GH In The News: The PC Press Club

[Sake614]

I think it started under Wolf but it continued under Cartini, at least for a time. But I distinctly remember how excited she was about the story and her saying that she had to convince Frank to go with it.

[Ambrosefolly]

Yeah, but lets face it, after seeing most of RC work with women folk, there would be little chance that this would a thoughtful, educational storyline on menopause but an excuse to drive one more woman crazy. I would be relieved too. 

[dubbel zout]

 Most of the "story" was Alexis frantically fanning herself and having no idea why she was having these surges of warmth. As if she'd be completely unaware she was perimenopausal. UGH.

[Sake614]

I Geee it was ridiculous but I seem to recall she was the one who wanted the campy comedic story. She said frank was worried that it wouldn't be entertaining but she convinced him to stick with it.

FTR, I hated it.

[ulkis]

I think it started under Wolf but it continued under Cartini, at least for a time. But I distinctly remember how excited she was about the story and her saying that she had to convince Frank to go with it.

 

No I'm pretty sure it disappeared by December '11. 

[Tiger]

Where is this new opening credits we were told about?

[tvgoddess]

Nathan Varni said they'd probably start airing towards the end of the month. But he stressed they aren't "new" credits, just adding some more faces to the current crop already there.

[yowsah1]

 He [RC] wants plot points, not actual characters

 

In all fairness, as head writer, concentrating on plot points is Ron's job.  What he can be held to blame for is bringing in a team that doesn't seem to be doing their job - making sure that the character's POV's are brought forth, putting that shading into a scene so characters stay in-character, and even at times going, "This story won't work for this character.  We need to change it or assign it to another character".  That's where the writing falls down.

 

That is one weird quote.  I'm confused how Ron and Frank taking their formula from OLTL (a show the network canceled)

 

 

"The Chew" and "The Revolution" were both extremely half-baked when the axe fell on AMC and OLTL.

 

Cancelling AMC and OLTL with THE CHEW and THE REVOLUTION nowhere near ready for prime, er, day time was Brian Frons decision.  He has since been (most deservedly) shitcanned.  Hopefully the new people in charge have/will learn from his mistakes.

[Sake614]

Frons never made any decisions in a vacuum. Even Slezak said it was preposterous to blame only him. He still has people he answers to and the decision to cancel the soaps was not his alone. I'm not exonerating him. I hated him with the heat of 1000 suns. Just saying it wasn't only his decision.

[dubbel zout]

Canceling the soaps might not have been Frons's decision alone, but I doubt he fought too hard to keep them. His contempt for soaps wasn't exactly a secret.

[jsbt]

In all fairness, as head writer, concentrating on plot points is Ron's job.  What he can be held to blame for is bringing in a team that doesn't seem to be doing their job - making sure that the character's POV's are brought forth, putting that shading into a scene so characters stay in-character, and even at times going, "This story won't work for this character.  We need to change it or assign it to another character".  That's where the writing falls down.

 

I agree in principle, but I don't know that it's that simple. We know Ron still writes some scripts, does some scenes himself. I think the decision to go full throttle on plot vs. character beats, in service of the larger story outcomes above all - prioritizing the big moments, like Robin at the wedding, Britt's lies being outed at the engagement party, etc. over the journey - comes from him and FV. Ron firmly believes that the audience will forgive him any lapses along the way when they see the big climax. This has always been his philosophy, both at GH and OLTL, and it has gotten more extreme over the years.

 

There is a consistent, aggressive effort at the show, especially in the last 18 months, to behave as though almost all story in-between the big beats in sweeps or whenever is just a consistent stream of white noise. Characters running in their paces, like hamsters on a wheel, waiting for things to happen. You can watch the Britt/Nikolas/Liz/etc. stuff for months and nothing will ever happen. Dante and Lulu, etc. Fluke and Tracy. Robin and Nikolas and Britt hanging out at Wyndemere letting Faison and Obrecht boss them around, waiting for the end of November sweeps. Most of the stories are like that now, because most of this stuff between the big moments is just white noise to RC - he only cares about filling the time to the next big beat. Characters are chess pieces, which is why he consistently uses social media to dismiss any complaints about character development up to a certain scene or big moment - to him, the characters are irrelevant next to the larger plot. I'm not sure he cares about any adult characters less than he seems to (not) care about Nikolas and Liz, but he keeps grinding away at this endless, tiresome storyline in the service of some future beat. And I can understand writing for your story, but if you lose sight of characters on a soap opera you've lost the soap opera.

Canceling the soaps might not have been Frons's decision alone, but I doubt he fought too hard to keep them. His contempt for soaps wasn't exactly a secret.

