1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

All the characters had more depth when Labine and her team was there, and also early Guza.  Those scenes were long!  They had a lot of character defining dialogue and motivations being expressed and set up back then.  The sets felt lived in and the characters felt defined.  And Guza’s team of writers in the 2000’s knew how to write motivation and give the story depth and character.  I have said it many times- I didn’t like what happened on the show under Frons/JFP/Guza…but I can’t deny the writing was stronger and had a lot of depth and feeling.

I would say Dante is the last character that I feel was fully fleshed out on GH and I felt like I know them and the why they do the things they do.  But he has been misused horribly by FV.  JMB’a Lulu also was a strong character that became nothing.

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, 20223 yr by Vee

46 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

It’s not just too many cast members.  It’s the way the show is produced now.  Short scenes, based more around budget and creating a generic product.  Often the actors are the ones that bring anything to their roles- look at Chase.  That is all the actor’s natural charm shining through a very ill defined character.

I think the show is filmed and written in a way that it is easy to produce above all else.  So things seem disjointed and bland quite often.  And then you add the obvious interference that keeps happening behind the scenes when things are really moving again and it just hurts the show we are watching.

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.

47 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

It’s not just too many cast members.  It’s the way the show is produced now.  Short scenes, based more around budget and creating a generic product.  Often the actors are the ones that bring anything to their roles- look at Chase.  That is all the actor’s natural charm shining through a very ill defined character.

I think the show is filmed and written in a way that it is easy to produce above all else.  So things seem disjointed and bland quite often.  And then you add the obvious interference that keeps happening behind the scenes when things are really moving again and it just hurts the show we are watching.

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, 20223 yr by Vee

2 minutes ago, Vee said:

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.

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.

1 minute ago, Vee said:

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.

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.

3 minutes ago, carolineg said:

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

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.

4 minutes ago, carolineg said:

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.

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, 20223 yr by Vee

3 minutes ago, Vee said:

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.

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.

1 minute ago, carolineg said:

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.

Oh yeah. One hundred percent.

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. 

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.

24 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

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.

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.

On 1/26/2022 at 3:29 AM, Vee said:

I thought Maurice and Sarah were a supercouple, period. Granted I was a teenager at the time lol. I think they were the last GH supercouple, in that iteration, and could've run a long time. The skill of Guza and his daily team managed to make Maurice and Tamara crackle for a bit of time too, but the show was already in the process of becoming utter trash in part due not just to Pratt and Frons but Guza's own dark obsessions and ego as well, and neither Guza's writing for them nor Maurice ever recovered from Tamara having incendiary chemistry with Ted King. They had to turn Alcazar into Stevie Wonder to try to emasculate him after that. That was the end of the couple for me. But no, nothing compared to the original.

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

 

12 hours ago, DRW50 said:

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. 

THANK YOU!  I loathed Lulu under her.  

13 hours ago, carolineg said:

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.

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

3 minutes ago, ChitHappens said:

THANK YOU!  I loathed Lulu under her.  

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

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.

13 hours ago, Vee said:

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.

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, 20223 yr by AbcNbc247

3 minutes ago, carolineg said:

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.

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