@titan1978 Really appreciate your insights. There's so much I've read in fan magazines (like what you mentioned about the response to Duke's second death) but it doesn't beat hearing from someone who watched at the time.

I am surprised they did keep Olivia on so long after she caused Anna to have a miscarriage. Tonja Walker was so dynamic, but that's a lot.

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

There's so much I've read in fan magazines (like what you mentioned about the response to Duke's second death) but it doesn't beat hearing from someone who watched at the time.

I was pretty young but I was into GH and Anna was my favorite character until I was a young teen and we got to Karen/Jagger/Brenda/Jason/Robin/Stone times.

What I remember the most about that Duke story was being upset that they essentially killed him again and broke Anna’s heart all over again and it felt like it was all for no reason and cruel and felt forced. As basically a kid it was probably the first time I was consciously aware of backstage issues destabilizing the onscreen product.

I know there have been rumors that the actor was difficult to work with, and also that the fan response was not what they wanted. But by the time the reunion/death happened I do recall people were more upset with him being killed off, and it showing up in soap mags. So at some point there was an audience that wanted to at least see them together as Duke/Anna and try it out.

I remember thinking Greg Beecroft was attractive and very intense, and would have preferred he not really be Duke and maybe see what they could have made of that. He just didn’t seem like Duke at all, even though Ian played him as very intense as well. But his Duke had charm and sex appeal, and Beecroft’s Duke was kind of remote. He would have made a fantastic Cassadine. Honestly I also remember thinking GB’s Duke and Julian Jerome should just kiss and get it over with. I haven’t watched that story since I was a kid, I wonder if it would trigger my more advanced gaydar of today?

Edited January 3Jan 3 by titan1978

I just have found Greg Beecroft obnoxious in every role I've ever seen him in. I have admittedly seen very little of his Faux Duke, but I found him wildly miscast from the jump and then bizarre and effete in the actual part. I have no idea why on Earth he was cast.

Edited January 4Jan 4 by Vee

11 minutes ago, Vee said:

I just have found Greg Beecroft obnoxious in every role I've ever seen him in. I have admittedly seen very little of his Faux Duke, but I found him wildly miscast from the jump and then bizarre and effete in the actual part. I have no idea why on Earth he was cast.

I haven't seen a lot of him as Duke on GH...I think his best work in what I've seen was as Brock on ATWT, although that's a little tarnished knowing Melanie Smith disliked working with him. I would guess his work as tortured mobster Brock on ATWT is why he was cast.

Edited January 4Jan 4 by DRW50

9 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @dc11786 . I always mean to watch more of that period, but your summaries are often more compelling than what is onscreen for these shows.

I didn't realize Lucy was gone when her entire family was written out. Maybe that was for the best as it would have been depressing to see her taken fully back to nothing.

1990 is a tough sell. I enjoyed it when I was watching it, but I have no desire to revisit it. I understand why there are people who are fans of edits. The Alan / Monica / Lucy stuff and the Scotty / Tracy stuff is fun, but often so much else is either underplayed (Bobbie / Tony / Lucas until late in the year and Tommy Hardy's paternity) or is such C-grade leftovers from the action and adventure era that has some interesting scenes. I did like elements of the Ned / Decker / Dawn romance (mostly the Wendy Masters material and Monica's angst over the secret she had slept with Ned) and some of the Greco stuff is interesting only because it is class conflict stuff that enhanced the Lucy / Alan story.

Lucy has a complicated relationship with her family in 1990. She has little to no use for Decker because he is always involved with something. When Lila hires Decker as the mechanic, Lucy is mortified. She doesn't like Colton romancing the maid. It's different than a lot of the other parts of the show, but Lucy could take or leave her family. I think she was close to Charlene in 1990, but so much of 1990 can be kinda weird with Charlene. There was a pseudo romance with Drago and Decker slut shaming her a lot.

