General Hospital January 2022 Discussion Thread

[Vee]

The writing team held over by Guza from the '90s saved a lot of absolutely terrible [!@#$%^&*] and seriously elevated the day to day show until they were mostly purged in 2012. Even at its worst you still had some dialogue scenes in the 2000s that could've easily gone on cable, nighttime or streaming.

I never felt the over the top pushing of Julie Berman's Lulu rang true and I felt the character was forced into an outline they wanted to go with, but however she annoyed me it was still vividly detailed and not a non-entity which is what she became under FV and the recast.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Vee

[carolineg]

I am going to be honest:  I don't really understand the ins and outs of production.  In my mind, less actors equal more money to use.  I guess crew would be a concern for longer scenes, but couldn't arcs be done?  Not like Port Charles, but certain weeks some characters are focused on and other weeks not.  I would drop a lot of people to recurring.  You might lose some younger talent (but aren't most recurring anyway) and just move different characters in and out?  GH just feels like by far the most bloated cast and I think it could be streamlined to be smarter produced.

[Vee]

This is also deliberate. Frank is known for preferring to keep scenes to roughly 90 seconds or less because he feels certain demographics only stay with that length before flipping or exiting a stream; he is producing according to his perception of that attention span. He's been doing it since OLTL. And the rest you mention is all true, of course.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Vee

[carolineg]

Guza had a lot of good material to feed off of.  He was given good Luke/Laura and handed Sonny/Brenda/Jax on a plate plus Robin/Jason and Ned/Lois. 

JMB was heavily pushed on men I think.  They pushed her very hard in the romance department until she clicked with Dante.

But are soaps really hitting it hard with the teen demo?  I am in my 30's and no one I know goes near soaps lol.  I dont think 18 year olds are lining up for this anymore.

[Vee]

They knew they had a star pretty quickly after hiring her right around the time Genie first returned in 2006(?). When they realized what they had she (like Scott Clifton's Dillon before her) suddenly she began getting major airtime with key stars, and they moved her towards Carly and tried to craft her into mini-Carly to give her the authority of Carly and the mob's approval with the audience, all typical Guza bullshít back then. (They also shitcanned Lindze Letherman and Georgie's story with DIllon to give her even more to do) I liked her a lot with Logan Hayes, but my understanding is his actor was difficult. I never quite bought into Dante and Lulu because I just felt Berman was pushed too hard and into a tryhard frame, but she was very strong and I knew who the character was. I can't say that about Lulu since.

Tell it to Frank. He felt he hit gold with Kristen Alderson and co. at OLTL's cloying teen scene in the late 2000s and never let up on them. He also never gave up trying to re-craft a similar teen scene at GH, which is why Temp Joss (Eden McCoy) who fits the criteria of blonde, white and under 25, became a central axis despite just not being suited for it - she's not terrible, but she's not a star and she shouldn't be getting the kind of mileage she has. I think to him the scant youth demos are still where they live, breathe and survive along with the Facebook olds.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Vee

[carolineg]

I don't think it helped that JMB was kind of a cold actress.  I didn't mind her idolizing Carly that much.   I liked her with Johnny but Logan and fake Barrett guy are the same person in my mind so I can't recall. She was got better overtime and was charming with Dante, but something about her always came off extremely aloof and harsh.

[Vee]

Oh yeah. One hundred percent.

[DRW50]

I can't even tell you what JMB's Lulu was meant to be. I just remember her being very cold and hard. The last time Lulu was worth watching was when she was a mute child. 

[titan1978]

I thought she had kind of a mini edge, which worked for how they used her.  I liked that she wasn’t just a retread of Luke or Laura, but she still felt like a Spencer.  I also thought she had good familial chemistry with all her family, Luke, both Lucky’s and Nikolas.  I also thought she was really great with Genie when Laura woke up from her coma.  But I can also see why people did not enjoy her.

[carolineg]

She had really good chemistry with her family and so much looked the part (mute dark haired lulu was always a mystery casting to me).  JMB also was great with JE/Tracy. She was just a little bit of a cold fish for romance but it worked with Dante's charisma.  I think before that they were trying to push her as a romantic lead in a more generic way and it worked better when she was more aloof and cold with Dante. It felt more natural to her abilities. I did think she worked well with Kirsten Storms and liked their friendship.  Also she did get a little sanctimonious in her mini-Carly years.  I am not a huge Lulu fan or anything, but I think JMB was good casting.  Same with BC's Morgan.  He was an obnoxious prick but that fit with what Morgan should have been-although young Morgan was so different and I wanted him to sail boats with Jax in Australia forever.

[OzFrog]

Speaking of which, this apparently happened on this day 18 years ago…

 

[ChitHappens]

THANK YOU!  I loathed Lulu under her.  

It took a minute a quite a few fellas to find a match for that cold fish!

[carolineg]

Lol.  Her and Maxie had a slew of forgettable leading men at the time.  I get they were young ingenues but every single one of those love interests (outside Johnny) were interchangeable.  Weren't they at one point fighting over (not gay yet) Lucas?  Or was that Maxie and Georgie and really creepy?

Even with Dante, there was a time period where all Lulu did was talk about Dante and seemed to have no life of her own, but to be fair I think that was the time period on the show EVERYONE talked about Dante all the time.  That only stopped when VM came back and every single character had to talk about Brenda for entire episodes.  Poor DZ, Dante is with Sam now.  He gets all the cold fish or women that were in love with his dad.  It's weird to say the show wastes Dante when 10 years ago you couldn't go a day without Dante or hearing about Dante.  That really has nothing to do with JMB/Lulu, but it got me thinking about how much I liked Dante back in the day.  Probably the last great hire GH had.

[AbcNbc247]

I think he did finally achieve it with the current teen scene. IMO, the problem is that Joss/Eden is the weakest one in the group. I still think she's watchable though. 

Edited January 27, 2022 by AbcNbc247

[ChitHappens]

At one point (CarJax's wedding in particular), there were 3 guys fighting over Lulu: Spinelli, Dylan and Milo.  It was really weird.