General Hospital: June 2023 Discussion Thread

[Vee]

Yep.

It all goes back to what we said before: There are so many fuckin' kids on this show, now approaching/in teen years that it is a massive traffic jam with the actual youth set not to mention the many other pointless characters and stories mentioned.

[Michael]

Is that why that kid is named Donna? Now I feel like an a*shole for snarking on the name.

The child still should not exist, though!

[Vee]

Nope! But now she can never die.

[Michael]

Any time I turn on GH and they show or bring up one of the kids, I go down some horrible Wikipedia vortex of trying to figure which f*cking child belongs to which character. 

Doesn't Maxie have like three children now?

[Vee]

Yes, which is utterly insane. She shouldn't have one!

[Darn]

3 men. 3 different fathers.

It's crazy to think how soaps once operated. Erica Kane birthed ONE child in her entire 40 years on AMC. 

[carolineg]

Most 80's popular heroines have a reasonable amount of children for their time on the show (Marlena, Hope, Kayla, Jen on Days, Laura, Felicia, Holly, on GH, etc).  It's not even like KS was pregnant a bunch and forced the show's hand.  Carly's had approximately 20 pregnancies, Sam has a broken uterus and shouldn't have multiple children, Lulu had 2 kids that BOTH came from the strangest conceptions, Maxie doesn't even have custody of her first child, Sasha had a baby that died, Brooklyn faked a pregnancy, Willow had a cancer pregnancy, Esme has her large baby, and Molly now can't have kids.  Is there any woman of child bearing age on the show besides the teens and Kristina that haven't had a pregnancy story?

[Michael]

It's insane. I know @Vee has referenced it before, but it reminds me of late-stage Guiding Light where Harley had a kid with Philip and Rick, and Rick had a kid with Mel and Beth, and Beth had a kid with Philip and Alan, and everyone was just half-siblings or half-cousins or whatever commune fantasy Ellen Wheeler was living when she wasn't weeping in her office that had been turned into a 7-11 set or whatever.

[Vee]

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[Michael]

SCREAMING.

[Vee]

I tried to find a picture of the worst moment of all from that finale, the whole repeated interlude where the ENTIRE FÙCKING TOWN roamed the streets together like some sort of Mormon flash mob, trying to chase after Remy and whatserface (Karla Mosley) to help them get married, and then to 'play a prank' on Frank and Blake who were meeting up for an Internet date, and then to race to get to Daisy/Susan, I think? before she left town? It seemed like they did it all because they couldn't afford to use interiors anymore so everyone just kept roaming through the streets and parks of Peapack picking up more and more of the cast. It was like a zombie horde.

[Darn]

Pretty sure the girl in peach is Scout. Or Avery. One of them.

It's really ridiculous.

Baby rabies amongst daytime can all be traced back to, in my mind, Bianca's baby switch. Also the baby switch epidemic of the 2000s. It gives you 9 months at least of story. And a baby switch adds at least another year. Is it interesting story? No but it's a whole lot of time. Pregnancies are also easily network approved, as we've discussed.

[Michael]

That GL finale was crazy. And also somehow an okay finale?! 

[Vee]

Son of a bitch!!!! They did this the whole episode!! Just wandering from place to place!! There is a minimum of 15 people here!

lmao I legit thought so.

it was definitely a final episode.

I think it is partly all of the above, but also the overriding need to coddle what they feel is a predominantly conservative older audience from FB, old media, etc. They worry about anything too edgy or current and water down all content based on that, they're trying to preserve what little margin they have of viewership numbers. Babies both eat into long story time and are promoting baseline conservative/Facebook mom or grandma values, so everyone gets a baby or wants a baby or is looking for their lost baby, and nothing too dangerous is played for too long. That's why it's the most easily approved story for cruising creatives who are just trying to mark time.

[Michael]

It was very "90s sitcom coming to an end." I guess I was just glad they bothered wrapping up threads and didn't try too hard to do something daring.

Jesus. I just remembered Reva -- REVA! -- even had a baby near the end.

Not to defend the explosion of baby and pregnancy stories in the last two decades, but I do think they automatically add stakes, which too often are paper-thin on these shows. So even your most inept executive or half-assed viewer can understand what a character wants if they're trying to save their child or get custody from a nasty ex or whatever. The actual children are just weird Macguffins for the lame drama that surrounds them.