GH: Mulcahey OUT!

[Errol]

Correct. Based on that example, one would only use the word "allegedly" if specifically stating someone's name, whether it be the person potentially losing their job or who/where they got the information from, and it was either incorrect or defaming.

A better example with proper use would be: "Allegedly, (name of person) is getting fired because (name of person) doesn't like them." Another could be, "(Name of person) is allegedly not a good person and is the worst when it comes to their reception of new scripts."

[ranger1rg]

Agreed. We're on the same page with this.

 

[Liberty City]

Kind of wish they had.... because, I do think we wouldn't be in the mess at that soap we are... sorry to derail, but had to say it.

[Errol]

Possibly. However, One Life to Live would have been canceled sooner had ABC gotten the chance to acquire Days of our Lives on its lineup.

That said, I don't doubt ABC would have also forced Corday to sell the show to them at some point had they gotten the show. Besides NBC still giving a damn, I'm sure that's one of the reasons DAYS never went to ABC.

[Liberty City]

NBC always did have its sweet spot for Days of Our Lives... but I'd like to think how much better-off we could have been had ABC taken it and bought Corday out. 

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[Contessa Donatella]

If they had acquired either AW or DAYS during that time period, you figure canning OLTL & giving its space to the NBC show would've been their go to? At the time there was considerable speculation that they were going to air 5 hours again like they did when EON was on. Of course speculation is not compelling. When do you think NBC stopped caring about DAYS & soaps in general? 

[Errol]

It was widely known ABC had been trying to dump OLTL long before they finally did. There was a reason it got the smallest studio and was an afterthought compared to its network siblings, AMC and GH. JFP got the GH job because she did what the network thought impossible at the time, which was to bring up OLTL's numbers to the point it rivaled GH for #1 in the key sales demos.

As for a five-hour soap block you're mentioning, the specific time frame I'm talking about Port Charles was already on the air and continued the curse of affiliates not airing ABC's half-hour soaps in a consistent slot which caused low viewership. I don't believe ABC would have successfully been able to gain a half-hour from their affiliates as such.

[Adamski]

It's disheartening to read that Sri Rao tried for several years to break in to writing for GH, but that they wouldn't have him.

[Liberty City]

I think back then Sri Rao would have worked. But now? I don't think he would unless there were a lot of other changes made prior to his appointment.

[DeliaIrisFan]

This is the take I agree with the most.

I didn't love everything that's been happening on GH the last few months, but I've watched regularly for the first time in decades.  I don't even know if PM is cut out to be a head writer, but if reportedly he (he and MK) weren't given time to write a long-range story, then who can say?  I feared it would end up something like this, but this sequence of events is truly bonkers, especially for 2024.

The comparisons to Claire Labine's tenure at Paul Rauch's GL are apt.  Although in hindsight I can at least kind of understand how that went down at the time, when we weren't that far removed from soaps being incredibly profitable and attracting key demos and most of the shows were bleeding viewers year upon year.  Daytime wasn't that far removed from a time when an esteemed head writer could bring a show from the brink of cancellation to pop culture phenomenon.  And in 2000 there was at least a cost-benefit justification that could be made for the amount of micromanaging that clearly went on in those days.  Even if anyone who knew soaps could have realized that approach itself would prove disastrous for a genre that needs to build trust with viewers that there will be payoff for what they're watching. 

You can't convince me that in 2024 anyone with influence over a sizable amount of the remaining soap audience knew or cared who Mulcahey was; or that GH could be that much more in danger now than it was three months ago; or that anyone at ABC believed either of those things.

I too worry about The Gates, not that I didn't already, but I have some more hope on that front for a couple of reasons: 1) Nobody has created a daytime soap in this millennium, so hopefully Michele Val Jean's contract will be more like a primetime deal, in terms of creative control, if only for lack of an alternative template.  2) At least she'll be starting with a blank canvas, and can establish an internal reality that can allow the show to have real stakes.  The fact that the big story PM was ostensibly hired for was Jason coming back from the dead for the who knows many number of times in his 50-something years and saving Port Charles never did bode well...

Still, I'll probably watch the remainder of PM's material.  Hopefully TG will be something better, but this may be my last chance to see what a head writer I have respect for might do with a show that has decades of history.

Edited May 20 by DeliaIrisFan