 

The only soap he fought to save was GH. Bob Guza's GH. Frons believed that Guza was the only man who truly understood the GH formula for success and shielded him for years, along with the show's budget overages which cut into AMC and OLTL.

 

At first he had believed he could refashion AMC into the same type of 'success' as GH, with guys like Chuck Pratt helming it - he moved the show to L.A. to try and bring it into line, which went hand in hand with the fact that AMC was overbudget in New York as well. The idea was that OLTL would soon be jettisoned, leaving GH and AMC, to Frons the soaps 'worth saving', going on. When AMC failed to get it together ABC was tired of it and wanted to cut all three soaps in one stroke. Frons begged clemency for GH and got it, but Bob Guza, and his hefty writer-producer fees, had to go.

Edited July 19, 2014 by jsbt

[yowsah1]

I agree in principle, but I don't know that it's that simple. We know Ron still writes some scripts, does some scenes himself. I think the decision to go full throttle on plot vs. character beats, in service of the larger story outcomes above all - prioritizing the big moments, like Robin at the wedding, Britt's lies being outed at the engagement party, etc. over the journey - comes from him and FV. Ron firmly believes that the audience will forgive him any lapses along the way when they see the big climax. This has always been his philosophy, both at GH and OLTL, and it has gotten more extreme over the years.

 

Good point.  The "Plot Uber Alles" attitude does come from the top own, and also seeing to it that his "underlings" do their job correctly is also part of Ron's job.  So I guess my weaksauce defense of him was even weaker than I thought!  ;)

[TeeVee329]

I'm not sure he cares about any adult characters less than he seems to (not) care about Nikolas and Liz, but he keeps grinding away at this endless, tiresome storyline in the service of some future beat.

 

I've said this before, but I remain absolutely convinced that the only reason Ron has any interest in Nikolas and Liz as a romantic pairing is to eventually do a full-on triangle between them and Lucky.  In fact, if all the past Luckys weren't currently employed, it probably would have already started/happened.  So until then, he'll just keep the stupid Niz merry-go-round going, with Britt at the moment and then probably Ric when he's eventually revealed to be alive.  The minute Nik and Liz actually become a couple, that's the day I'll be checking the soap press for news on a Lucky recast.

[jsbt]

I've said this before, but I remain absolutely convinced that the only reason Ron has any interest in Nikolas and Liz as a romantic pairing is to eventually do a full-on triangle between them and Lucky.  In fact, if all the past Luckys weren't currently employed, it probably would have already started/happened.  So until then, he'll just keep the stupid Niz merry-go-round going, with Britt at the moment and then probably Ric when he's eventually revealed to be alive.  The minute Nik and Liz actually become a couple, that's the day I'll be checking the soap press for news on a Lucky recast.

 

Yeah, I've always said the only reason they're doing this is as a time-waster/space-filler because they don't have Lucky. The horrible thing is there are a million other, better, worthwhile stories they could have done for both characters if they gave enough of a shit about the two of them as opposed the vague spectre of some future storyline with Lucky - they could have done Liz with A.J. or Ric, Nikolas with, well, anyone other than Liz or Britt. But they went to this because, as with many things Ron does these days, it has a vague patina of 'history,' even though Nikolas and Liz's original affair was one of the most horrendously-received, unpopular, ruinous storylines of the last ten years. Why would anyone want to revisit this when it destroyed them last time? There is no way to legitimize it as a romance, IMO. They tried it under Guza - mostly as, again, a time-waster, but also, I think, because that former team had much more contempt for the characters - and it failed.

 

Ron plays this story and plays it for months on end, there's all these little false stops and starts, but for what? We all know Nikolas and Liz is a dead-end. He knows it, most of the audience, I think, knows it. So why do we have to watch it? Because he doesn't care enough to do anything else, and he is keeping it in reserve for Lucky? For another triangle with the brothers? Who cares about that? There is no desirable endgame for this even if Lucky returns - it's gonna be a retread of a story that already sucked.

Edited July 20, 2014 by jsbt

[dubbel zout]

But they went to this because, as with many things Ron does these days, it has a vague patina of 'history,' even though Nikolas and Liz's original affair was one of the most horrendously-received, unpopular, ruinous storylines of the last ten years.

 

Ron's idea of using "history" is making the audience fill in the blanks so he doesn't have to write a story. I think Ron believes that if a story writes itself, he doesn't have to write it because viewers will do it for him.

[ulkis]

 it has a vague patina of 'history,' even though Nikolas and Liz's original affair was one of the most horrendously-received, unpopular, ruinous storylines of the last ten years. Why would anyone want to revisit this when it destroyed them last time? There is no way to legitimize it as a romance, IMO. They tried it under Guza - mostly as, again, a time-waster, but also, I think, because that former team had much more contempt for the characters - and it failed.

