Asp Burger
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Posts posted by Asp Burger
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16 hours ago, CeChase said:
In my eyes, he's nowhere near as bad as people said at the time, but he's not very good. For me, he's average. I think he was fine. He wasn't a bad actor. I don't want him back, but he's fine.
I agree that Ramsey is generally fine. I also agreed with Tristan Rogers that he was miscast in that role. He was at his best in the earliest part of it, when the story they were going with was that "Peter" hated his father. When the character showed his true colors (or the behind-the-scenes team thought things were getting dull and decided to have him embrace his heritage, whichever), he didn't have the heft to be an effective big-bad. I don't really know how to put it better than that; he just never worked. And since the story keeping him around was the endless Maxie pregnancy of 2020-21, I can't think of him without thinking about that whole mess (like the time he was chasing her through the woods, and we were supposed to believe she could outrun him).
He is one of many male newcomers over the last 10-15 years to arrive with great fanfare and then depart to few tears from the fan base. Rory, Dev, Oscar, Nathan, Griffin, Levi, Austin, Neil, Dustin (that teacher Lulu dated for about 15 minutes before they were both in the explosion)...by no means a complete list. It's not as though they've done a great job of introducing new women either, but my very unscientific accounting says they've really struggled with the new men.
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I was a little surprised to see Maurice Benard briefly as a potential Tony in that documentary about The Sopranos, but then I thought about it, and I realized it was only surprising that I hadn't heard about it long ago, despite spending time in a lot of places where it would be likely to come up (books/articles about the history of The Sopranos and a few internet eras of GH discussion forums).
It makes sense that he tried, I guess. It was summer 1997 that they shot the pilot, and it was taking them a long time to find a lead everyone was happy with. I'm sure every agent in LA with a client in the right age group who (1) really was Italian-American, (2) had the coloring to pass as Italian-American, or (3) had mobster acting experience, was going hard after this thing. David Chase didn't have his rep as a TV genius and household name yet, but he had been associated with The Rockford Files, I'll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure, so it was likely to be a project of quality, even if no one expected it to become the phenomenon it became.
It was weird hearing Maurice delivering a classic Tony line ("What about Gary Cooper?" to Melfi). I'll just say I think everything worked out for the best. The two closest runners-up to Gandolfini (Michael Rispoli and John Ventimiglia) were given other recurring roles on that series. Their auditions did look good.
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On 9/7/2024 at 8:33 PM, YaddaYadda said:
I think it has a lot to do with airtime. Jason used to be in our face like all the freakin' time. You turned left, there he was. Right? There too. Stared in front? Well look elsewhere. Nope he's there too.
Female characters aren't treated very well on this show. Whatever woman ended up with Jason, she too ended up everywhere.
That's it exactly. Being paired with Jason or Sonny meant air time; it meant being one of the female leads. Being paired with just about anyone else, even legacy characters, was a ticket to the "B" or "C" list starting around the late 1990s/early 2000s.
That's why, for example, Alexis fans overwhelmingly supported her pairing with Sonny, and Liz fans overwhelmingly supported her pairing with Jason. It was a combination of fans who really did like those guys, and fans who didn't, but knew that, for example, Alexis + Ned meant they'd see their girl two days a week (unless she was getting Jason out of jail or helping Sonny get custody of a baby), and Alexis + Sonny meant they'd see her four or five.
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1 hour ago, Cheyanne11 said:
As someone who didn't watch OLTL and has no clue who these characters are, I'll just say we don't need more characters with an already bloated cast.
I'm with you on that. Nora Buchanan was in and out of GH twice already, however. They originally brought her on as Valentin's lawyer in a custody battle with Lulu over Charlotte, and then again on Kevin's behalf. It's hard for me to believe it was seven and five years ago, respectively.
I don't mind "canceled-soap fan service" when it's done that way. It might as well be her rather than some other short-term player when an additional attorney is needed.
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18 hours ago, jsbt said:
Frank has done worse to other people, though. SC is far, far from the first soap actor (at any soap) to do an exit interview saying 'I just bought a new house!' right after they get fired. That's an unfortunate turn of events as old as the hills in this industry.
Oh, yes. "I just bought a house!" is a big one in professional sports as well. It's so common that they used it in Moneyball as a test for the Jonah Hill character in his new executive position—something he'd be likely to hear while delivering bad news.
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14 hours ago, Ambrosefolly said:
Also, don't forget characters ruined: Johnny Zacharra, Paul Hornsby. It is happening to TJ Ashford right now. I'd argue Morgan Corinthos too. He was a really charming kid during the first SORASing. There are probably others I can't think off right now. Surprised nothing bad happened to Dillion Quartermaine. That is why I'm never happy when old favs return.
