GH: O’Connor/Van Etten OUT! Mulcahey/Korte IN!

[Khan]

In retrospect, the cross-country move might have bought AMC a little more time, but I feel like cancellation was inevitable no matter what Julie Hanan Carruthers and her writers did or tried to do.

Edited January 23, 2024 by Khan

[Vee]

I knew when they covered the move with an endless onscreen dance marathon to save on sets the show was fûcked.

[Khan]

Yep, lol.

Was that when Beth Ehlers' Taylor McBride Thompson vanished without any explanation?

[Vee]

This may possibly be another interesting, instructive moment in the genre to examine. I've talked about a few of them in the last decade-plus where we've gotten to see soaps either reconstruct themselves or soft reboot, either on streaming (Neighbours on Amazon, OLTL and AMC on Hulu) or in attempted onscreen revamps (Sally Sussman's troubled return to Y&R, where she opened on a classic Abbott family breakfast episode to try to cleanse the audience's palate and evoke the past). Even recently, looking at the recovered Edge of Night episode from 1975 where they jumped to ABC with a special event, much of that episode's story was devoted to recapping ongoing plot for new viewers and did it fairly seamlessly using a variety of devices (court testimony, a character telling a doctor about his patient, etc). McPherson and Thomas' infamous DOOL run also attempted a soft reboot with the Horton Square gala or whatever it was, in 2011.

Will Mulcahey and co. attempt something like these gestures in his opening hours to give GH a touchstone to what it used to be back when soaps had some authenticity? I think it's entirely likely it will be much more low-key and we may not have a big fanfare at first. But who knows.

Into the bathroom!

[Soaplovers]

I think the scriptwriters should have been replaced instead.

The scab episodes were better paced and written. 

[dragonflies]

Did we ever find out who the scab writers were for GH during the strike?

[Soapsuds]

Hell No to Justin Deas!

[Toups]

Someone went digging all the way back to 2007?  LOL  I guess thanks to that person because I'm definitely going to read it again.

[John]

I could be wrong was BE given the chance to move to LA with AMC or did they fire her. She should have been Liza. That stupid reason she said casting her as Liza was too complicated because Liza was so tied to PV. WTF? Thats what you want a soap character to be. 

 

Personally I would have cast Beth Chamberlin as Liza when GL ended

Edited January 23, 2024 by John

[Contessa Donatella]

Patrick Mulcahy, various

Mulcahey: AW, TEX, GL2x, SFT, LOV, GH, SB, B&B, A New Day in Eden & now another run at GH. 2 person scenes. Fathers & sons. Douglas Marland's only protege.

Mulcahey & IMDb & Wiki & Errors
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Earlier this year, in the twitterverse, Patrick Mulcahey told me about some writing he did at AW before they started writing TEXAS, and that it shows up exactly nowhere in any credits online! Further he spoke about working with either IMDb or Wikipedia to try to get his credits right on their pages. On one he finally just asked them to take the page down. On the other he just gave up trying to deal with them. The takeaway from this is that these easy online sources we have are fatally flawed! We are so lucky that we have all of the Internet at our disposal. No more learning the card catalog, the Dewey Decimal system, the periodicals index, etc. But we have to keep it in our minds that there are errors throughout.

Soap Town USA. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. 
Patrick Mulcahey is an American television writer who briefly attended Yale University.
Among his accomplishments, Mulcahey wrote The Bold and the Beautiful's 5,000th episode. 
In a recent interview, he acknowledged his close friendships with CBS Daytime's Senior Vice President Barbara Bloom, Robert Guza Jr., Nancy Lee Grahn, and the late Douglas Marland. He described the working relationship between Wendy Riche (former Executive Producer of GH) and Guza Jr. as "oil and water", and speaks highly of her. He also spoke highly of former Guiding Light Head Writer, Nancy Curlee, calling her a "meticulous" writer whose presence is greatly missed on daytime television. 
He seemingly accused Gloria Monty of decimating General Hospital, and called Jackie Smith and John Conboy "clueless and comical".
However, in a later interview with TV Guide (Canada) he clarified that he wasn't accusing Gloria Monty of decimating General Hospital. In fact, that opinion he stated was a "interpretation of something I said about GH, which I believe to be true — and that was that GH is very difficult to write because the generational structure of the show, with the exception of the Quartermaines, was decimated. By the time I got to GH, the Baldwins and all the rest of the families were gone. At least our families are still intact on The Bold and the Beautiful. But you know, Nelson, soaps are not about romance — they are about families. If two people fall in love, murder each other, or rob a bank, no one cares if no one is connected to those characters [and creates a fuss]. To me, that was something Monty didn’t care about, but at the same time, I wouldn’t say she destroyed the show in any sense. Obviously she gave it new life."