 

I'm gonna reply to this in the GH History Lessons thread.

Edited July 20, 2014 by ulkis

[Chairperson Meow]

I'm still giggling at that Chelsea Lately clip days later.

[SlovakPrincess]

I'm still giggling at that Chelsea Lately clip days later.

 

 

I had "I am gay! Gay, gay, gay!" in my head all day Friday. I was giggling like a weirdo at my desk.

Edited July 21, 2014 by SlovakPrincess

[movingtargetgal]

Tonight at 10pm est  Tyler Christopher and Ronn Moss are on Celebrity Wife Swap.  It should be craptastic.

[KerleyQ]

I'm only gonna watch if Ron's wife makes Tyler wear scarves!

 

 

I've already set the DVR.  She is batcrap crazy, so watching Tyler try to deal with her should be fun. 

[Ambrosefolly]

Here is where to discuss the politics, writers and staff that create our show. Here we can get into deeper discussions of present and past  show runners, the TIIC, and who the hell thought was a good idea to bring back Franco as a permanent character.

 

I'll start in regards to RC plunging quality, I think (again I haven't done enough research) that he hadn't replaced a lot of the cast and crew that had been there for years at that point , so I would guess that he was allowing the writers a little more input than now as he didn't know the show as well as they did and he was a bit more afraid of losing his job. Now that he is more comfortable, he fired long time staff to give his own crew jobs, which has shades of Guza and JFP. 

Edited July 24, 2014 by Ambrosefolly

[MSquared]

What, you don't think it was a brilliant move to make RoHo a reformed SERIAL KILLER?  Don't think ANY OTHER CHOICE in the fifty plus year history of this show wasn't "dynamic" enough for an Emmy winner?

[Rancide]

I'm far from a huge fan of RC, and I have many complaints about the current show, but I honestly usually can't even be bothered to rant because I find him so much better than Guza that I forgive him a lot anyway.  Between pushing mob morality, killing off young women who were legacy characters in violent deaths, and firing the vets, I found the Guza version of the show so offensive that I could not watch it.  I literally stopped watching the show circa 2006/2007 as a direct result of being so offended by what was going on that I couldn't bear to look at it any more.  I didn't start watching again until I heard that there was a new head writer. 

 

I dunno, I just can't ever get worked up about RC because he gets so many "not Guza" points in my head that I never make it beyond the mild head-shaking or eye-rolling stage of frustration with any of his antics. 

[Fylaki]

I can feel the "not Guza" idea, while it was not Guza who destroyed Jason Q, it was he that elevated him to sainthood and did so at the expense of what IMHO should have been the shows main character Lucky Spencer. And the murdering of legacies characters was out of hand and out of line........

 

But, and don't hate me, I always felt that Guza liked the show, yes he liked his show, but he liked the concept of GH, the fact that it was a Soap, filled with melodrama and pathos, fueled by character and history

 

With Ron, maybe on OLTL he liked the medium but now, now he writes the show like someone who does not understand soaps, but who accepts all the cliches about them would write it.

 

Back to a comic book example. Batman in the comics is a dark brooding figure of the night, borderline insane. Each writer brings something to Batman of their own, but each also respects the core of the character. if some one came on board and began to write the BAM POW Batman of the TV Show, he/she would be writing a character that is a spoof not a hero

 

Ron is writing a spoof of a soap. Not a soap

Edited July 24, 2014 by Fylaki

[sunflower]

One of Ron's problems of late is elevating villains as regular people we're supposed to care about, like Dr. O and Ava.  Grayish characters will always exist and GH has involved the mob since, the 80's, but I don't give a fancy fuck for Dr. O and Ava's, and Nina's everyday life world.  If Ron understood what a story arc was, maybe I'd have more confidence in a reasonable resolution for these villains who are now polluting my screen.  

 

Oh, yes-Ron's show is boring.  I've been FFing whole episodes for weeks now, only stopping for scenes relevant to the future AJ reveal.  

Edited July 24, 2014 by sunflower

[Ambrosefolly]

 

I do remember Guza giving ridiculous interviews that the Serial Drama girls would tear apart, referring to the show's theme as "love during wartime" or some such nonsense.

I recall those but I don't think he ever verbally attacked the fans the way Ron does.

