.

There was definitely a shake up needed, but I think the other issue is Monty wasn't willing to give up the 1980s like she claimed she did.  The Cartel is very Monty circa 1983. Connor the singer as the new Frisco Jones. Even Dominique #1 and Mac were more super couple of the 1980s. 

Shows rarely can make those revamps work without continuing some of the stories that were in place to a lesser extent. Throwing every story out the window was a mistake. I would have continued the Lucas story at least several more months with a mini-custody trial. By then, Lynn Herring would have been back from maternity and you could revamp up the revenge plot involving Lucy going after Alan for his involvement in her baby's death and playing into Alan's own plot to hurt Rick and Monica, which had already been alluded to in January, 1991.

Also, Monty was shopping a Portland based soap opera within a year of her return to GH. Grafting elements on from failed soap bibles doesn't always pan out. I think recasting most of the Eckerts would have  helped a little, but the characters were paper thin. Grover's version and Levinson's version, both very different, of Angela Eckert were much more appealing than the original. Offing Fred was a smart move. I don't know when they figured out the direction for Jenny, but it started to gel with the Paul / Jenny / Ned / Tracy story. 

[Vee]

Michael Malone of course infamously did this at Another World with his 13 Bourbon Street pilot for Fox (someone has got to go to Duke University and smuggle a rip of it out from Malone's bequeathed archives there, and FWIW when it happens I didn't do it!). And probably some of his second run at OLTL. I'd forgotten about Monty's Portland soap.