Patrick Mulcahey @MulcaheyPatrick·
So sad to hear of Jerry verDorn's passing. What a fine actor and a good guy. He never stopped thanking me for a special GL episode I wrote for him (Ross's Election Day dream), but I loved his work way back when Ross was with Vanessa, then Carrie, and then later, with Blake.

From THE SURVIVAL OF SOAP OPERA: TRANSFORMATIONS FOR A NEW MEDIA ERA
From PERSPECTIVE: WRITER PATRICK MULCAHEY ON CHANGES IN SOAP OPERA WRITING CONTRACTS (Based on an Interview by Giada da Ros) 
Patrick Mulcahey has written on GH, GL, LOV, SB, SFT, TEX and B&B
When he first started out he worked for the Corringtons for SFT. Next he worked for Douglas Marland on GL. And, he literally means that he worked for the Headwriter. That's who hired him. And, that's who wrote him a check to pay him for his work. The HW had much more power and independence in the “good ole' days” compared to the more modern day soaps. He finds it to be a major defining difference in story-telling and creativity. That compares to each individual writer working for the show, hired by the show, chosen by the show, if necessary fired by the show, and regularly paid but by the show. That's how after the last Writer's Strike [2008] so many shows did away with Breakdown Writers. (Summary by me)

From Sara Bibel "Farewell Springfield"
"The brilliant Patrick Mulcahey episodes that inspired me to pursue a career in daytime." 

From an anniversary post celebrating the debut of Santa Barbara, by me
As Patrick Mulcahey: "We, Gregor, are Santa Barbs from the planet Montecito. We are a kind and helpful people, whose mission is to bring beauty, goodness, unconventional sex, occasional amnesia, general improbability and, overall, a certain polish to your dreary planet,"!

 

[soapfan770]

I’ll always remember reading an article where Frons championed on how The Chew and The Revolution would be ABC Daytime’s new legacy only for Frons to get fired from ABC a few weeks later and his “new legacy” shows would get cancelled. I hadn’t seen karma for a soap killing executive like that since the downfall of NBC’s John Rohrbeck in the 90’s. No wonder he turned down an interview a few years back. 

[Khan]

Was it that soon, lol?

IIRC, "The Chew" ran for several years, but with perennially low ratings and a cloud of controversy over it, thanks to those "sexual misconduct" allegations against Mario Batali.

"The Revolution," on the other hand, was over and done with in less than a year, which surprised me, because, even though their ratings weren't nearly as good as OLTL's, you would've thought the network would have held onto it a little bit longer and maybe attempted a revamp of sorts for it.

[Errol]

The Chew was canceled solely due to issues with the hosts (one opting not to return and the other accused of sexual harassment) and the then co-head of Disney TV wanting to (again) expand on Good Morning America with another hour despite the failure that was Good Afternoon America.

As for The Revolution, its ratings were worse (among Total Viewers) than GMA3 or about the same as what GMA3 is getting now, but 12 years earlier. No way that thing could have lasted. 

[soapfan770]

May have not been that soon lol but it felt like it LOL.
 

What I found even more amusing was Frons’ exit mirrored Barbara Bloom’s exit at CBS; both left shortly after a soap ended (AMC for Frons, ATWT for Bloom) as their contracts expired and both had the same cover story of “Proud of our accomplishments but I just wanted to try something new!” (In other words, asked to resign). 
 

I forgot The Chew ran through 2018 before it was canned. I wonder how Frons felt about that. 

[John]

The revolution being canned after 3 months probably fastened Frons' exit

 

ABC should have cut AMC & OLTL each to 30 Mins

Aired them from 2-3PM then GH at 3pm

 

Then i guess The Chew from 1-2