 

Did he have Twitter though? Me thinks we would be seeing a few meltdowns a week over Guza's all Mob all the time. Guza knew perfectly well that the audience didn't like the mob aspect, were tired of Jason the Holy and Always Right Hitman, unhappy how beloved characters were destroyed to prop Sonny/Jason. Imagine the twitter wars that would have erupted after the second season of Night Shift, and fully hearing the cries of fans begging Sri Rao  and Liza de Cazotte (who is the co executive producer of DOOL now) to take over. Sri Rao might not wanted the job, but I have a feeling that Lisa might take JFP position if offered.

 

So yep, I pretty much hate what he's done to GH, and I maybe what he's done more than what Guza did, because I've SEEN that he can do so much better than endless camp, "in the know" jokes, outrageous characters and dismal talent.

This is why I get so ragey. RC is capable of writing much better than this.

 

They were all better than this. Guza was also capable of producing good work, but when he returned in 2002 instead of the more character driven story lines of the past, it became all Jason all the time. When the huge chunk that was Jason/Sonny and some of Carly's work was removed, it actually wasn't bad, but it was also about half of the screen time, that is generous. 

[ulkis]

Ron, dude, we all had a meeting, and we all think you're a self-important douchebag. I was elected to tweet you the results.

 

 

No, you don't speak for all of us.  Not everyone hates the show.  Not everyone thinks this about Ron.  Not everyone thinks that GH is crap.  Not even everyone on this board.   Just saying.

 

 

 

A variation of one that is repeated ad nauseum on a regular basis over and over and over again.  I just finally decided to respond seriously as someone who genuinely likes the show.

 

 

, I do enjoy GH sometimes but I do think Ron is petty. Most of the stuff he gets riled up doesn't even get tweeted directly to him, he goes out and looks for it himself and then gets all pissy about people discussing GH among themselves on twitter. My dislike for RC the man (or at least RC's twitter persona) and my feelings about his actual writing/GH the show are two separate things, otherwise I couldn't enjoy anything on the show. 

Edited July 24, 2014 by ulkis

[sunflower]

 

Did he have Twitter though? Me thinks we would be seeing a few meltdowns a week over Guza's all Mob all the time.

 

Yea, Twitter makes it so easy to dis on fans, but I don't understand Ron's X-treme combative nature.  Does he understand it's not negativity for negativity's sake, but a wanting for something better?  Is he dumb, or just an asshole? 

[MSquared]

I can feel the "not Guza" idea, while it was not Guza who destroyed Jason Q, it was he that elevated him to sainthood and did so at the expense of what IMHO should have been the shows main character Lucky Spencer. And the murdering of legacies characters was out of hand and out of line........

 

But, and don't hate me, I always felt that Guza liked the show, yes he liked his show, but he liked the concept of GH, the fact that it was a Soap, filled with melodrama and pathos, fueled by character and history

 

With Ron, maybe on OLTL he liked the medium but now, now he writes the show like someone who does not understand soaps, but who accepts all the cliches about them would write it.

 

Back to a comic book example. Batman in the comics is a dark brooding figure of the night, borderline insane. Each writer brings something to Batman of their own, but each also respects the core of the character. if some one came on board and began to write the BAM POW Batman of the TV Show, he/she would be writing a character that is a spoof not a hero

 

Ron is writing a spoof of a soap. Not a soap

 

Seriously, I'm going to just follow you around all day, liking your posts, throwing down a path of rose petals at your feet.  I agree with you so much, re: Guza liking the soap genre.  He could tell stories and story arc.  Were a lot of them awful?  Absolutely.  But he wrote them the way they should be written.  

 

Ron writes one offs and writes them badly.  One day a month--Bobbie and Scotty have been hooking up!  But Lucy wants him back!  And then, no follow-up for however long after that.  All the while, filling the screen with characters we could care less about.  And even with those stories, they play for a week or two, disappear for three or four weeks and then reappear as if it was the next day.

 

Drive me batty.

 

Sadly, sunflower, those are not mutally exclusive.

Edited July 24, 2014 by MSquared

[Rancide]

But, and don't hate me, I always felt that Guza liked the show, yes he liked his show, but he liked the concept of GH, the fact that it was a Soap, filled with melodrama and pathos, fueled by character and history

 

I don't hate anyone.  Everyone has their tastes and preferences, and I don't think mine are better or worse than anyone else's.  I don't even have an opinion about Guza's skill as a storyteller or affection for the show because I was so offended by the actual plots that I couldn't watch.  He could have been writing Shakespeare for all I know.   

 

Just different preferences.  I'll take RC and his embarrassing twitter antics over Guza and his 24/7 mob focus any day.  I still don't watch the mob stories under RC, but at least I'm only ffing 25% of the show now instead of 80%.  And glory be, occasionally a whole week goes by with no Sonny!  I'll take it. 

