GH In The News: The PC Press Club

[ulkis]

I feel like the actors are probably like, "yeah, just make up something, say I said it."

[Neptune]

[ulkis]

Aw, this was nice of Bryan Craig:

[dubbel zout]

I know it's a tweet, but I hate it when people use "your" when it should be "you're." 

[Neptune]

GH’s Hayley Erin “Devastated” by Firing of RPW and What’s Next for Kiki

http://soapcities.com/2017/08/ghs-hayley-erin-devastated-firing-rpw-whats-next-kiki/

 

GH’s Hayley Erin Opens Up On Robert Palmer Watkins Departure: “I Am Devastated”

http://michaelfairmansoaps.com/news/ghs-hayley-erin-opens-up-on-robert-palmer-watkins-departure-i-am-devastated/2017/08/24/

Edited August 25, 2017 by Neptune

[dubbel zout]

Erin is beside herself about the out-of-the-blue, borderline bizarre, axing of Robert Palmer Watkins (ex-Dillon) from GH,

It's not "borderline bizarre." Dillon hasn't had much story since RPW got the role (once the Lulu/Dante cheating story peaked, Dillon was out of it), and with Dillon being a Q, he's always on the chopping block. Especially with JE gone and WK recurring.

[TeeVee329]

I dunno, something tells me Frank gave RPW the Scott Clifton/Schuyler Special.  "Don't worry about this story direction, of course you're not off the show, we've got great stuff coming up for you!" and then, yoink, the plug was pulled.

I'm still annoyed about this, btw.  Losing someone in the younger set who isn't married with kids, losing a Q, losing a pairing I actually thought was kinda cute, etc.

And now Kiki's big purpose the next few weeks?  Being fuckin' Franco's surrogate daughter.  BAAARRRFFF.  That's the problem with that age group in a nutshell, that their main function is supporting their elders, i.e. Kiki with Franco and Ava, Michael with Carly and Sonny, etc.

Edited August 25, 2017 by TeeVee329

[dubbel zout]

I'm onboard with "out of the blue," as it did seem that Lauren and Dillon had some traction. I thought getting rid of Rebecca Budig was more along the lines of "borderline bizarre," given her prominence and the fact she actually had a story going on.

This is GH, though, where whatever is currently shiny and new gets the attention. Unless you're Maurice Benard.

[ulkis]

From their perspective maybe it was out of the blue, but from the audience's it wasn't out of the blue. He was barely on.

There's a rumor that he is being recast though so maybe he did do something to annoy Frank.

Edited August 25, 2017 by ulkis

[dubbel zout]

As if another actor will solve the Dillon problem. RPG was a jar of mayo, but they need to write a decent story.

Edited August 25, 2017 by dubbel zout

[TeeVee329]

It's just weird because the show seemed to think they had something in Dillon and Kiki, they used them in their promotions several times.  But I guess the same could be said about Rebecca Budig and Dr. Michael Easton too.

And I agree, another actor wouldn't solve the Dillon problem.  But now I'm scared Frank wants to recast with, like, JPL or something.

[statsgirl]

Even if they recast, Dillon will still get nothing.  SBu is back.

It's too bad though.  Having a solid Quartermaine contingent would balance to some extent all the endless Corinthii stuff.

[dubbel zout]

It would also widen the gene pool a smidgen.

[WendyCR72]

Let's face it: The writers that knew Dillon are long gone. Seeing as Frank and Ron tossed them. So they only knew of the character by name, not his history. And didn't seem all that concerned about learning that history.

This Dillon had nothing of former Dillon in him. Which can happen with recasts, but usually, a character's past is still a part of said recast. This show barely touched upon Georgie and barely had Dillon interact with Mac and Maxie, let alone his own mother. And any other stray Q that has managed to keep breathing, which admittedly are not many.

Robert Palmer Watkins was basically ignored, overall. So good luck to him going forward.

[TeeVee329]

The show certainly could have done more with Dillon finding out his father was a lower-case serial killer, or assuming care for his mentally ill half-sister.

[Neptune]

http://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/ghs-maurice-benard-steve-burtons-return/

[TeeVee329]

Quote

Sonny’s efforts to get out of the mob (“This guy’s stuck between a rock and a hard place”)

Oh boo fucking hoo.

Quote

playing a central role in Sam’s illness arc

Playing a central role in other characters' stories, that's this show's problem in a nutshell.

[tvgoddess]

10 hours ago, TeeVee329 said:

But now I'm scared Frank wants to recast with, like, JPL or something.

Do NOT put that out into the universe.

[stlbf]

2 hours ago, tvgoddess said:

Do NOT put that out into the universe.

