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

[John]

No one knows when Mulcahey and Korte actually started writing so March 4 is still possible

[Contessa Donatella]

True. We know that he was writing for sure as of Mon. Jan. 29 but we do NOT know if he began before then.  He could have begun as early, for one example, as Jan. 20. And we know Korte was writing already of course. What we do not know outstrips what we know by a long way. However, the writer I mentioned would indeed know when PM began. 

[titan1978]

There is no way Frank Valentini would have initiated hiring a writer like Patrick Mulcahey. At no point in his history as an executive producer has he ever hired an acclaimed writer like this. He likes them controllable. And his interference has been clear several times.

I do agree Frank wants the show to be successful. But we can’t ignore as much as Varni might be annoying, ABC put someone directly above Frank who immediately started telling the fans they were trying to lure them to tune back in. FV has lost some measure of control/power in these moves.

I would assume some wooing took place to get PM to come out of retirement. And I would bet that the Jason umbrella storyline was being worked on as soon as they came to terms, by Korte and PM. Frank is good at inserting new material into already filmed shows, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see their work airing that soon.

One last thing- official air dates mean nothing to me when it comes to GH and writers. To anyone watching, when Guza came back at the end of 1997, his fingerprints were all over the show long before his premiere week. The Alexis backstory episode with Luke was before he was credited and that was 100% Bob Guza. There were several other pieces being put into place while they burned through the outgoing writer’s material.
 

We will know soon enough because the characters will have specificity in their scripts.

 

[Vee]

For the sake of completionism Frank was there when Malone and Griffith came back to OLTL, but this was just the beginning of his tenure as an EP, when he was put in place as a 'controllable' EP himself by Brian Frons after the firing of Gary Tomlin. Frons masterminded the creative reset at all 3 ABC shows at the time with what he felt were 'classic' writing teams back at the shows - Malone and Griffith at OLTL, Megan McTavish at AMC and Guza at GH. But yes, I agree with you, including re: scripts. As I said before, if Mulcahey starts writing it should show.

[Contessa Donatella]

That's such a funny thing to say. IF Mulcahey starts writing. We're gonna have to make bets on this. I guarantee you that PM has begun writing. The issue is that when what he has written hits our screens we should see it. WHEN not IF. Yoda would say that there is no IF. 

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[Khan]

I agree.  Patrick Mulcahey might not have total creative control, but given his history, I can't see him being controlled to the same degree that Frank Valentini has controlled all his HW's - at least, not without a fight, lol.

[Liberty City]

Well, even per Mulcahey's admission, he shouldn't have fought back as hard as he did in the past, but he also had some very strong opinions on 2021 about the state of daytime (even in 2011, too), so I am completely hopeful that he still has some of that mentality. His reputation and talents are known, and I don't see TPTB hiring him and being naïve enough to think that after all of these years he's gone from a "no" man to a "yes" man to satisfy TPTB.

[Khan]

I agree.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall during those negotiations.  When and how did ABCD/Nathan Varni first approach Patrick Mulcahey?  What did they promise to get him to sign on the proverbial dotted line?  Were Chris Van Etten and Dan O'Connor blindsided, or did they see their firing coming?  And how did/does Frank feel about everything?  Is he excited to be working with someone of PM's stature and caliber?  Or is he concerned that he might not be able to...cajole him the way he has cajoled his writers in the past?  And why did he appear to be so damn out of it on the night of the daytime Emmys!?  Again, so many questions, lol!

Edited February 7, 2024 by Khan

[BetterForgotten]

If PM quits within a year, then we’ll know ABC and Valentini didn’t uphold their end of what the bargain was to get him to sign on. We know he’s not afraid to just walk away if the conditions aren’t up to his standards…

[Khan]

I can't say that I blame him.  Money's good, but it's not that good; and if you believe in yourself enough, I think, you can always land another job somewhere else.

I just wish PM had landed on a drama series outside of daytime.  I think he's much too good now for this industry.

Edited February 7, 2024 by Khan

[titan1978]

We will see once things shake out. I would be shocked if some of the people he has a history working well with are not added to the writing team. We can all dream of Curlee, but more likely to me would be Demorest, who was part of the team back then too. And Michele Val Jean would be lovely, but I can’t begrudge her the stability of B&B.

Maybe he can get Korte to run interference with the network and Frank.

[Contessa Donatella]

I would love to know what MVJ's contract date is. Maybe it can be deduced. First find out what year she began & then look for start month. 

[Vee]

I think Frank and Ron were very simpatico for a very long time, so I don't think Ron was nearly as controlled as all the Frankolytes brought in after him. Ron got a lot of his vision onscreen (good and bad) and Frank facilitated well for him and the show. On paper at least that is the ideal role for an EP IMO. IIRC (and I don't think I'm confusing this with someone else) Ron used to gush that Frank would help him do an outer space storyline if he asked. Frank and Ron were "Cartini" in the soap press' eyes, a supposed dream team who worked in sync - until they didn't. Frank was perceived (by the DC crew, anyway, who lost their absolute minds at the time) as stabbing Ron in the back when various actors (Benard, Geary, possibly Stafford or others) and ABC had the knives out for him when the stories and ratings began to fall apart in late 2014 into 2015. I wasn't surprised when it happened; I knew Frank could be ice cold and was all business, having never let his face crack during the Higley years at OLTL when he allegedly detested her work but used to regularly cheerfully bat down repeated inquiries from the soap press who would hammer her stories. Everyone since Ron, I think, is a Frank choice who he could control and micromanage for his own stories and preferences. He became one of those EPs that thinks he is a HW, and all the writers were simply modular yes-men. I think a lot of that change in persona came out of the Cartini era - they both began to think they were the last hope for soaps, the future of soaps, etc.

Patrick Mulcahey is not a Frank hire with no history in daytime or someone he plucked from his existing pool. He has a rich and proud history at GH that predates Frank, something Frank is not always super comfortable with in my experience (paging Vanessa Marcil, or the multiple attempts to dump Genie for not going recurring). So this will be very interesting.

Demorest was also on staff at Frank's OLTL for a number of years, IIRC.

Edited February 7, 2024 by Vee

[titan1978]

I forgot Demorest was at OLTL. As far as control goes, Frank did start under Paul Rauch, and was a big admirer of his. And Rauch was very hands on when it came to writing after Lemay at AW. Very hands on.

[Vee]

I never got a sense that Frank had an ego about the writing or creative direction during his many years at OLTL, until he and Ron became the Great White Hope of soaps - their big alleged plans to turn GH into the 'super-soap' of ABC Daytime, housing characters from all past ABC shows (starting with the OLTL transplants and Delia from RH, and continuing off and on today), etc. was supposedly his vision, and they took it very personally onscreen and off when OLTL came back without them in charge of it again. It was their baby and they lashed out in story in the "Pickle Lila" wars nonsense in 2013, which was a very thinly veiled allegory for them vs. Prospect Park. Until "Cartini" became those guys' living myth Frank was simply (AFAIK) a frugal, disciplined and focused facilitator.