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Jean Passanante looks back at her career


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Now that JP is officially gone, I thought now would be a good time to look at her GH tenure, what she did right and what she did wrong.

What she did right:

  1. She undid the destruction of the character of Anna:  Having Anna kill Carlos was a dreadful mistake because not only was it out of character, but it also took away any ability for the viewer to root for her.  As we all know, daytime viewers take issue with rooting for murderers, such as Julian, Sonny, Ava, etc.
  2. She created some good characters:  She brought on Curtis, who has chemistry with everybody, Andre, who is really good but presently way underused, Griffin, and Valentin.
  3. She forged some connections between the characters:  Nina was very isolated character before JP's arrival.  Love or hate Nina, she is better involved with some of the other characters on the canvas now.  There was better attention to friendships and relationships than prior to JP's arrival.

What she did wrong:

  1. The mob went back to being front and center.  Probably not her fault though.  She just followed orders from above.
  2. Sub-par mystery/adventure stories:  Any writer for GH after the 80s has to be able to do mystery/adventure stories because viewers expect them, but unfortunately, as a traditional P&G style writer, JP had trouble with this.  Her Nelle story was boring and the "big reveal" was on par with a Scooby-Doo cartoon.  I still complain bitterly about her Hospital Serial Killer storyline, which not only was sloppily written, but necessitated the departure of Richard Burgi as Paul, which was a bad move for the show.
  3. Not one compelling medical story in two years:  As a show that it titled "General Hospital", one would think that an occasional riveting medical story would appear, but neither JP nor the head writer who preceded her managed to do that.  With JP, we got Tracy having worms, Dr. Finn with some sort of weird invented disease, but since he was a character no one gave a damn about, it really made no difference, and of course, there was Sam having the cat-poop disease.  Even Anna's cancer was a miss.

I am well aware that it is easier to be the critic than the artist and I am also aware that there are contracts and guarantees for a writer to juggle, combined with massive network interference.  While I would not label JP as a hack like so many other posters here will, as can be seen from what I have written, I give her tenure at GH mixed reviews.  I have a feeling she probably could have done better if she was given more of a free reign, but, that cannot be proven now and really doesn't make a difference.  Nonetheless, despite some of my criticisms, I do wish JP a happy retirement and a long life of health and happiness.  I do think that she did her best in a tough environment.  I'll give her that much.

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Nope. She sucked. From start to finish her GH was boring, predictable and below subpar.  As for Nina, MS continues to play her as angry and too butch, not to mention she is still isolated. She sticks out like a sore thumb.  

 

The whole Anna/Alex fiasco was a mess. Alex was a crappy creation on AMC, and a joke on GH. Now she's being wasted with Finn. Andre is nothing more than an afterthought on a show full of people needing therapy...   Her reign relegated Lucas and Brad to "barely worth a mention".  

 

There's a good reason their ratings are in the gutter. Pissy, Smelly, ValenVarni are it. ABC doesn't care or these idiots would all   be gone.

 

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