Asp Burger

To add to that (I agree with every word), Ingo/Jax's best run by far was the first one, 1996-2000. In 2000, still in his late twenties, he went directly from GH to a starring role on what may have looked like a sure prime-time hit with Aaron Spelling's Titans. Remember the Titans? Few do, and when it failed, he couldn't find another pilot. He wasn't the first or last soap sensation to find limited prospects beyond daytime. He was back for the first time in 2001, and every time he's left and come back, the character has been a little more watered down and irrelevant. I never had anything against Jax, the character. I was even predisposed to side with him in a lot of his rivalries. But whatever magic or favored status was there in the Sonny/Brenda/Jax days was gone a long time before Rademacher started posturing like some kind of brave political dissident.

Dominic Zamprogna plays Dante like someone who's lived through a lot of terrible things and is always a bit subdued and stoic, a low-burning flame. I don't know if it's a choice he's arrived at after thought and discussion or it's just his comfort zone now, but IMO, it usually works for the character and his stories. The "biggest" emotional acting I remember ever seeing from DZ wasn't even on this show. It was on BSG, when Jammer's deception is uncovered and he's pleading for his life. In any case, I'd rather DZ do what he's good at than risk embarrassment with something like we were getting from the TJ actor in those wheezy/weepy scenes with Molly. Those were the only parts of the episode I wasn't enjoying.

I knew that was coming when Kristina was written as so smug in the scenes (with Alexis and others) leading up to the hearing. No siree, she wasn't going to let Ric rattle her. He could do his worst, but she was going to get on that stand and tell the truth. Then she could watch in satisfaction as Ava finally went down for the pain and misery she has caused all of Port Charles for years. When people talk about soaps being written in a way that makes it no big deal if you miss a day, they usually mean characters will talk about previous events in dialogue, or there will be flashbacks when something really big happened. But this is an example of setup that makes it possible to miss the next day. When one soap character (mostly Alexis here) is warning another (Kristina) about something, and the character being warned doesn't seem sufficiently concerned, the thing is gonna happen.

Mentions on the show of "The Facility That Jax Found" were drinking-game material for a while there in the late 2000s. One of my favorite TWoP memories. On Friday's show: I was skipping through a lot of it, and I would not have expected Michael/Curtis scenes would be a highlight, but those scenes were not bad at all. I liked the way Curtis pieced it out, with his comments about revenge being the wrong place from which to make business decisions. The way he took what Michael said seriously while having just enough loyalty to Drew, given his history with Drew, felt right. And I liked that Michael respected Curtis's position instead of getting pissy and flouncing out with a Corinthos "If you're not with me, you're against me" attitude. Also, look at Dante and Jason, adulting. The characters at the Q mansion were the other part of the show I somewhat enjoyed. Lowlight: Whatever Trina and Gio were doing. I didn't listen to enough to pass a quiz. I got the gist that Gio let himself in, frightened her, and Trina was troubled about something, and Gio said things to encourage her. Then they danced goofily at the end, so he had been successful. You can always depend on the kindness of fiddlers to buck up your spirits and shield you from dangers, or something.

Well, that's it. I'm out. Without Kelly Monaco and Chad Duell, GH simply makes no sense. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Kidding/parody of reactions I've seen in other places. I wish Duell well. He had his moments, and I thought he was a good-looking guy who did bring a certain cool strength to the character in Michael's less boring stretches. But with his mother and adoptive father sucking up all the oxygen, as if time had stood still since Michael was engrossed in Africa books in 1998, the character in CD's time became a straitjacket a Tony-award-winning young stage great wouldn't have been able to wriggle out of. Also, Duell's "coolness," an asset for some things, had the effect of dulling interest in romantic pairing after pairing. I suspect Michael will have a disappearance of contrivance (please, soap gods, nothing that will necessitate a show funeral/mourning) and we'll see him back eventually, played by...someone. As others have said, he's just too connected to be gone long term, especially with Morgan still out of the picture. I am moderately interested to see how this plays out.

I actually enjoy all the medical characters right now, or at least the actors who play them. Poor Brook Kerr has drawn the short straw in the writing, and a combination of "imperious" and "keeping a dangerous secret" does not bring out the best in her as an actor (she tightens up and becomes brittle), but I fundamentally like BK and want to like Portia again. I like the scenes of everyone else in that corner of the show. Yes, including the NuLucas guy, who's had a lot of out-of-bounds stuff thrown at him on other GH forums where anything goes. I wasn't sure how Liz as head nurse was going to play, but Liz/Becky has found her own style. That character has subtly matured overall, just in the last few years. Now she can speak with authority and the weight of experience (for example, when dropping truths on Lucky, or eulogizing Sam) without seeming to be trying too hard for it.

Watching the Tuesday funeral episode now. OMG, we actually got a "loved with her whole heart"? And Carly was the one who said it? If she had taken a slight pause and then added "Not just a part of it!" I really would have been able to convince myself it was 2005.