[testardo]

FrankenRon are the same as Guza and his goons. They just did it differently. They wrote, write for themselves. The fans are called names and they have the power. Same church, different pew. I shut Guza's gh off, FrankenRons I read the boards come here if something sounds ok AJ as a ghost getting the better of Sonny. I watch. I just deleted 60 shows almost all of them unwatched. My give a damns busted and when I did it, I didn't even feel bad. I even deleted the demonization of the Scorpios and AJ. When someone tells me Sonny is DEAD with a bullet hole in the head, preferably by Michael or Morgan, I will watch that. I love it on the barge. Went there the last time they killed AJ and The police were blamed for Sonny's shootout with them I can't I just couldn't then and can't now. I love coming here and seeing that I am not the only one that has had it with the show.

[Chairperson Meow]

Okay. Can I speak now? Like thank you for this thread. Thank you for being a friend.

Ron, I watched you on OLTL. Do you have DID or are you fucking lazy? Like, fuck you for the way you shit on the fans by teasing us with a swap Jasus for AJ and OG AJ! Well you were awesome. You had Sonny being screwed over by Connie and Johnny. It was great. Then you just pissed on it all. It's like we didn't care for your sugarcoated cotton candy Princess Pet and you left. Connie lost her Sonny hate, you drove SK away, and forced shit storyline after shit storyline down our throats.

Then we got hope. The Robin return. That was um all about Sabrina. Oh and then she left shortly after to save.....Jason. Patrick is now an alleged kid killer and wife abandoner. Good job. But your mob bosses are heroes. You desecrated the Q crypt by having Sonny and Ava have sex on AJ's grave.

Dude. Also, let us touch on the subject of Roger Howarth. You get a great actor, and what do you do? Punish him for daring to do the meaniehead PP OLTL by saddling him with fucking useless Franco. You needed Stephen Lars on the cast. Another Cassadine, maybe. Never Franco. I hope he leaves and lands a prime time gig and wins a boatload of awards. May they only say he played Todd Manning.

[jsbt]

I'm far from a huge fan of RC, and I have many complaints about the current show, but I honestly usually can't even be bothered to rant because I find him so much better than Guza that I forgive him a lot anyway.  Between pushing mob morality, killing off young women who were legacy characters in violent deaths, and firing the vets, I found the Guza version of the show so offensive that I could not watch it.  I literally stopped watching the show circa 2006/2007 as a direct result of being so offended by what was going on that I couldn't bear to look at it any more.  I didn't start watching again until I heard that there was a new head writer. 

 

I dunno, I just can't ever get worked up about RC because he gets so many "not Guza" points in my head that I never make it beyond the mild head-shaking or eye-rolling stage of frustration with any of his antics. 

I sympathize, and I really do think Ron has real talent that still sometimes shows through, at least at the early stages of current storylines. I felt the same way at OLTL, especially in the first year or two after he took over from the abominable Dena Higley and the show was actually mostly very good. But Ron's talent and taste - and self-control - has atrophied. I think in many ways he has been good for GH, but in just as many ways he is now bad. He needs a regulator and he needs a co-writer.

[Chairperson Meow]

He gets lazy as fuck. Example: The whole saga of Jessica on OLTL. GH example: AJ.

[OnceSane]

 

I do think Ron is petty. Most of the stuff he gets riled up doesn't even get tweeted directly to him, he goes out and looks for it himself and then gets all pissy about people discussing GH among themselves on twitter.

 

That's how I was blocked by Ron on Twitter.  Minding my own damn business on my own timeline, but using #GH.

 

Ron doesn't have Guza's hard-on for the mob, instead he has a hard-on for camp & his own special snowflakes.

[Chairperson Meow]

He has yet to block me and I straight up called him r******* for letting SK go.

[Fylaki]

 

But Ron's talent and taste - and self-control - has atrophied. I think in many ways he has been good for GH, but in just as many ways he is now bad. He needs a regulator and he needs a co-writer.

 

Guza was also capable of producing good work, but when he returned in 2002 instead of the more character driven story lines of the past, it became all Jason all the time

Part of this may be the networks misunderstanding of what a soap is. It is not episodic TV. GH is not the same as Friends or Scandal or even Grey's. They can call night time dramas Soaps but they are not: The main reason is no one expects them to be on more then 10 or 15 years (look at all the talk of how Grey's is winding down)  Good episodic nighttime TV has an endgame. Look at Lost, love the ending or hate it, it was an endgame. Same for the Sopranos and others. Someday there is an endgame for the Walking Dead.  Soaps have no endgame (even if we talk about it) because for the genre to work the conceit must always be that these are real people with real lives and that like "sand though the hour glass so are the days of our lives." As long a a single baby is born on a soap, a soap has no end date.