I suspect that Morgan caught them as much by surprise as he caught us. They lucked into a very strong child actor, Aaron Refvem, for a year or so there. They saw how well he did and how the audience responded, so they gave him a real story with "Dominic" (Dante). Morgan just knew him as dad's new employee whom he really liked, and they were actually half brothers. He didn't have to pretend to talk with a speech impediment and do the 2009 boy equivalent of constantly asking people to come to his tea parties. (Action figures?)
The subsequent Morgan child actor was more typical for a soap kid, so the character's air time dropped steeply until the write-out (military school). Then the next round of SORAS made him a young adult.
I did think there was a big difference between Scott Clifton's Dillon and Robert Palmer Watkins's, but I guess you're right that they didn't really "ruin" him. He was more of a standard young soap hunk as played by RPW, less quirky, but they did keep his interests and goals consistent.
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I'm another who thinks Monaco hasn't been the same since the period when Miller and Burton overlapped.
I was never a Sam McCall fan. In the early days, after PC got axed and they brought Monaco over to the mothership as a different character, and she was on the trail of the Dead Man's Hand and all, I felt I detected that determination on the part of the behind-the-scenes team to make a new character happen, which sometimes can have the opposite effect for me. They were flailing every which way until they found something that worked.
But in those days, I just thought the character was poorly conceived and that we were seeing her four or five days a week not because it was good for the show, but because GH and/or ABC wanted Sam/Kelly to break out in a big way. Monaco's bored, low-energy performances didn't come until some time later, and I think she's been decisively over it at least since the "Who's the real Jason?" story in 2017. The writing or lack for Sam in recent years was a hint that they knew Monaco wasn't going to be around much longer, whether it was her idea or theirs or a combination.
I agree that her fall from the show's "A" list to its "C" list was abrupt. Even in the early Billy Miller period (which was what, 2014-15? ), I'd never have seen this coming. I won't miss the character, but I wish Monaco well. She was a regular for more than 20 years. I'm sure her memories of her time on GH will be bittersweet at the very least.
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On 8/24/2024 at 10:16 AM, lala2 said:
I think Molly has every right to be angry that Kristina was going to keep the baby. That’s wrong and inexcusable, IMO! It’s when she accused Kristina of murdering the baby and being incapable of love that goes too far! But ever since the recasts, we’ve gotten a Molly that has little respect for her sister. At times, I’ve wondered if Molly even likes Kristina. Her opinion of Krissy is rock bottom!
Same. Neither sister is a prize, and I hate the whole story, but Molly and TJ are just bothering me more, and have for the whole duration of this surrogacy mess. If I had a sister who spoke to me the way Molly spoke to Kristina, I'd never speak to her again. That would be a long-haul estrangement. At this point, I hope Molly and TJ never even get to parent a goldfish.
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Why was Anna on the verge of tears when she said "I'm going to take Sonny down, and I hope you're not standing by his side when I do"? The quivering emotional voice kind of took the authority out of it. If I had never watched before, I'd think she was supposed to be in love with Jason.
My question is purely rhetorical. I know the answer: ever since at least the #justicefordewk era, the only times Anna's not on the verge of tears are romantic scenes and cute-little-kid scenes. Finola is stuck that way now.
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The OJ one (with Cuba Gooding Jr. as OJ, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey, et cetera) is the only Ryan Murphy series I've ever really liked. I was told that he mostly limited himself to an overseeing role and stayed out of his writers' way there. I don't know if that's true, but it would explain why it was more grown-up than RM's usual mode.
Re: Natalia. The things Natalia said about homosexuality, I have seen so often over the years in comments under GH's official social-media posts about Brad/Lucas, Kristina/Parker (yeah, there were good reasons to be negative about that relationship, but these particular fans weren't focusing on the right part), Felix, Aiden, and others. Rather than making Natalia an outright villainness, they had her saying things like "Maybe I'm just old-fashioned..." and they wrote her as obviously still wanting a relationship with her daughter, and obviously caring about her, although she's controlling and infantilizing about it. So, I think they were trying to do some consciousness-raising with a large segment of the audience.
It didn't make me enjoy the character or the story more, and I've never seen much chemistry between MB and the actress. Less than with both Maura West and Cynthia Watros.
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19 hours ago, statsgirl said:
she doesn't even bother to call the hotel to check on what's going on, or her insurance agent to check on liability. Nor to call Joss who was on lifeguard duty that day to see if she was there and how she is handling it.
But if Carly had been shown doing any of those sensible things, they might not have been able to squeeze in that multi-segment scene of her explaining to Donna that grown-ups fight sometimes even though they love each other, just like Donna fights with her big sister and still loves her. I swear, I think they just went to "Subs Like Script" and copied and pasted an Ethan Hawke monologue from Boyhood.