8 hours ago, carolineg said:

@dc11786 Thanks so much for your detailed response. I always felt that Colton was basically replaced by Mac as well, but I didn't really recall all that nonsense he went through before he left lol.

Anyhow, Katherine is another character I am intrigued by because her and Robert appear to have a following and she is dumped. Of course, it's probably Monty's vision, but I do think it may have been a poor decision as well. Although it is hard for me to see a character like that last through Labine or Guza's 90's.

Colton probably rakes up a good amount of episodes in 1990. I felt like the Carla / Colton threat was reaching a natural conclusion, though I think there may have been some beats they were considering with Carla's mother in town. I think the Greco father was an academic or intellectual who was missing or presumed dead, but then they got the proof. I thought Frankie was interesting and having the Frankie-Colton dynamic could have produced some more drama in the Edge Jackson plot as Frankie went to work as a videographer and planned to film Frisco's music video.

Katherine's exit was under Hardy. She last appears around Thanksgiving and Gloria Monty's first day in the studio was early December, though her name doesn't appear in the credits until late January/early February. It's possible that Monty did some uncredited consulting before that, but she was also in contention to takeover Santa Barbara in the same period.

I think Hardy / Palumbo wanted to do Robert / Anna for most of the year. I felt the climax of the Wellington collection plot involving Sean Donnelly in the hospital confessing he had arranged for the Faison / Anna affair in the 1980s in order to split up Anna / Robert for the good of the agency was to push Robert and Anna back together. The Anna / Faison / Robert story ending with Robert / Anna seemed like the natural conclusion. There is a lot of effort made to make Katherine work by giving her the club and trying some screwball romance scenes with Robert / Katherine before the dominatrix scene. I think the best shot at grounding her in the canvas was bringing her into the Quartermaine circle.

2 hours ago, Vee said:

I didn't know until I went to the insanely detailed GH wiki that Wyndemere was actually built by the founder of Wyndham's Department Store! And has a strange, spooky gothic origin story on par with something like Dark Shadows or Arkham Asylum from the Batman comics, where the estate's namesake (Wyndham) was supposedly haunted to his grave by ghosts. They could make more of that today for a Halloween story - I know they tried to do a bit of a ghost story (or faux-haunting) there around that time in '89, I assume when Wyndemere was first introduced.

There is a rather elaborate, from what I recall, costume party sequence that I believe was mostly focused on Decker and Sharon Case's Dawn.

2 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I actually liked Colton but there really wasn’t much there after Frisco returns. He’s essentially a decent guy that doesn’t have the right kind of ties to build on in that era. He’s not part of the WSB/PCPD group, he’s not tied to the Quartermaines, and he’s not a doctor or in the medical profession for the hospital stories, or romantically involved with a core character. At that time on GH you really needed at least one of those ties to succeed. It’s not like Young and the Restless where stories rarely overlapped. GH stories really did a lot of crossover.

I adored Charlene and was sad when sh

e left. Without those characters I don’t know if Lucy lasts as long as she did. It allowed more exploration of Lucy beyond just her schemes. Lucy seems to be an acquired taste but I have always loved Lynn and am happy for every second of screen time she has. I hate that GH never capitalized on Serena, especially since Carly was great and they had an opportunity to continue to grow her up in real time like Robin.

You are right that Colton was never at the heart of any of the main nexuses but always on the periphery of all of them. He flew the medical chopper for GH. His connection to the Grecos and Lucy put him in the range of the Quartermaine. His military background and his knowledge of the hospital was used by the PCPD during the siege story. I think Colton was a good utility player, but also easy to replace.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

That Duke story is another one of the strange things that happened in those couple of years between Monty tenures that hurt the show. All that time and effort setting it up and selling it only to have him die again just as he and Anna were reuniting. I know it wasn’t very popular, but I have also read people started to get into it and were pissed when they killed him off. At the time I remember not liking it but also not being happy with how it wound up. Then on the heels of that debacle comes Casey the Alien. Finola almost had Deidre Hall levels of difficulty selling some wild stories back to back.