 

The soap greats like Agnes Nixon and The Bells knew this, they planned generational television. My middle son (because like a good soap family I now have an older step son so my former oldest is now the middle) was nicknamed Lucky by me for years (it turned to Smallville when he moved to Kansas) why because he came into my life the same month that Lucky Spencer set out from Canada to PC.  Soaps characters are "real".

 

Guza, Ron and other modern soap writers make the mistake of thinking that they are writing episodic TV that there is an endgame for their soap. But it is not their soap, without getting insane, it is these people's (the character's ) lives.

 

Writing a soap has more in common with playing a SIMS game then writing a sit-com,

Edited July 24, 2014 by Fylaki

[Chairperson Meow]

Exactly. You can have an arc, but you need to look big picture, long term. Not short term, in the now. Example: Julian framing Ric sets up lots of drama, but ruins his future. It's why Sonny as a character fails. Imo he should have died long ago or ended up in jail. If we were watching a primetime drama, he would have died back when MB was still attractive. The character Todd Manning was a rare occurance. It happened mostly because RH refused to be paired with his victim, showed remorse, and rarely did sex scenes. Had he toed the line, it would have been a massive fail. Kassie DePavia was also amazing opposite against him as Blair, so it helped. You knew he was a monster. You never forgot that Howarth's Todd did bad things.

[sunflower]

 

You can have an arc, but you need to look big picture, long term. Not short term, in the now. Example: Julian framing Ric sets up lots of drama, but ruins his future. It's why Sonny as a character fails. Imo he should have died long ago or ended up in jail.

 

The Julian/Ric story, imo, only works if it leads to Ric and Alexis getting back together, but for Julian, pretty much ruins his story.  

 

As for Sonny, Ron and Guza before him have had so many opportunities to either end Sonny or change him for the better.  I truly believe Sonny's destruction began once Guza returned in 2002 and ruined his relationship with Alexis.  They didn't have to remain lovers, but friends with ongoing scenes.  Even yesterday with Alexis delusional, Sonny is at his most likeable with this particular baby mama. 

 

The worst, I thought, was after Sonny shot Dante, how does he recover from that?  I just don't get it.  This AJ one is even worse because this is Michael's father.  At least, Dante was an undercover cop who "betrayed" Sonny in his criminal mind.  I can't wait for the AJ reveal and I dread it at the same time because it will likely be mitigated by every other character lying to Michael or Ron will just have Michael go pure violent.  This is the story when Sonny should end or rebuild.  This is the moment for Ron.  Sadly, I assume he'll let it pass him by.  

[Fylaki]

 

You knew he was a monster. You never forgot that Howarth's Todd did bad things.

Exactly I am an admitted Luke fan but the character's finest moment IMHO came when he had to talk with Lucky about his rape of Laura. Watching this man, who was (despite what subsequent writers want us to think)  an extra-ordinary father have to tell his son his darkest deed, was moving in a way that we no longer get to see. You felt as if this were a real father and son dealing with a real issue.

 

Sonny could have been a Todd or Luke type character, but neither Guza nor Ron nor for that matter MB cared enough. I cannot imagine anyway that Sonny walks away from the cold blooded killing of AJ, Ron took out all the ambiguity and all the hope of redemption. When Guza hung AJ from Sonny's meat hook at least AJ walked away a live, there was the illusion that this could even out, but unless AJ is some how alive (and even then Sonny still shot him) then Sonny is done as a character.

 

I can think of a dozen ways for Julian to redeem himself and come back from the Ric thing. Rape for Todd and Luke were almost impossible to come back from. I cannot think of any Soap character who has come back from cold blooded murder.  Ron's inability to realize that for the purposes of a Soap Sonny is a real person, with children and grandchildren and consequences for his actions, has placed a long running and highly popular (though not with many of us) front burner character in a situation from which he cannot return.

 

Ron because he is writing a spoof forgot that Fasion can do awful things and return because he is not a central character but Sonny cannot. Soap villains are designed to come and go. Despite all the Cassadines we have seen no one has ever revived Mikos, Why because his deeds in freezing the planet placed him beyond the ability to return.  I think that it is fitting that shortly after the murder of Cassandra (whom no one liked BTW) Helena was finally killed. David Gray has never come back. Villains are designed to leave.

 

Sonny was never meant to be a villain nor was he meant to be a hero, like Luke and Jason Morgan and Todd Manning he was a monster for whom there were glimpses of redemption. I agree with the assessment that Jason was a serial killer but I can also live with the conceit that he only killed those who "deserved it" . Sonny does not have that out with AJ, especially now that he knows that AJ did not kill Connie.