THAT NEEDS TO BE ERASED  FROM THE UNIVERSE! 

[Asp Burger]

21 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

This is GH, though, where whatever is currently shiny and new gets the attention. Unless you're Maurice Benard.

"Shiny and new" with a couple of exceptions for "tarnished and old" (MB, SBu, their love interests).

Thoughts: I know that a lot of people thought RPW was bland, but I think he could be okay. I never really saw him string together enough and have enough of a story to make up my mind. He's handsome and hunky, though, and can do "likable," so I hope he gets another steady gig and does well for himself.

Also, Hayley Erin seems very genuine. From that interview, it sounds as though she's trying to keep a "show must go on" positive attitude about Kiki's future direction on the show, but it has to suck if you've grown to like someone you work with and you think "Okay, they're going to start writing for us eventually; we've got a a good thing going; we have fans," and then your onscreen love interest tells you, "They just fired me."  

[stlbf]

20 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Let's face it: The writers that knew Dillon are long gone. Seeing as Frank and Ron tossed them. So they only knew of the character by name, not his history. And didn't seem all that concerned about learning that history.

This Dillon had nothing of former Dillon in him. Which can happen with recasts, but usually, a character's past is still a part of said recast. This show barely touched upon Georgie and barely had Dillon interact with Mac and Maxie, let alone his own mother. And any other stray Q that has managed to keep breathing, which admittedly are not many.

Robert Palmer Watkins was basically ignored, overall. So good luck to him going forward.

The show completely wasted this returned Dillon. I don't know if it was the higher ups, the writers or both. Except for the brief weirdness with Lulu in the beginning and his romance with Kiki, he barely existed outside of his mother and whatever woman he was interested in. The show could have fleshed out his part at Crimson. They most certainly should've written him a true aftermath story when it came out that his father was a serial killer. Perfect time to at least have him talk about his Hornsby siblings and even contact Jenny. Not saying that Jenny should return fulltime, but at having her on in some way(phone, skype, visiting, or something) for a day or for a short visit wouldn't be implausible. Talk about why she divorced Paul, what happen to Susan, who should be responsible for her, etc. Nope. They had Dillon be upset and had him fall for Kiki. Problems solved!  >:-/ 

This show's issues with writing for the not 40+  yr old stars is troubling. These asshole hacks can't even write Michael as an even remotely interesting man. Which should be fucking easy. They can't write for Lulu, Maxie, Dante, Nathan, Michael, Griffin, Brad, Lucas, Valerie, Nell, Kristina, Molly, TJ,  Dillon or Kiki. None of those characters has had a good non Sonny/Carly storyline in forever. Add in Felix and Amy too.

[Oracle42]

NOBODY had a good storyline. They haven't even managed an interesting story. 

[stlbf]

No lie. But still, Sonny, Carly, Jason, and Sam are the main focus on this show. Everyone else just play side roles. Dante is on for Sonny. Lulu catches a break, but she is on now for Cassadine crap. Franco is still on, mainly to annoy Jason and Sam, and to have Liz swoon over him. Ava and Julian are on to annoy Sonny and/or Carly. Laura is on purely to mother Spencer and Lulu. Laura's last big non-Spencer/Cassadines mini story was the semi cute and fun(and way too short) Turkish adventure wit Tracy. 

The is just mind-boggling at how terrible this show is at writing a soap opera. Everything is based around Sonny/Carly/Jason/Sam. And those stories aren't that great to watch either.

[dubbel zout]

10 hours ago, stlbf said:

The is just mind-boggling at how terrible this show is at writing a soap opera. Everything is based around Sonny/Carly/Jason/Sam. And those stories aren't that great to watch either.

I'll never understand why every story has to include some iteration of Sonny/Carly/Jason/Sam. Even at the height of Luke and Laura, there were stories going on that had nothing to do with them. They were on M/W/F and we got a reprieve T/R. 

Plus, there was a variety of stories. We had heavy stories, soapy stories, fun stories. Now it's all doom and gloom, and the humor is mostly unintentional. Ask Man Landers could have been the silly summer story, but no, we have to have Amy 2.0's vet brother have medical and financial problems, so Nathan feels morally obligated to help. Ugh.

This soap has been creatively exhausted for so long I don't think anything will change. 

[stlbf]

5 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

This soap has been creatively exhausted for so long I don't think anything will change. 

Yup. I don't know where ABCD finds these hack writers, but it needs to change. Is it the network? Is it the head producers? Head writer? What can explain the sheer stupidity of the show? There is no logic or continuity to the storylines. The characters do things completely out of character on the whim of the show.