I don't even think fakeDuke is on two months. And those stories are literally back to back. Duke dies on Monday and Casey crash lands on Friday in the same week.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

Honestly I also remember thinking GB’s Duke and Julian Jerome should just kiss and get it over with. I haven’t watched that story since I was a kid, I wonder if it would trigger my more advanced gaydar of today?

There is a very homoerotic Duke / Julian Jerome scene set in a steam room where Duke is hiding in the heating vent and is watching a towel clad Julian who is styled in a Jesus like way performing a last supper monologue for a group of mobsters. I'm missing a bit of FEbruary, 1990, so I'm not sure how much more homoerotic tension there is between Julian and Duke, but it wouldn't surprise me.

10 minutes ago, dc11786 said:

1990 is a tough sell. I enjoyed it when I was watching it, but I have no desire to revisit it.

When I was a kid and again a few years ago on rewatch I thought Wes Kenney’s tenure was much better than Hardy’s. Although Hardy was in charge when some of the sets were upgraded, including the Q mansion which was a beautiful set compared to the original (which was a good set too, just not as grand or rich looking).

8 hours ago, MissPalmer said:

In this Youtube channel, we have multilanguage and we can listen to GH in English from German episodes!!!!!

Thank you! This is really interesting tech. The emotion is not quite there, but it's watchable and a decent translation.

The Decline and Fall of the Monty Empire

Week One (Jan. 1-3, 1986)

Ted to Kevin: "... You're a very bright, considerate young man, and we both know that you love Terry very much."

Kevin turns to Terry and gives a "sure, I guess" head shrug

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

There's three primary stories in this batch, and a decent amount of character and relationship stuff, which is honestly more interesting.

Laurelton -- We're in the questions on top of questions stage. Who killed Neil Johnson, Kevin and Patrick's cousin? Is Terry capable of murder? Is Patrick? What happened in Laurelton on Valentine's Day 1983? Patrick is presented as the most suspicious and erratic party, so I imagine that was the clue for viewers to turn their attention to either Terry, Jennifer, or Ted. I'm going to try keeping an open mind as I watch this story play out (after all, I've got Lucy's arrival to look forward to!), but right now, I'm more interested in the character stuff. We've got Anna trying to prove herself worthy as being co-chief of the Port Charles Police Department. I also really like Bobbie disapproving of Kevin & Terry's engagement. She says some lines that are interesting to me in light of our discussing Bobbie's mindset before marrying Tony.

"You don't get married to achieve stability. You have to be stable in order to get married, and stay married. I think you have it backwards, Jennifer."

Sean & Monica's Affair -- Be still my heart, Sean wooed Monica with his Great American Songbook mixtape! It's a nice contrast to the posturing exhibited at separate times by Alan ("Every woman has a little bit of Mata Hari blood in her. Why would you be different?") and Edward ("We Quartermaine men always satisfy our women, Alan. Don't ever forget that. ..."). When it comes to this storyline, like Monica said, there's nowhere to go but up.

Mike Webber's Paternity -- Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the last two episodes of December 1985, which included Mike learning that Derek's his father. Mike begins 1986 living at Kelly's (like Ruby doesn't have enough to deal with ...) while Rick and Ginny are anguished. Did Ginny, Mike, or Rick Jr. get mentioned at all when Rick Sr. returned?

Relationship Roundup -- Anna & Buzz lead this section. I don't outright hate them together, but I'm feeling a Sherlock & Watson chemistry rather than anything romantic. Other pairs in this batch include Frisco & Felicia (she learns that "Sam," his police partner, is "Samantha"), Yank & Jade (he wants to start anew), and Jake & Bobbie (he fails at keeping Anna from finding out Bobbie's gone to Laurelton). There's also Jimmy Lee & Celia, and Tony & Tania, but neither did anything interesting.