I'll admit, as I periodically do, to having a soft spot for Bradford Anderson. Spinelli is Spinelli, but what BA does with him doesn't remind me of any other character I've seen, and like everyone who's been watching TV and seeing movies since the '80s, I've seen enough talkative, socially awkward computer geeks to fill several football stadiums. It isn't entirely for bad reasons that BA took hold and made what could have been a short-termer a significant recurring character for...almost 20 years now? (checks dates) Yep. Just had his 18th GH anniversary on November 13. Also, BA seems like a very nice person off the show. I'm not a regular listener of that podcast he has with Burton, but on the few occasions I've listened, he's made a good impression. He's been kind and warm and genuinely interested with the guests.

I had to think about this, and then I thought, oh, of course. Even though Drew wasn't a gleam in any writer's eye in the 2000s, when the Ric/Jason hatred was at its hottest, Drew has many of Jason's memories. Still has them, I guess. At one time, he believed he was the person who had beaten Ric nearly to death in a parking garage in 2006, after Ric said that Sam was only one step above a cheap hooker. And all the rest of their bad encounters before and after. See, this is one reason I wish soaps wouldn't go too sci-fi on us. It isn't only that I like soaps to be grounded and realistic, although my favorite periods usually are that way. It's because it's hard enough to remember who knows about what, with actors leaving and coming back, characters being on and off canvas, recast actors nothing like the earlier ones. When they start adding flash drives that can upload a guy's memories into a previously undisclosed twin brother, and all the different layers of complication that have followed (Franco having all the Drew memories for a while, etc.), it starts to seem far more work than it's worth. I have a hard time remembering what the CM Drew does know. It would be simpler if I could just look at him and think he's a dumbass who's been elected to Congress and is having an affair with his nephew's wife.

Adding to the Ric discussion, for newer viewers: Fundamentally, he's a character no writing or producing regime has cared about "protecting." So, there's no clear level to which he won't stoop. When he stoops to those levels, the characters around him react to it like real people would react. He doesn't get built-in justifications and a small or large army of apologist characters within the show, as some other characters get. I think we're intended to see him as smart, cunning, charming, unable to let go of old resentments, selfish, and willing to be downright cruel. He has some degree of conscience and can care about specific people. He can even have romantic storylines with heroine types like Elizabeth and Alexis, but the writing will be telling you constantly that the woman is too good for him, and you always know it will blow up eventually, "as soon as she finds out about [X]." He doesn't get long-term wins, ever. As dubbel zout said, all that's new this time around is that they're ramping up his hatred of Alexis and his delight in making trouble for her. That part seems a little weird to me. The consistency of Hearst's performances is the best thing Ric has going for him. I don't think I'd have given him as much thought as it took to write this post otherwise.

That scene (the Jason/Ric garage beatdown in 2006) was something else. I do not get misty-eyed with nostalgia for the reign of the Gooze, but everyone involved committed to it that day, and Ric looked afterward as if he really had been pummeled by a mob enforcer. It made most of the "fight" scenes on later GH look even more tepid than they are. Bonus: When I looked up the exact year for that, I found that the Ric Lansing "Health and Vitals" section on the fandom site is almost all about him being beaten up. You scroll and scroll and you're still in 2003. Heh.

Ha ha. He was the Ted McGinley of daytime! (Although I know Cosgrove very early in his career got the ball rolling by being in the past-prime seasons of original 90210, as essentially the Jason Priestley replacement character. I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Brandon.) I like him too.

I liked Molly more with Isaiah than I have in months. It's one day, but they seem to work. I know Tabyana Ali has her fans, but I just don't enjoy her scenes, post NAC exit. The apparent struggles of the writers to come up with interesting things for Trina to do are part of it, but when the actress tries hard, it always looks like trying hard. She's playing Trina's anger at her eventual love interest so hotly that she would have no room for more outrage and indignation if Trina knew he were guilty of doing something far worse to some woman on campus. I was unspoiled for this part of the show, and I really thought that's where it was going when it started. (The decision to make the character a popular athlete may also have been a factor there.) TV/movie trope ready to go on the shelf: Tough guy wincing and recoiling as woman applies medicine to his cuts/scrapes/bruises. Maybe it was cute and humanizing in the 1930s.

Getting through the most recent episode of Korte-mandated GH was not a lot of fun, so I took my small pleasures where I spotted them. At the victory celebration, the campaign sign reading "DREW Q FOR YOU!" with some object in front of it so that we could only see "DREW Q F— YOU!" was amusing, and had to be intentional. It reminded me a little of Arrested Development, in which an early appearance of the Charlize Theron character had her in front of a partially obscured sign that, when read the way it looked, hinted at her entire storyline.

I did love me some Rosie. She had amazing chemistry with everyone, even the Dylan Cash Michael, and really lifted the scenes she was in.