GH50: Discussion for the month of July...

[AlexElizabeth]

Ron says that Brad isn't a predator - he's an opportunist.

[ChitHappens]

Of course, she'd say that.

Brad wouldn't be so bad if the story of him misplacing his hate was played out. As it stands, it's just funny (to some). Why not tell the story of a gay person who has issues with straight men as a result of being forced "out of the closet" or being spurned by a bi/trisexual lover? It's all about the story! This will be over in a week and Brad will move onto something else foolish. Why not get Felix to hlep Brad see how ridiculous he is being? Felix needs to be out of the Sabrina vortex of suck, and these guys could have their romantic story.

Do it Crappy! I dare you!

[jcar03]

Baby Ariel's death will be a clip on "The Soup" tonight per The Soup's facebook page.

[alexisfan07]

LOL of course

[alexisfan07]

Why do I get the feeling that Britt is gonna end up like Stacy with Patrick and Sabrina raising her kid?

[DRW50]

What does that even mean? An opportunist would be asking someone for a date when you know they're lonely and not at their best. A predator tries to force a rape victim who has no interest in you to have sex with you.

[ChitHappens]

Veronica is super happy about this...

[AMCHistory]

Britt and Sabrina... I am still not sold on either. I think they can just dissappear.

I

[greens_dupres]

For Ron thats basically the same as an Emmy.

Even sadder this is a show that was once honored by the Red Cross, the Ryan White Foundation, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and others for its intelligence and humanity in dealing with important social issues.

Now we get Baby Ariel on The Soup. Thanks Ron. Disclaimer- I haven't always hated his work- outright enjoyed aspects of his OLTL and some ideas on GH have been good bringing back characters like Lucy & Anna, not killing Robin, trying to reinvigorate the Qs and the Nurses Ball but just haphazardly executed. But really he's just lost me completely on GH the last 2 months- I feel like he wants to burn GH or ABC down as revenge for OLTL's death and its not just his insistence on making the OLTL actors work come hell or come high water, its many things---- and I say this even though OLTL is my first, soap, my last, my everything as a fan. Humor and even some camp is fun but GH is a total cartoon version of itself now & I'm embarrassed and sad for it.

[ChitHappens]

[Vee]

It's a fair and a good question. And it's possible, and given what did happen to many longtime OLTL characters Ron once wrote well for and then drove into the dirt, entirely plausible to me.

I think it's a little more complex than just that, though. I don't think it's a case of "he was never any good" because IMO he was, and still is good at certain things, when he wants to be, which is rare now - I think he does have a love for these shows and their history, and he can write good new characters, romance, etc. when he wants to; I felt he did very well early on with Viki, Charlie, Jared and Natalie, even Gigi, Shane and Rex in Paris, Texas. The way they wove all that together with the finale of Marcie's fugitive story was spectacular. I think that over time his ego simply exceeded his natural abilities and limitations, and still does. I think it all became love on his terms, or [!@#$%^&*] you, and with that distortion went his writing.

I think a lot of it was a combination of Ron's ego getting the better of him - he was praised, rightly at first IMO, and continued to enjoy copious support from the fan press for years after - as well as pushing the envelope more and more to prove himself to be a visionary and an innovator until he had no barometer for prioritizing character beats or gauging taste on top of his all-powerful stories. He lost sight of characters and simple restraint vs. his "big ideas," his humor and his overarching plots long ago, and that all began, IMO, with the rapemance storyline in 2008. He has never fully accepted fan criticism of that story, and has always maintained that people "just didn't get it." If that's truly the case, maybe he can tell us sometime what the plan was for spring and summer of 2009 before they managed to convince Florencia to continue on contract and be paired up with TSJ (which was a whole other can of worms, because despite their incredible chemistry they had those two characters having merry fuckfests around the house less than six months after Marty was found) because my bet is that if he'd been able to shrug off the viewer outcry, he was going to go full-tilt with the tortured love of Todd and the all-new, all-loving Marty.

Since then, it's all been a series of double-downs - no, "Todd" is not such a bad guy, no, Ford is not such a bad guy, no, the Ford brothers are great - and on and on into GH. And the writing has gotten snarkier towards the audience and outside events as opposed to light fun with the history of the show, and character beats he once cherished are largely ignored or spat out like factory processed meat every now and then in lieu of driving his big, sacred plots ever forward, and the dialogue has become so degraded, or worse, superficially glib, with smart writers writing good jokes and little else - and it's just so much more about him and his vision than it once was. Even in OLTL's rocky, up and down times, there were still some good ideas, some good pairings - including the Kish storyline - just as there are some faint outlines of good ideas on GH now. It's just that he didn't seem nearly as driven to prove everyone wrong back then. Or at least, he did it in smaller doses.

I think what Ron didn't have access to as much back then was his ego. I think it comes down to that. And sure, this Ron would've probably mangled Kish eventually, too. It's the Guza Syndrome all over again. If you can't remove him, then you have to give him an equally powerful co-HW.

[ChitHappens]

Where is a "bowing" emoticon when you need one?!

[Vee]

I've mentioned this on SON before, but it also comes out in [!@#$%^&*] like him just straight-up lying about the whole Eli Clarke mess on OLTL - "oh, we planned all along for him to be behind every single random crime on the show, this is my design." Then when OLTL goes off the air he admits they came up with the dumb cliffhanger of Marty being pushed down some stairs one day, had no one to pin it on and were winging it, then seized on using Eli to tie up all their faltering storylines into one cartoon villain's endless reign of terror. Why lie about that unless it's your ego?

[EricMontreal22]

I do think, while this may be giving Ron too much credit, that that's definitely played a part. It's like he's saying "look, I tried telling a compelling gay story, it was squashed--let's just stick to this stuff."

On this show, the only cock to be found in Port Charles is with straight guys, apparently. I mean poor Brad, he tried with the only other gay on the show who basically turned him down (although, for the sake of Sabrina, Felix DID apparently give Brad some sort of "show" in the showers...)

[EricMontreal22]

Brilliant post, Vee.