General Hospital: April 2023 Discussion Thread

[GLATWT88]

Yes, the red carpet was cringe, but it was mostly due to the awkward interactions and bad dialogue. Even if these interviews were on a local access channel, as mentioned before, are any of these people noteworthy in town. I feel like they could do with the red carpet since it's a big event and to show off the fashions (even though half the town was wearing a different variation of the same dress). Then, interview the mayor and a few notable townspeople, but randomly interviewing nurses was just weird. Unless it served some greater purpose, like wanting to interview and highlight important people at the hospital, but they were being asked questions as if they were celebs on a red carpet.

The performances are fine. I see it as hospital staff putting on a talent show in an effort to raise money. I feel like they come across a little too serious sometimes. And maybe they don't have to highlight the performances as much...just one or two and have storyline evolve during the event. I mean has the nurses ball ever been used to do a large scale surprise engagement or  for example for this 60th honor a GH vet and include flashbacks etc. Sometime that is positive especially surrounding such an important event. 

[BrendaB]

Today's episode was better.  Loved "The Middle."  The nicest aspect of the Nurse's Ball is having most of Port Charles' citizens all together with multiple storylines connecting to a climax or cliffhanger, with some added musical comedy.  It's a refreshing change from the 2-character dialog scenes rehashing everything that make up 99% of soap episodes now.

LOL @ 25 year old looking Jordan gleefully wanting to be a grandmother.  Molly's beautiful (if a little too thin), but she looks the same age as her mother-in-law!

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[carolineg]

Why is everyone wearing the same dress or style?  Did I miss the theme announcement?  I assume I did because all the dresses are so similar and half the fun for me used to see what people were wearing.  I don't think the acts are better or worse than they've always been, but I feel bad they drag certain actors out once a year to sing and dance and put those nurses back in the closet for the rest of the year.  It definitely used to look much more professional.

[Vee]

The NB has always been OTT and often cringe but I don't mind it. It's a perfect venue for plot and umbrella stories, I was fine with that in the '90s and still am. The issue in recent years is the execution; they simply do not have the budget to do what they used to and instead you regularly end up with sub-middle school talent show numbers like the random stilted bits with the nurses singing and dancing and marching in place under unforgiving lights that look cheap. You don't get, say, Dara and co. doing a most atmospheric Fosse number like you did back in the day, and they often have less access to copyrighted songs or you get random pop numbers that have nothing to do with anything (Meghan Trainor, etc).

I would never want to lose the Nurses Ball though, to me it's a great story venue and part of the heart of the show. Cringe and all. I do think it's improved since some of the the truly gruesome lowlights of 2013-2014 (and the 2013 Ball also had some great stuff amidst the ugly), but I reserve the right to take that back when I see more of this week!

Edited April 6, 2023 by Vee

[Faulkner]

[AMCHistory]

You hit on the head! FV and the cast are taking the performances too seriously. The classic Nurses Ball performance were not about perfect/ precise/ dramatic numbers, they were full of CAMP!

For every Mary Mae, Ned, and Dara professional and tear jerking performance, we also had Felicia as Bo Peep, Edward in an all male burlesque, and Emily in the Wizard of Oz. There were as many comedic skits as there were musicals. 
 

GH should embrace the CAMP again. In the opening number, if the nurses can’t sing, they don’t all have to perform! If the act can only sing off tune, lean into it and make it ironic!
 

Just make sure we get a couple of real belting moments ala Dara to close the thing out. The show will get far if they embrace the imperfections, versus trying to fix everything through auto tune and distracting backup dancers. 

[Noel]

OMG. What is this? Mister Rogers? I liked everything today, but the Anna fireplace number threw me back. I was expecting Gene Wilder to come out.

"If you want to vieeeeew paradiiiiise! Simply look around and view it!"

Edited April 6, 2023 by Noel

[Vee]

When they first brought the Nurses Ball back Epiphany, Monica and Tracy stood around singing the Pointer Sisters or something in what looked for all the world like matching sequined caftans. I don't think they've failed to embrace camp lol. I just think the budget and sometimes the taste falls way off. But I still wouldn't give up the NB. I would just stop the dumb fuckin' "welcome to the Nurses Ball" opener which is cornier every year. I don't remember that being a thing in the '90s but I could be wrong.

Meanwhile, Jane:

 

[DRW50]

I imagine Obrecht-mania was the attempt at camp in the revival years.

The main problem with going with a lo-fi camp aspect is that you still can't hide that it's a very slick professional setting. I was rewatching the number with Lucky, Taggert, Dara and Liz, where they tried to add in a few touches of gangling or silliness, but the effort was defeated by the very slick presentation, that two clearly trained, professional singers were on display, and that we were meant to believe Lucky, who at that time despised the cops, and Liz, still recovering from a brutal rape poorly handled by the police, would be up there shaking their asses with a police officer who had gone out of his way to make it clear he had no use for anyone in that town and their nonsense. That's not camp - it's lobotomizing contrivance. 

The NB you want to see ended around 1996, which is when these should have ended, period.

[Vee]

Yeah, that's always been an issue for me with certain numbers or characters - context. To say nothing of every year now where Billy Joel Valentin gets up there and croons tearfully on the piano and embarrasses us all secondhand, yet supposedly is the most dangerous Cassadine of all and some supremely sexy male lead. He's supposed to be this mysterious, forbidding character and it's soppy Michael Feinstein stuff that no other last-generation Cassadine would ever do because Frank is absolutely entranced by JPS.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Vee

[carolineg]

I don't remember the Nurses opening the Nurse's Ball in the 90's.  I believe it was Alan opening it quite a few times.

I can't with Valentin singing and those weepy songs.

[DRW50]

Yes I just remember Alan, or maybe Katherine or Lucy. 

I think there were tabloid reporters from Extra or Access Hollywood who would pop up but I don't remember any red carpets.

[Vee]

I've said it before: He is the corniest man alive, and not just when he's up there singing. I cannot believe half the show's story is clumsily arranged around his recurring schedule. Guza, for all his faults, would've killed this guy by having Holly ruined again uncorking a vial of super-measles in sweeps years ago.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Vee

[DRW50]

This is what always took me out of them (well that and choices like having a character hanging from the rafters and somehow the show still went on), although I know many people loved it then, and still love it now. Considering the dreck fans have to put up with, if they do enjoy it, I should get off my high horse, I suppose.

[Vee]

Let's not forget the time Phantom Spencer tried to kill two other children with hanging lights onstage in 2014-2015(?).