Let's take Liz's covering up "Jake's" identity.  She did this after having dealt with lying about her son's biological parentage to her husband. And having to deal with Aiden's switched paternity test too. She knew that Monica had lost all four of her children. It made no sense for her to rationalize any cover up. But hey, they did just that. Why the hell would Nik throw Liz(AND LUCKY!) underneath that oncoming tractor trailer? He would either pretend to not know about Helena's dealing or he would've just come forward and said something about finding out some rumor that Jake was really Jason Morgan. Because, Helena. Which everyone in PC would believe. Without question. But no. We get to see Liz build a family with Jake, get her son back and then literally lose that family at the last minute. Now they have latched Liz on to a serial killer, who at the very least led Sam and Jason to believe that Franco had raped Sam on her honeymoon and that he could possibly be the baby's father. Liz, GH's most famed rape survivor. 

[WendyCR72]

2 hours ago, stlbf said:

Liz, GH's most famed rape survivor

Not to disagree with anything else you said, but I think this show's most-famed rape survivor (even with rewrites) would still fall to Laura.

But the rest reads about right.

[stlbf]

4 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Not to disagree with anything else you said, but I think this show's most-famed rape survivor (even with rewrites) would still fall to Laura.

But the rest reads about right.

Meh. I have alllllll sorts of issues with how Laura's rape was handled as a whole. She happily married her rapist. Like I said, ISSUES. Liz's rape and aftermath was done a million times better.

[UYI]

It IS telling that GH never once had a rape story after Laura until Liz, and that's when what happened between L&L was, once and for all, declared to be rape. I have no doubt that everyone who came after Gloria Monty (Claire Labine especially) knew full well how bad GH looked, to a certain extent anyway, by sweeping L&L's rape under the rug (chemistry, record breaking ratings, and unprecedented mainstream media attention aside), and knew to avoid that topic like the plague, until the Liz story, which forced them to address it head on. 

Edited August 28, 2017 by UYI

[dubbel zout]

Luke at least over the years expressed a lot of regret and anguish over the rape. Franco? No, he's just upset people can't understand it wasn't his fault he was a SERIAL KILLER and did terrible things. He had a tumor!

The understanding of what is rape has come a long way since Luke raped Laura in 1979. It was complicated by the fact that Luke and Laura were attracted to each other. That doesn't excuse anything, of course, but that's one reason those scenes were controversial. I suspect that was in mind when they wrote Elizabeth's rape much more straightforwardly. 

Edited August 28, 2017 by dubbel zout
typo

[tvgoddess]

Interview with Tyler:

http://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-tyler-christopher-interview/

[SlovakPrincess]

12 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

The understanding of what is rape has come a long way since Luke raped Laura in 1979. It was complicated by the fact that Luke and Laura were attracted to each other. That doesn't excuse anything, of course, but that's one reason those scenes were controversial. I suspect that was in mind when they wrote Elizabeth's rape much more straightforwardly. 

 

Does anybody know / remember how that was discussed / criticized in the soap mags at the time?  

That was such a weird story, and it must have changed tracks at least once mid-way through because of some feedback the show was getting.   It starts as almost an educational story for that era about "acquaintance rape" and how it's  still rape even if you considered the guy a friend or boyfriend.  But then ... it shifts to Luke and Laura on the run from the mob  ... and then eventually the writers throw up their hands and do the mini-retcon of "well, it was more like a seduction, you see ..."   - whatever the hell that means.    

[dubbel zout]

I remember "seduction" used a lot to describe it. I think some of the backtracking happened because Luke as a character took off, and the show wanted to take advantage of TG's undeniable chemistry with GF. 

[Neptune]

https://soaphub.com/general-hospital/how-will-general-hospital-salvage-julian-and-alexis/?pushcrew_powered=1

[dubbel zout]

Quote

The bad news is that the show’s writers have a big task ahead of them — how do they salvage the popular pairing of Julian and Alexis (aka “Julexis”) since he once threatened her life?

Please. It's hardly an insurmountable task. The male lead on this show once shot his wife in the head while she was giving birth to their child.

I will enjoy watching Carly and Sonny when Julian gets out of Pentonville much earlier than expected.

I took the little quiz about various plots, and I was in the minority on everything except hating Ask Man Landers. Heh.

Edited August 29, 2017 by dubbel zout

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

Quote

The bad news is that the show’s writers have a big task ahead of them — how do they salvage the popular pairing of Julian and Alexis (aka “Julexis”) since he once threatened her life?

Quote

Please. It's hardly an insurmountable task. The male lead on this show once shot his wife in the head while she was giving birth to their child

Jason threatened to kill Sam after what happened with Jake and look at them.  Also, as the article pointed out, Alan tried to kill Monica and Rick and they got over it.  Trying to kill your significant other is practically a right of passage in Port Charles.

