In that case, I guess the thrill is gone for old man Corinthos, lol.

2 minutes ago, Khan said:

In that case, I guess the thrill is gone for old man Corinthos, lol.

I think most would say this has been the case for at least a decade and a half for Sonny lol!  He's had so many wedding disasters I can't think of anything to top those with a dumb Sonny/Nina wedding.

It breaks my heart watching Molly. Finally, the actress is getting some meaty material. The storyline is pulling at my heart strings, partially because I literally watched Molly grow up in front of my eyes. 
 

So much wasted potential here with Haley off canvas indefinitely.  I hope the recast closes-out the story and Molly leaves town. Seeing her character just breaks my heart with all the real world tragedies associated with it. 
 

This TJ is a real find. I think he has soap leading man potential. 

23 hours ago, Khan said:

I'm surprised they went to the trouble of restoring (well, more or less) the Quartermaine mansion.  Did the show receive too many complaints about the Tyler Perry-ification of the set?

Who would have thought we would get so many of the Q Mansion rooms in active rotation again:

- Foyer/ Living Room

- Kitchen

- Carriage House

- Solarium

- Drawing Room

The Drawing Room was always my favourite. It was perfect for action/reaction scenes since there are entrances on both sides. What I would do to have Monica and Alan plopped on the couch while their kids dude it out with Edward or Tracy. 
 

This wood panelled/ chinoiserie look is much more to my liking. This is what an upstate estate should look like. The mix of classic architecture with modern touches. 
 

I hope this means the Q’s getting more front burner time is not just a temporary thing. 
 

I know there is so much talk on this board about Olivia/ Lois being the same character. I think they are very different and can each have their own role in PC. Olivia is like the traditional Italian Mama Bear, who loves being in the kitchen and having big Sunday dinners. Lois rebelled from those traditional concepts. Where Olivia has stepped into a more traditional wife role, Lois is a free spirit, an entrepreneur, a boss. 
 

I hope Lois comes back, and stirs the pot. Brooklyn, Tracy, Olivia will all be on edge with Lois back in town. 

On 5/23/2023 at 11:34 PM, Khan said:

I'm surprised they went to the trouble of restoring (well, more or less) the Quartermaine mansion.  Did the show receive too many complaints about the Tyler Perry-ification of the set?

I don't think they got complaints. The previous set was also a pain to shoot, according to set designer Jennifer Elliott, and that Frank Valentini wanted to put some budget into the mansion.

She told Soap Opera Digest:

Quote

This was Frank’s [Valentini, executive producer] idea: “Let’s just put some money and some time and some effort into this family. Their house is not in good shape and needs a little refresh.” We also had some space issues on our stage, and shooting issues with the last configuration of the mansion, because it had an upstage entry and it was really hard logistically to shoot characters arriving at the door. It’s just sort of a design flaw from many, many years ago. So my partner and I went back to the original drawings of the Quartermaine mansion and foyer, which were a million years old, and we lucked upon these old slides that had pictures of what it used to look like. We found the old blueprints and actually found that the original incarnation had a side entrance on one of the walls, which would make it much easier for shooting. We said, “This is what we need to do. We need to preserve the architectural integrity of the original idea, just make it a little bit smaller,” because we’re always trying to get more sets onstage. The staircase is sort of like another character, so we kept the original staircase and we just sort of modified a new layout around it and went back to the original design, which is a side entrance and then the living room on the left side of the foyer.

Her plan was to do a traditional soap set, but Frank Valentini told them to go modern:

Quote

I originally thought that Frank would want to do something traditional, because that’s what we had before. I thought, “I’m gonna do the normal soap opera thing.” But he was like, “No, I want to do modern. I want Monica to have a place that is representative of what’s fashionable nowadays, what’s stylish.” He was like, “I don’t want her to appear like an old lady, I want her to be a modern girl.” And that just kind of rocked my world as a decorator‚ and inspired me tremendously. We left about 70 percent of the original walls and just reconfigured them, but that meant we were kind of married to the molding and the fireplace and other things like that. And then we built kind of 30 percent new elements. But with the 70 percent of the old stuff, it’s traditional. It’s thick moldings and everything like that, so the real design challenge was how to make this space have modern furniture with traditional elements. It sounds easy, but it’s really hard when you’re out there shopping!