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The Ava/Kristina altercation and fall, and even the conversations I'm seeing about it (especially the different opinions on how much of a transgression it was for Ava to grab Kristina's arm), reminds me a lot of the AJ/Carly incident on the Q stairs about 25 years ago. So, yeah, going by that, Ava is never coming back from this and will probably die in November sweeps. I'm waiting for them to start easing the way by making Ava's misdeeds worse in the dialogue. First it will be "pushed my pregnant [daughter/sister/girlfriend] out a window." Then it will become "threw my pregnant [daughter/sister/girlfriend] out a window."
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14 hours ago, Liddy52 said:
I barely remember Dev, which is probably just as well.
In GH's attempts to add to its youthful set over the last decade, Dev gets a pretty low placement. He was only slightly more memorable than Rory, the rookie cop and Trina love interest who was around for nine months in 2022. Going on memory, I'd have guessed more like nine weeks.
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Circle Wednesday, July 31, with your red marker, because there's a huge spoiler for that day: "Sonny won't listen to reason." Finally, a new development.
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I've never been a Katelyn MacMullen stan, but I've also never thought she was bad. I just haven't liked many of the choices for Willow, especially since she and Michael were cemented as a GH couple of destiny, with the partner swap involving Sasha and Chase. This is setup to say that I thought she was really good in those scenes with Cynthia Watros earlier this week. She really seemed torn up over the Drew kiss and her mixed-up feelings. More of this sort of thing. I don't mean that in a sadistic way, like "I want Willow to suffer!" just that she's a more sympathetic and relatable character when she's scuffed up a little than when she's self-righteously co-signing whatever Michael and Carly said.
She was good opposite Maurice Benard as well, but these days, anyone in a scene with him can be the standout. Watros gave her something more interesting to play against.
I can't decide yet about the Gio actor. He's likable, and he always delivers lines as if he's a bit embarrassed. (You haven't had the half of it yet, Gio!) Maybe he's just green. Wikipedia says he "began acting at 7," but his credits suggest he doesn't have a lot of experience as a series regular, playing the same character on a sustained basis.
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9 hours ago, Auntie Velvet said:
Joe Kelly always got the short end of the stick. I think his father had stolen his crush out from under him when he married Rose. (That was all backstory, not on canvas, so I may be remembering it wrong.) But certainly Annie Logan, Bobbie, Heather, etc, always seemed to leave him or cheat on him for/with other men.
Same with Doug Sheehan's Knots Landing character, Ben Gibson. Val and Gary were the supercouple who were always going to end up together eventually, and Ben was Val's second husband, who got the thankless writing of "great guy, but not the love of her life."
Sheehan was good at playing that kind of character, though. He had nice comedic timing and a lot of charm, like an Old Hollywood leading man from the Cary Grant era, and he could make you feel for him too. I missed him when he wasn't on the series anymore. (Back when I was a teenager still living at home, Thursday night at 10 was appointment TV!)
RIP.
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2 hours ago, 30 Helens said:
Some flashbacks would be nice, but please no "permanent lock" nonsense. Or the song Lucky played for Liz on his guitar (still known as "LizzyLizzyLizzyLizzy" in this house, a la the "KellyKellyKelly" song that Woody sang for his girlfriend on Cheers.) (On second thought, play the song. I could use a laugh.)
Yeah, that song was just a whisker away from Phoebe Buffay territory.
If you can get a laugh from a reprise of that, then I want a laugh with a flashback to Elizabeth's kitschy painting of Lucky. It wasn't the finest moment of the art department. I don't think it will be unearthed for display in Ava's gallery.
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1 hour ago, jsbt said:
I never really bought him as the same Lucky. It was a profoundly different character. Lucky was a C-player without Jonathan in the role, one Guza had no respect for or interest in. That wasn't GV's fault, but it was the difference between a star and just another male lead. And when JJ returned that was put into stark relief once more
Besides Guza, the difference in Tony Geary was remarkable. Geary didn't do a thing to hide his happiness at having JJ back. I remember him with GV, on the occasions they were even in the same scene, acting detached, if not a little embarrassed. The writing rationale that it was all about Luke disapproving of Lucky becoming a cop didn't hold up, because it's not as though JJ's Lucky left the police force and started going on capers with Dad in which they did funny accents together. It was clearly all about the actor.
1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:This why a lot of us called him Larry.
"Neil" was another of his fan nicknames. Jacob Young's version of the character had been "Carl."