[TeeVee329]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

I will enjoy watching Carly and Sonny when Julian gets out of Pentonville much earlier than expected.

I'm not looking forward to Sonny hypocritically snarling that Julian getting out early/his sentence getting commuted/whatever is a travesty of justice considering his ass served like two months for AJ's murder.

Edited August 29, 2017 by TeeVee329

[stlbf]

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Please. It's hardly an insurmountable task. The male lead on this show once shot his wife in the head while she was giving birth to their child.

I will enjoy watching Carly and Sonny when Julian gets out of Pentonville much earlier than expected.

Perhaps the governor has another beloved family member Julian can save? Hell, it isn't like Julian is in for murder. Maybe he just needs to rescue the governor's pet? Or give him some great dinner recipes? Or perhaps he puts the governor on a great fitness regime!  That is pardon worthy.

And when Carly and Scummy undoubtedly curse Julian's fortune at getting early release, I just hope someone asks, "Huh, I wonder what Monica thinks of felons getting out of prison early on flimsy excuses?" and S&C shut the fuck up. I know it'll never happen, but I can dream.

[dubbel zout]

47 minutes ago, TeeVee329 said:

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I will enjoy watching Carly and Sonny when Julian gets out of Pentonville much earlier than expected.

I'm not looking forward to Sonny hypocritically snarling that Julian getting out early/his sentence getting commuted/whatever is a travesty of justice considering his ass served like two months for AJ's murder.

Considering how gross he and Carly were about Julian going away—toasting with Champagne? Really?—the grousing will be worth it.

4 minutes ago, stlbf said:

Hell, it isn't like Julian is in for murder.

What was the original charge? I can't even remember.

[Sake614]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

1 hour ago, stlbf said:

 

What was the original charge? I can't even remember.

 

Not being a corinthos?

[stlbf]

Was it conspiracy and/or aiding and abetting? Something along those lines for the Olivia fiasco. 

[nilyank]

13 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

What was the original charge? I can't even remember.

He killed Carlos, but he was freed from that charge and trying to kill Alexis when she testified and was drugged just before getting on the witness stand. I think these latest charges were for being a conspirator in all of Olivia's crimes.

[dubbel zout]

Typical PC justice that Julian gets 15 years for conspiracy charges and Sonny gets pardoned for a murder. Ugh.

Edited August 30, 2017 by dubbel zout

[statsgirl]

Julian got 20 years though. Possible parole in 15.

Sonny gets pardoned for everything, he loves his family so much.

[Melgaypet]

I begin to think y'all don't believe that Sonny's guilt is punishment enough. I mean, jeez! You know what a sensitive soul he is. 

OTOH Julian, not being Sonny, probably deserves public execution.

[stlbf]

Look at how the "guilt" of constantly murdering people just keeps poor Sonny shooting people! The poor man, what else can people expect from him! He had to kill AJ, though ya'll, AJ was FAT!

[Chairperson Meow]

15 hours ago, stlbf said:

Look at how the "guilt" of constantly murdering people just keeps poor Sonny shooting people! The poor man, what else can people expect from him! He had to kill AJ, though ya'll, AJ was FAT!

Since he did, numerous grocery stores and restaurants have popped up and flourished in Port Charles.  Sonny doesn't visit them,  not because those are lady places, but because he is too "guilty ".  

[Neptune]

GH's Anthony Montgomery injured in scary accident

http://soapcentral.com/gh/news/2017/0826-anthony_montgomery_frightening_moment.php

[Chairperson Meow]

There's nothing on even when Steve Burton pops up?  Frank really is keeping this secret.  I'm impressed. 

[dubbel zout]

Probably the second half of this month? Definitely not this coming week, but it's not as if SBu returning is a surprise. Even if you haven't been online, the soap mags have covered it, and I wouldn't be surprised if various local newspapers ran the news.

It's probably too much to ask that we just see him appear at the end of a Friday episode, instead of seeing hands and feet (and butt, heh) but no face, right? Sigh.

[Chairperson Meow]

11 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Probably the second half of this month? Definitely not this coming week, but it's not as if SBu returning is a surprise. Even if you haven't been online, the soap mags have covered it, and I wouldn't be surprised if various local newspapers ran the news.

It's probably too much to ask that we just see him appear at the end of a Friday episode, instead of seeing hands and feet (and butt, heh) but no face, right? Sigh.

If we see a butt, I think I'll laugh myself to death.

 

Usually there are more details,  a promo,  Jamey Giddens making vague remarks.  But it's crickets. 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Chairperson Meow
Helena