 

By failing to recognize that soaps and soap characters have to move forward Forever. Ron has written himself into a corner and his only way out will just hurt his reputation, the show and a genre that does not need any more bad press.

 

Writers who do not think long term are hurting soaps across the board. It is why there are food channels, reality channels, cartoon channels and not one soap channel any more.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Fylaki

[Chairperson Meow]

The one way out imo would be to reveal that Julian is WSB. It makes the most sense.

I hate that compelling story got thrown away for a goodbye vanity project for TG, who comes to work when he wants. He ruined Luke and Laura. Well, TG, it was GF who kept your ass employed for years.

[jsbt]

I think people make a mistake when they say Ron hates soaps or that Ron wants to be in primetime. Watching Ron for years - even before he said this outright in print not so long ago - you know that he has no interest in that. Ron adores soaps. He adores daytime. He would not know what to do with himself in primetime, and I believe he has since said as much, more than once. Ron venerates all the greats, all the best eras, all the classic moments and characters and couples. So much of what he has done at OLTL and GH, whether well-received or misguided and over-the-top, has been a love letter from him to that history. The problem is that Ron is not as disciplined or even as talented as many of those classic soap storytellers, and he has developed a very nasty ego.

 

Bob Guza? Absolutely, he wanted to be in primetime and back in films. The closest he ever got to the big time was a handful of excellent but fairly obscure Canadian slasher movies in the early '80s. He has always wanted to break out, but he never has. He (and Wendy Riche, and Claire Labine and others) ended up cultivating a writing team at GH that was, IMO, second to none, and in his best years covered for a lot of his excesses and bad choices. That team continued to cover for him to the bitter end with what was often very well-dialogued episodes. When Guza's GH was at its best, in his first run, it felt like I was watching primetime afterschool. It still occasionally hit those heights in the later years. But the point is that Guza hated and resented daytime. He'd come up in it, he'd done many years in the 80s at GH and other shows, but he had always wanted out. He wanted to be David Chase, David Milch, probably Vince Gilligan if Guza had lasted that long.

 

Ron's problems are different. Ron adores soaps but he loves them too much. He loves his conception of what he loved, of what he thinks makes soaps. But in venerating the big moments and the best memories he is leaving out all the nuts and bolts of the character development and story progression that made those moments and couples happen. He just slides from big moment to big moment, he improvises the rest in-between. Except for new favorites that dazzle him as he can make his mark, most characters have become tertiary to the grand design he keeps in his head. He was not always like this. And he has a huge wealth of history in his memory, and a great affection for it and I think often a lot of good ideas. The problem is that he poorly executes all of them today, and he won't listen to anyone; he's bought into his own press and thinks he is now on par with the greats he worshipped, that he is the savior of modern soaps and can do no wrong because he's fighting for this show, he loves it so much and besides, the alternative is going off the air. He's compacted his writing and plotting down into a very blunt series of instruments. There is no one to keep him in check, there is no one to say let's stop and let these stories take a breath and build, or maybe we've used your favorite too much this month, maybe this is going over the top, maybe Spencer and these kids should show some heart and vulnerability, maybe Nina and Franco aren't working the way you thought.

 

And he doesn't plan for beyond the big beat at the end of the story, he just thinks there will be another beat somewhere or a reset because hey, it's a soap opera. I'm sure we're not done with the Legion of Doom yet - that the arc with why Robin was kidnapped in the first place and who is the man behind all the other men and women will continue going on forever. Ron does not register that this, and so many stories, have become an endless bait and switch.

 

The other thing he does a lot now is say "hey, it's a soap opera, give us a break!" He loves soaps, but he is not above playing that card to excuse himself more and more. As his writing and plotting has gotten more sloppy he keeps hitting that note.

Edited July 24, 2014 by jsbt

[Fylaki]

if this is Ron loving Soaps, then I hope to God he never loves me.

 

I agree totally with the assessment that he needs to have some one in control of his excesses and I am not afraid to state that if some one does not do so then Disney and ABC and the genre will eventually have a problem on their hands that goes far beyond the writing of GH or the cancellation of the last of its soaps.  The obsession with the young man playing Spencer and the insistence that he play the character like Nathan Lane in La Cage Au Folle will sooner or later, if not with this actor then with another come back to bite Ron hard,  I am not saying that problem will come from Ron In fact I doubt it will but like Paterno at Penn State and a culture that turns its eye something bad is going to happen

 

In terms of writing the story is even worse. Again Ron may or may not love soaps (and the fact that he says he does not want to go to prime time, is meaningless, we all say lots of things to fool people into thinking we like our current jobs) and he may occasionally write well, but currently he is writing a spoof not a soap. You are right to say that he is taking all the excesses of the medium and exploding them out to hit certain marks within the genre.