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No ambivalence or disappointment here. I'm as thrilled about Jackson's return as I was in 2009. I will hope the storyline is worthy of him this time. His acting was everything it could have been, but when I think about his last run, all I've got is the sordid Lucky/Liz/Nik triangle, the ugly "rutting like farm animals" scene, the Jake hit-and-run, Siobhan, The Balkan, Ireland, the pill under the couch, "The Darkness," etc. None of it a happy memory. I did think he made a surprisingly convincing police officer, more than many other GH actors have.
JJ is the only Lucky who's really made sense to me, made me think he was Luke and Laura's offspring for reasons other than "because Show says so." He's a hard character to recast. Not impossible, maybe, but they focused on the wrong things both times.
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Sonny was so pathetic and delusional in those Wednesday scenes with Kristina. I'm not as hard on Evan Hofer as some are, but I'm not sure he has the range to prance around like a peacock or act like he's "the man," even if that's what's written. His Dex is pretty much always the same low-key, flat-affect guy, whether he's courting Josslyn or trying not to get killed. But no, Sonny is sure that everything Dex was doing was calculated to enrage Sonny, and he put up with it until he just snapped.
If I were someone looking for a new soap and I watched those scenes in isolation, I'd think this Dex person must be a younger, better-looking criminal Sonny was jealous of.
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I think enough time has gone by to officially say that SBu seems to have returned to GH a better actor. It may be that he has grown artistically, or just that they haven't thrown Jason into a super-mobby story with Sonny.
Agreeing with @GHScorpiosRulethat he's always been good opposite certain people, and Herbst has always been one of them.
I'm not a Burton fan, but as Jason Morgan, he's best when the writing lets him struggle against the robo-assassin straitjacket a little, and act in a way that reminds us there's a real boy in there. He needs scene partners who can both carry the burden of saying most of the words and be a good listener when Jason does contribute something. Herbst is one; McCullough was another, and Leslie Charleson (different sort of onscreen relationship). Kelly Thiebaud had promise too. Laura Wright, Kelly Monaco, and ALW are examples of people who played a ton of Jason scenes without ever really hitting that sweet spot (IMO).
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9 hours ago, dubbel zout said:
I like how Maxie talked to Violet (and I agree with @Sake614 that she's much better when they write to her actual age). It was truthful and respectful.
Until I scrolled up to see Sake614's post, I thought you meant Maxie was much better when they write to her actual age. That too, though.
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5 hours ago, graight said:
Of course Carly's first reaction to why a person would run for Congress is "power, money and influence."
Now I'm imagining Carly herself as a member of Congress, testifying in an ethics inquiry. "I didn't even benefit from that influence-peddling!"
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I've fallen a day behind, so the most recent episode I've watched is the Friday one.
Seeing Jason and Sonny in the same scene (which has only happened a few times since Burton's return) is depressing, because their scenes are the same as they ever were. Except for changes to both guys' appearance to give away that it's 2024, I could be watching an episode from 20-25 years ago. Those two characters never grow. I know, one of them has permanent brain damage and the other one has a chronic condition he has to manage, but still.
They're at odds now, but it isn't as though that's much of a novelty. Bob Guza had them at each other's throats over Jason's relationship with Courtney and Sonny's with Emily, respectively. We were hearing about bipolar disorder and medications back then too.
Everyone else who goes back decades on GH has grown. Alexis is investigating a return to the law, but she's had a lot of ups and downs in the intervening years and has surprised us once in a while. Liz isn't the same person she was in 2004. Neither is Maxie. Neither is Sam. Neither is Tracy. Neither is Laura. I loathe Carly, but she hasn't completely stood still over 20 years, and it isn't solely because she's been played by three actresses in that time.
All of these characters have traits that have stayed consistent, but they've learned lessons and tried things. They're all reasonably dynamic characters. Jason and Sonny are static.
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Episode Discussion II: The TFGH
in General Hospital
· Edited by Asp Burger
This.
I guess there are two standard options for when a character is brought back after years presumed dead, MIA, or just off canvas: you can show the character interacting with day players while trying to escape a prison, get out of a clinic, get off the fishing boat that rescued them from drowning in the South Pacific, whatever. That's the "exciting" option. Or you can just have another character answer a knock at the door and find the returning character standing there. This is the "getting on with things" option.
I prefer the latter. Even when it's a character I'm not crazy about, the best thing about having that character back will be the interactions with other familiar characters. And there's never much genuine excitement in the "exciting" option. If a random thug is pointing a gun at Lucky, no one in the audience is thinking, "I hope they didn't bring Jonathan back only to kill Lucky off in a dingy room half a world away, before he sees his family and friends again."
At least GH's versions of this go by pretty quickly. If the James Reilly of '90s Days of Our Lives were writing this story, Lucky would be scheduled to arrive in Port Charles for February 2025 sweeps. We'd spend fall and most of winter watching fake-out scenes in which he seemed to be getting away, and then we would see that he was dreaming.