And watching HGTV, it makes sense. So many homes you see on those renovation shows also resemble what Monica did to the Q house, and I imagine her sitting watching one of those shows and going, "This is what I'm doing! Alan gave me this house and Tracy is gone! Now's the time!"

And I think that's also why Sonny's home got the remodel; shooting was difficult, plus, it needed to happen.

The problem is that both those homes now look exactly like an HGTV show. They also look too close in identity. Sonny's overcompensating mansion (Greystone) should not have the same kind of off-brand Nancy Meyers look as the poorly-chosen Q remodel IMO.

I'm very glad we're at least seeing the parlor/drawing room again with the wood. That set and its color scheme are a constant for me through the years.

Now you've got me thinking Sonny was "nervous, but excited" to see how the renovation of his home had turned out.

But so much of daytime is about familiarity. Changing a set that drastically should happen gradually, it could have even been a story point.

There has to be a balance between the Abbott living room on Y&R remaining virtual unchanged in 40 years (you can breathe in the dust mites through the TV screen) and the Quartermaines suddenly living in an Ashley Furniture showroom. 

They've also, similar to what @Vee said, stripped these residences of their ability to tell us more about these characters beyond "they live here".

Just so this isn't totally negative I think my favorite current home set is Portia and Curtis', I know it was previous Jax's and someone else's idk but I like it a lot. It's got a good use of space and the entryways to the back area/kitchen are different than typical soap sets. I also like the African prints they have draped over some of the furniture because I gotta be honest, affluent black people do love their African prints.

Portia and Curtis' home is great, which is why as I've said before Curtis should not live there lol.

My recent favorite set that is long gone was Jax and Carly's colorful home with the kids, with the checkerboard foyer from around 2008 or 2009 - whenever Michael came out of the coma.

2 minutes ago, Darn said:

There has to be a balance between the Abbott living room on Y&R remaining virtual unchanged in 40 years (you can breathe in the dust mites through the TV screen) and the Quartermaines suddenly living in an Ashley Furniture showroom. 

They've also, similar to what @Vee said, stripped these residences of their ability to tell us more about these characters beyond "they live here".

Exactly. I don't want both the Q mansion and Sonny's kitchen looking like an identical furniture showroom for upper middle class yuppies. I know the Quartermaine parlor/living area when I see it after decades, so I am glad to see it back in some fashion. Frank caught a bit of the JFP bug on this issue - she mangled the Y&R ranch, IIRC.

Say what you will about AMC and OLTL 2.0 with the smaller dimensions and the doors that opened the wrong way lol, but they did their damndest to replicate the original locations (with some somewhat smaller) while updating the looks on locations like La Boulaie, and they accomplished that. They didn't throw it all out to make it look like Bed Bath and Beyond, which is what a lot of the Q house currently looks like.

Edited May 25, 20232 yr by Vee

30 minutes ago, Darn said:

Just so this isn't totally negative I think my favorite current home set is Portia and Curtis', I know it was previous Jax's and someone else's idk but I like it a lot. It's got a good use of space and the entryways to the back area/kitchen are different than typical soap sets. I also like the African prints they have draped over some of the furniture because I gotta be honest, affluent black people do love their African prints.

It was Jax's home, rented it out to Brook Lynn after he left town, and then it was sold to Curtis & Portia. The set was previously used on All My Children for David Hayward and later Michael Nouri's Caleb.

34 minutes ago, Vee said:

My recent favorite set that is long gone was Jax and Carly's colorful home with the kids, with the checkerboard foyer from around 2008 or 2009 - whenever Michael came out of the coma.

