Characters that ATE their Soaps

[Vee]

Courtney started with JFP and McTavish (after a lot of other aborted plans to do a sister story for Sonny under other writers), named like so many other characters she created, for Jill's daughter. But Frons and I believe Pratt fell in love with her for Jason. Guza couldn't be bothered and once he had the chance to dump her - with the arrival of Kelly Monaco, who became the new female lead priority for Frons besides Braun's Carly - he sidelined her with Jax and Nikolas in C-story and then killed her off. I think Pratt also took off around the same time, or close to it.

JFP remained the official EP on paper until 2011 or so IIRC, but I believe Guza came back with creative control superceding hers in 2002, and got a producer credit of his own when he returned. He had learned from his fights with Wendy Riche, and Jill was reduced to his line producer and facilitator due to her disastrous one-year creative reign with Megan. I couldn't think of a better fate for her, personally, after what she did to so many shows. It is not a coincidence that the one time Guza was out of the building in the 2000s, during the WGA strike in '08, Jill instantly launched frontburner story for all of her old FOJs like Rick Hearst, as though she was back at GL in 1994.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

At AW she lost power before she was ushered out of the building. She tried to get Frankie's gruesome onscreen murder by Fax Neuman, serial killer, changed to a more soapy attack, offscreen so maybe she could be "un-deaded" but she didn't have the power to make it happen. Margaret DePriest had more power than she & wanted the death to be clearly conclusive.

[Khan]

IIRC, too, Courtney came along at a time when it seemed like JFP and McTavish were just handing out free long-lost half-siblings to everyone.  There was Courtney, and Kristina (who was actually quite popular, I think) and at least one other that I'm forgetting atm.

[Vee]

Kristina was sadly pretty unpopular, and she was smoked less than a year later IIRC. I liked Jaime Ray Newman in the role a lot, but they gave her the kiss of death pairing with Alexis' ex Ned, who she was also far too young for - she should've been with Lucky.

[Khan]

Really?  But so many were so pissed when she was killed off!

Edited May 5, 2022 by Khan

[ChickenNuggetz92]

I’m surprised nobody mentioned Victor and Phyllis during the MAB years. 

[Vee]

Were they? I sure don't remember it, lol. I remember them loving Alexis' big speech to Sonny about him in the aftermath though.

[Darn]

Kristina was popular with the wrong people. Her initial story/introduction was pretty unpopular but once they got away from that and paired her with Ned and let JRN bring some personality to the part she became pretty popular I thought. I liked her anyway and was sad to see her go. Kristina was one of the few characters on the show at the time who wasn't a completely dour malcontent.

[carolineg]

I don't recall Kristina being popular, but I think the way she was killed off was unpopular.  I think pairing her with Ned so soon after Alexis was a poor choice for the character.  I never thought Kristina was very well developed, but I actually thought she would have been better with Jax than Skye was.

 

She got killed off in an explosion set by Luis Alcazar meant for Sonny while she was going to tell Sonny Alexis was pregnant with his baby.  My favorite Alexis scene ever is her screaming and throwing the ashes at Sonny at the funeral.  It was such a good speech!

Lol!  I just said pairing her with Ned was unpopular.  Her introduction was weird.  Jax went to find a presumed dead Brenda when IR left the show and came back with Alexis's never before heard of sister lol.  Random.

JRN did have a likable screen presence.  Listen, I don't think she was popular, but I think there were some really unpopular actresses that had more hate at the time (Angel, the Sarah recast, the Maxie recast, etc.)

[Khan]

At least, that was my impression at the time, from reading message boards and such.  Like @Darn said, her introduction was unpopular, but I think Kristina (and JRN) grew on people (or some people, anyway, lol).  I'm actually surprised to learn that wasn't the case, lol.

Ah.  That makes sense.  Thanks, @carolineg.

I especially loved it when Alexis told Sonny that while her family, the Cassadines, were staging deadly vendettas, his ancestors were still working for them in the fields with the other peasants.  That. Stang.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Khan

[Vee]

All I can say is I remember being one of the only people who liked her online in 2001-2002. It was a hard road and I wasn't shocked when Guza killed her off. I don't remember anyone liking her with Ned. I don't know why Jill did that.

She was definitely more liked than any of them, but yeah, all the Jill/Megan female additions were roundly lumped together and that unfortunately included Kristina. Only Courtney and Skye were spared and tbh Skye shouldn't have been because the way Skye arrogantly kept pushing herself into the Qs and calling Edward "Grandfather" within 3 minutes was very, very annoying. I like Robin Christopher but I don't think Skye on contract (or as a Q) ever worked. Her place on the show only worked when she came in and out much later on to fùck with people, which she should still be doing.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Vee

[Darn]

I'm probably wrong about her popularity with Ned. But I don't remember much about Ned. I just know I liked her! And I was upset that they killed her off, even if it did lead to the last truly great scene on the show. I don't know how they wrote all of that and still have Sonny pulling the same sh!t 20 years later.

I just watched her first scenes with Alexis and they brought her on what looks like the day after Chloe died. That's kind of twisted.

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[carolineg]

I think it was violently killing off a character that didn't need to be killed in mob violence that was unpopular.  She was an innocent bystander with only peripheral ties to Sonny/Jason/et all.   It was all very senseless and just a plot point to move the Sonny/Alexis baby saga forward.  

Don't get me started on Skye and being a Q-something later retconned so she could be paired with Ned!!  I think part of the reason Skye survived was because they needed an obstacle for Jax/Brenda.  Which is a shame because they moved Jax/Skye at lightning speed to accommodate VM's return and Skye/Jax weren't half bad.  They just weren't anywhere near an organic place to get married at the time.  I think RC and Skye are popular and Skye perhaps seemed popular on GH, but she was never a good fit really.  

Interesting.  Chloe is another really senseless death. It's so odd Jax was involved.  I don't understand exactly how Jax's quest to find non dead Brenda led to Alexis's sister and I don't think the show it explains it that well.  Jax was like, "nope, didn't find Brenda, but found this instead".  I never really understood Jax's weird forays into Cassadine stories.  I didn't realize Ned was still with Alexis at the time Kristina appeared. lol

[Vee]

I've been over Chloe before, but I'll just say again that I really liked Chloe, even in the forced pairing with Jax, and hated her death. She even worked in that weird pairing with Stefan.

The Jax/Kristina/Angel stuff under JFP/Megan made absolutely no sense. He was shoehorned back into the show (with an embarrassing low-budget Mission: Impossible-esque entrance) and it was obvious they had no real plan for the character immediately. They would test him with Kristina and Angel and both were horribly embarrassing. Then Guza was stuck with him, and that lasted for many years until they finally paired him with Laura's Carly. I still liked Jax until Ingo went full Trump, but there's no denying he had no purpose for many years until becoming Carly's man.

Don't get me started on Luke and Skye. Ugh.

[carolineg]

I forgot Jax was involved with Angel as well.  That is a character GH really tried to make happen and was tied to quite a few people for no reason.  I wouldn't say she ate the show, but McTavish and JFP sure wanted to make her work.  2001 was such an odd year for the show, but it was solidly back by 2002.

I think Jax still had story consistently.  He went from Skye to Brenda to Sam to Courtney to Carly without much lull in between.   I don't think any story between Brenda to Carly was good, but he had a solid B story almost always.  I think half the reason Guza kept him around though is because he loved playing the Sonny vs. Jax/whatever woman angle.  And Ingo was popular enough to stay at the time.  Jax just never got a full characterization beyond 'white knight'.

Luke/Skye were very odd.  I don't remember hating them just wondering how it came to be. lol