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

[BetterForgotten]

ABC should have used this as an excuse to clean house entirely when they were at it. They should have tried luring Ed Scott from B&B or a talented technical EP while they were making changes. I simply do not trust Frank’s vision as an EP beyond apparently managing budgets. 

[titan1978]

@Errolwas this the big change coming post strike that you alluded to a couple of months ago?

[DeliaIrisFan]

Is the current GH writing team still primarily composed of Carlivati's OLTL hires, or have most of those followed him to DOOL?  I can't remember the OLTL names at this point, but Korte's name was the only one I recognized from GH BITD the week of Bobbie's death.

Edited January 23 by DeliaIrisFan

[soapfave06]

This is incredibly exciting but I don’t see PM staying long amid the politics based on his interviews. I really hope this leads to a tighter show with longer scenes. The show looks great but takes absolutely no risks and focuses on the wrong threads and characters. But they did outdo themselves honoring Bobbie. 

[Toups]

There's not that many writers from Carlivati's OLTL on GH - just Scott Sickles and Suzanne Flynn.  There's been quite a few daytime newcomers on the staff - Ashley D. Cook, Emily Culliton, Shannon Peace, Cathy Lepard, Stacey Pulwer.   As writers retire, it's nice to see new writers be given a shot.  GH does this better than the other soaps. 

[Vee]

Some of the OLTL staff followed him to GH I think, others did not. I remember finding it tacky that Ron took shots at the DOOL team for beating him for awards during Eileen Davidson's reprise era in the early 2010s, considering Melissa Salmons and others from OLTL had migrated to DOOL.

[Contessa Donatella]

Under contract at B&B. 

Little known fact, when he & the other writers were hired to write TEXAS, they were ready but the show wasn't ready for them so they put them to work writing ANOTHER WORLD & that isn't credited online anywhere & it annoys the snot out of him! 

Edited January 23 by Donna L. Bridges
just had a thought

[detroitpiston]

Fantastic news. I’m guessing the stark quality difference of the writing and pacing during the strike episodes sealed the deal on Chris and Dan’s exits, and good riddance.

 

Getting Patrick Mulcahey and E. Korte as replacements is a gift I wasn’t expecting, my goodness! I hope they get some new script and breakdown writers in so we can get back to that pre-Frank and Ron writing quality. I will be tuned in 

[cassadine1991]

They need to change that writing staff, ASAP. Karen Harris would be one of my picks to come back

[Contessa Donatella]

Frank's been thinking about this since Christmas so part of what you say must be the case but then it was one script that was the straw that broke the camel's back - the Jason re-entry story. 

[Planet Soap]

GH needs a new EP as well but Frank supposedly keeps the show under budget with a multitude of sets so I'm guessing he stays till the end. He's going on 12 years already!

Edited January 23 by Planet Soap

[Khan]

Same.  Between this news and

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, I get the impression that ABCD knows that GH is in trouble and is doing what they can BTS to fix it.  Not because they love GH so much, but probably because they don't have anything ready to replace it at the moment.

IMO, Chris Van Etten and Dan O'Connor wanted to be like Bill Bell, telling big storylines with a "slow burn," but the problem was that their characters weren't complex enough to sustain the pacing.  In turn, much of their run became exercises in tedium.  (In a way, I'm glad Frank Valentini keeps the scenes under 90 seconds, because that helps create tension and suspense where there clearly is none.  If they ran any longer, I think viewers would be ready to commit mass suicide).

Obviously, I'm pleased that Patrick Mulcahey is returning to GH as Co-HW.  Next to Douglas Marland, he's my all-time favorite soap scribe (and part of my "dream writing staff" for my hypothetical soap, along with Victor Miller, Frank Salisbury and Wisner Washam).  And I'm sure ABCD and FV had to make certain concessions in order to get him to sign on, too.  Otherwise, why would he return to this industry at all, let alone as a Co-HW, let alone to GH?

So, for now, I'm adopting a wait-and-see attitude.  If he and Elizabeth Korte can turn the ship around and not brook any interference from FV or from the network, then fantastic.  If they can't...?  Well, knowing what I know about how TPTB operate to this day, I'll be disappointed, but I won't hold it against them, lol.

Listen, if Korte and Mulcahey can make the likes of Esme, Cancer Girl, Billy Joel Cassadine, Game Show Host Drew Cain and whichever character Michael Easton is playing these days even a little bit interesting, they will have won half the battle!

Edited January 23 by Khan

[Vee]

I am curious why they give a shít now. I could understand finally flushing Roger Howarth twice given the rapist-killer baggage of Franco post-#MeToo and then needing to pay for Steve, but this is a systemic, creative sea change and for years ABC has been mostly happy for GH to simply keep the lights on at 2-3 PM, which Frank has done while doing little else for many years. I don't see a reason it couldn't continue to simply trundle along half-alive, as it's done for years. It has improved a fair bit since the Passanante/Altman days, but it's still often very moribund and safe. So why now?

If it's true other staff writers are out, that also indicates something more. Virtually anyone left on staff that I know of other than Korte is either a Frank/Ron-era hire or post-Ron. It shows. Dan and Chris were FV/RC proteges from OLTL (and one or both were allegedly once asked to take over at OLTL 2.0 as part of its revolving door of micromanaged HWs in summer '13, right before the whole thing went kaput). Several young writers of color, I believe, were hired in recent years and I'd heard some were fired but I think several remain. Today I was reminded of course about Mulcahey's somewhat-curtailed plans for the Avants on B&B (referencing the Great Migration, etc.) and his attempts to get Wendell Pierce hired on SB. What a wild world.

MVJ congratulated PM and EK on Twitter, so I doubt she's in. Wouldn't entirely shock me though.

Thank you for adopting my name for that simp. Cannot believe he gets behind the ivories and does this over and over. You know Stefan's Force Ghost is out there in the fog muttering Russian slurs.

[Khan]

It wouldn't shock me either, @Vee.  I mean, how many ONS can you write for Brooke Logan, anyway?  But, I think that's part of the allure of writing for a show like B&B.  Because they basically have used the same long-term document since 1996, there isn't much heavy lifting to do on that show.  Even much of the dialogue sounds like stuff MVJ could toss off while prepping her ingredients for her gumbo.  It's literally being paid well to do absolutely nothing, lol.

I've attempted several times to watch that Locher Room interview with Patrick Mulcahey, but the technical issues drive me nuts.  Do they improve as the interview goes on, or do Locher and Mulcahey fight them all the way through?

I wish I had an answer for why ABCD cares again about GH all of a sudden.  I really do.  No way do I see this as a sign that ABCD is reinvesting in soaps in any significant way.  Maybe they're gearing up to transition the show over to Hulu with Disney Plus Costco?  Or maybe they just want GH to go out on top?  Again, I wish I had the answer.

[Vee]

Like I said: It's a retirement plan. Which is why I'm shocked PM returned, though I gather he left B&B a few years ago.