While it’s true they didn’t all go the full Ice Princess, every one of them ended up emulating Monty-isms. They almost all had at least one big action adventure umbrella story, even P&G soaps. They all started doing elaborate remotes or smaller location shooting. Young characters began driving story in a way that they never did before. Guiding Light had the infamous Dreaming Death. Y&R started doing remotes regularly, and Lauren was buried alive, Brad Carleton locked in the cage. Jenny died in AMC while on location on AMC. Bill Bell wasn’t immune and from that interview he gave with Labine he was also a fan of Monty’s production and Francis/Geary. Labine even states in that interview everyone else trying to do what Monty did was a huge mistake.
I would argue young characters were used before GH, but without Laura (and her pairings) we would never have gotten the same time and attention as leads with GL’s four musketeers, Bo/Hope, Jenny/Greg, Cricket and the young set on Y&R of her generation amongst others, and all of them were used in thriller type stories instead of just the classic young love stuff from before.
They always learn the wrong and easy lesson. When Reilly got the ratings so high on DAYS, they emulated the supernatural and not the structure. Without him I highly doubt vampires would eventually have invaded Port Charles. Didn’t AW have a pseudo vampire story during that time too? Clone and time traveling Reva were also a direct result of Reilly. His DAYS was outlandish but that was the filter to tell love stories, triangles, romances. It was incredibly slowed down, and dumbed down, so it was easy to get into and drop in and out of and that showed in the large young audience. It ultimately was not for me and I didn’t enjoy it much past Maison Blanche, but I got why it took off.
I wasn’t alive or old enough to see any of this first hand. But when I did finally see it the Ice Princess really does get stupid around the time the weather machine is revealed/used. But as a one off it’s not the worst thing I have seen. But it shocks me now having seen the continuous missteps after the wedding how GH stayed at the top for the seasons. Yes, their ratings eroded by millions when they lost Genie (and as far as Luke being so important, well they ultimately lost less of the audience when he left in 1983 than they did when she left, but again, TPTB learn the wrong lessons!), but not enough to topple them.
I mean David Grey, psychic Luke, the haunted sword, Jackie and Laura Templeton, all disasters in less than a year. GH really had a hold on that audience because soaps have driven me away for longer with less missteps. It’s truly bad, and fascinating to watch them refocus so much of the narrative on the Quartermaines and Robert to dig them out of it. Emma Samms really plays a part too, and again, tptb always think it’s the man that the audience is there for. I have also argued that while they may have hated each other, PFS and Monty were a good team, and GH is better in that era every time she is the HW.
Something else I have posted about before is that Luke and Laura worked so well in 1993 because the actors could be more down to earth and their character foundations were built in a more grounded way by Marland and PFS, so while they were famous for larger than life stories they also fit in with the tone Riche was going for. They still had adventure, but the mob is not the same as carbonic snow, and they once again had real stakes.
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titan1978 ·
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