This one?

Or the one they had before?

37 minutes ago, Vee said:

Say what you will about AMC and OLTL 2.0 with the smaller dimensions and the doors that opened the wrong way lol, but they did their damndest to replicate the original locations (with some somewhat smaller) while updating the looks on locations like La Boulaie, and they accomplished that. They didn't throw it all out to make it look like Bed Bath and Beyond, which is what a lot of the Q house currently looks like.

Oh. Don't remind me of the backwards doors. My goodness.

23 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

It was Jax's home, rented it out to Brook Lynn after he left town, and then it was sold to Curtis & Portia. The set was previously used on All My Children for David Hayward and later Michael Nouri's Caleb.

This one?

Or the one they had before?

Anna also has the re-re-remodeled Chandler mansion. It works much better for than it did Adam.

And I think he's referring to this house which somehow doesn't have a page on GH's wiki but is listed here: Jacks House (607 Braidwood Terrace) - Former residence of Morgan Corinthos, Carly Spencer, Jasper Jacks, and Michael Corinthos

No mangling will ever beat what Y&R did to the Chancellor estate. Completely rearranged the layout, repainted the walls, the camera angle was different. It was hardly the same location. And they did it for no good reason, simple because they could.

14 minutes ago, Darn said:

Anna also has the re-re-remodeled Chandler mansion. It works much better for than it did Adam.

I agree. I love that she has that. And Ava's former penthouse/Nina's current penthouse was Ava's former NYC apartment / Lucy's former NYC apartment and was taken from Erica Kane's final penthouse set. And the "bar" set they use whenever in New York or somewhere overseas is Krystal's restaurant.

16 minutes ago, Darn said:

And I think he's referring to this house which somehow doesn't have a page on GH's wiki but is listed here: Jacks House (607 Braidwood Terrace) - Former residence of Morgan Corinthos, Carly Spencer, Jasper Jacks, and Michael Corinthos

Ah yes, that set. Felt very small-town. I remember that well. But did Michael ever return to that house?

18 minutes ago, Darn said:

No mangling will ever beat what Y&R did to the Chancellor estate. Completely rearranged the layout, repainted the walls, the camera angle was different. It was hardly the same location. And they did it for no good reason, simple because they could.

The change in angle was unfortunate, even though it did appear to be a bigger set after all. But you could tell when they did not want to build the dining room, because the doors would be closed in the entryway. Hah.

I didn't necessarily hate the re-paint... but I hate it in Elizabeth's home now.

You have to give Frank credit that the AMC sets are still in heavy rotation in Port Charles:

- The Wildwind Chapel is now a general church set

- Chandler Mansion is now Anna's home

- Wildwind is now Portia's home

- Erica's penthouse is now Laura's apartment

I think these are the "better" sets in rotation. They seem less "flat" to me. There are interesting angels and hallways. It does not look like a theatre stage.

Edited May 25, 20232 yr by AMCHistory

9 minutes ago, AMCHistory said:

- Erica's penthouse is now Laura's apartment

Pieces of Erica's penthouse are also Nina's apartment (formerly Ava's NY penthouse/Lucy's NY penthouse). That set has pieces that have been recycled many times.

3 hours ago, Darn said:

They've also, similar to what @Vee said, stripped these residences of their ability to tell us more about these characters beyond "they live here".

I agree.  One of my all-time favorite soap sets was AMC's original Cortlandt manor drawing room, which fitted the gothic undertones of the original Cliff/Nina/Palmer/Daisy/Myra storyline so well.

3 hours ago, Vee said:

she mangled the Y&R ranch, IIRC.

JFP didn't mangle just the Newman ranch.  She also took an axe to the original and much-beloved Chancellor living room - again, as @Darn said, for no good reason other than she could.  Fortunately, she didn't stay any longer at Y&R, or else God knows what the Abbott living room would look like today.