Other thoughts:

-- Robin being adorable, wondering why Buzz has to work on New Year's Day ... not a bad way to start my journey.

-- Scoffing at '80s hair is too easy, but my heart breaks for Sherilyn Wolter and Robyn Bernard, both having to sport 'dos that aged them. On the other hand, there's an endearing retro charm to Anna taking off an earring to talk on the phone and then putting it back on afterwards.

-- Jade took "New year, new me" to heart. On Jan. 1, she says she's going to stop working at the tearoom in the Asian Quarter. On Jan. 2, she's a student nurse at GH.

-- Today in Jack Wagner being wacky: Frisco breaks into a slight strut walk as he and Sam walk arm in arm out of the PCPD gym.

-- If I'm not mistaken, "Someone to Watch Over Me" played on two soaps this week in '86. Besides Sean and Monica listening to Sinatra at his penthouse, there was Kim Hughes listening to herself at Doug Cummings' shrine.

-- Speaking of that penthouse, it's the one Robert lived in and the one where Luke had his pre-wedding address to Port Charles. It's not the same penthouse where Tracy was going to let Edward die of a heart attack -- the entrances are on opposite sides.

-- Today I learned Laurelton's in the South. For whatever reason, I was thinking it was in Upstate New York.

15 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I can see her as part of the renewed focus music that happened during Riche’s first few years though. I could see her as a partner in The Outback and playing music there. Or exploring another aspect of her talents and she plays in Mary Mae Ward’s recording sessions, etc. but I also don’t see her as a major player.

I did not really like her to be honest when this was airing. I had preferred the angst of Robert/Cheryl and original recipe Julian Jerome, and by the time Katherine and fake Duke were there I was ready for Robert/Anna.

That Duke story is another one of the strange things that happened in those couple of years between Monty tenures that hurt the show. All that time and effort setting it up and selling it only to have him die again just as he and Anna were reuniting. I know it wasn’t very popular, but I have also read people started to get into it and were pissed when they killed him off. At the time I remember not liking it but also not being happy with how it wound up. Then on the heels of that debacle comes Casey the Alien. Finola almost had Deidre Hall levels of difficulty selling some wild stories back to back.

It's funny because I find Katherine more memorable than Cheryl. Obviously, Cheryl is much more important in the long run. Idk, she's just blends in to me when I watch if that makes sense? Although watching old episodes, knowing how things will turn out, probably affects my viewing. I can't bring myself to care about Cheryl, but she could have been better day to day at the time. Obviously 80's styling did no one any favors, but Cheryl always seems old and plain to me lol.

I also like what I see of Katherine Delafield. She's got spunk. But it's hard to buy any of these women as a patch on Holly or Anna as a love interest for Scorpio.

@dc11786 Thanks for the rundown about Lucy and her family. From what you've said it sounds like Charlene was the only loss to Lucy's story. I am reminded of when Santa Barbara gave Gina relatives around the same time, which also didn't last long.

I had no idea Monty almost produced Santa Barbara. She would have been better than Rauch.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

I had no idea Monty almost produced Santa Barbara. She would have been better than Rauch.

I agree. I don't know whether she would've been able to save SaBa, but I do think it would've gone out on a better note.

28 minutes ago, Khan said:

I agree. I don't know whether she would've been able to save SaBa, but I do think it would've gone out on a better note.

We know she wouldn't have been smoking a cigar and stamping it out for the final scene.

I never watched Santa Barbara, but I have read plenty about it. Could anything have saved it? That show was truly a BTS minefield. And Monty notoriously does what she wants to when it comes to writing, which would seem to not suit that show at all.

13 hours ago, DRW50 said:

We know she wouldn't have been smoking a cigar and stamping it out for the final scene.

Maybe the infamous sound of her heels clicking on the stage floor as it fades to black. A sound that terrified many GH performers/crew over the years.