 

His ego is also clearly out of control, as you say he thinks that without him the alternative is for GH to go off the air.

 

Years ago I worked at a college and like a lot of young people I was trying to change the world, my boss told me one day "The institution was here before you were born and it will be here after you are dead, go on home."  A soap writer needs to remember that and to believe it in his/her heart. Weather it is ture or not, weather soaps are dieing or not the writer cannot believe that the soap will end with them, they must believe that soap will be on the air long after they are gone. Maybe that was the mistake, maybe once a writer, Ron or any other has had to preside over the death of a soap they cannot fool themselves into thinking of the eternity of the soap any more and maybe that ruins them for writing them.

 

I think Ron understands this for other soaps, he knew that some where the Aldens of Loving and Corinth were still out there, he knows that Ryan;s bar still seves cold beer at good prices and that Frank and Meave and Johnny are all some where in New York. He knew that Stephen Clay and Lucy Coe were waiting for one last go round. He knew that soap characters live forever even if the show does not. Maybe it was when PP took away his ability to use the OLTL folks, or maybe it was his own ego but I do not think he thinks that GH exist without him any more.

 

Even the fact that half of this show is now taking place off screen and he some how expects us to know what is going on testifies to that. We all have a GH in our head, a thing that character's are doing even when we do not see them, for Ron though the GH in his head is a reality we have to accept,as if the lives of these people were his personal toy and not the communal property of all who love the show.

 

(For example right now in the GH in my head Frisco and Lucky working for the WSB are rescuing Noah Drake from Terrorist in North Africa. Lucky has fallen for the terror cells leader's daughter Layla who use to work at GH many years ago and who Noah's son Patrick once had an affair with  meanwhile in Europe Laura is on the run from a rouge group of Cassadine henchmen who  are now working for Hutch who without the love of Rose has become a violent eco-terrorist. With her is aging but still spunky reporter Jackie Templeton and Laura's adopted brother Blackie. )

[annabel]

The character Todd Manning was a rare occurance. It happened mostly because RH refused to be paired with his victim, showed remorse, and rarely did sex scenes. Had he toed the line, it would have been a massive fail. Kassie DePavia was also amazing opposite against him as Blair, so it helped. You knew he was a monster. You never forgot that Howarth's Todd did bad things.

 

 

Also, Todd did not have all of Llanview talking about how wonderful he was. Todd had few cheerleaders, Blair, Viki and Jess were the only ones who could be counted on to be on his side, and even they would get exasperated with him and write him off occasionally. Did Todd ever really have any friends? Not that Sonny has any either.

[Chairperson Meow]

Everyone in Llanview hated Todd. Everyone in PC should hate Sonny. I want the name Karen to come out of Scotty's mouth. Avenge your daughter, that is the best story. Not this stupid triangle.

[Fylaki]

Everyone needs to look at the throwback Thursday video on the GH site (especially Ron) to get what i am saying. Back in the day, no matter who the writer was, we did not watch a soap wedding we went to the wedding. The audience was a part of the guest list, as dear friends tied the knot. I did not always like Guza's writing and I hated Brenda's last go round and the whole Balkan thing (or was that Wolfe) but even then we all felt Brenda nervousness, would Sonny leave her at the altar once again. Like the people sitting in the pews we waited. When Scott caught the flowers at Luke and Laura's wedding half the nation caught it's breathe.  I don't watch soaps for the romance, I like the action and social topics better, but really was their a dry eye in the house when Anna and Robert finally said I do? or as Karen and Jagger rode off on his bike? 

 

Now we get Lucy doing weddings. Even the Mac and Felica bar wedding would have been more fun in the old days.

 

The Patrick-Sabrina-Robin wedding was the last time I felt this show. Emma breaking her father and Sabrina's hands apart and rushing towards her mother, the kiss  Patrick laid on Robin (Mrs. Fylaki wanted to know why that does not go on around here....when i suggested she disappear for two years..well the couch is comfortable) but then almost immediately Ron forgot who we cared about, oh Sabrina has her fans and we were all a little concerned, but this, this was Robin, we watched her grow up, we watched her struggle with HIV and we watched her die.

 

He just missed the point.

 

Soap characters are not characters from a movie or a novel or a play or TV show, they are family. And there is a consistency with how family acts. My cousin MJ and I do not get along, she is a big brassy loud mouth, kind of Carly like, but if she suddenly began sleeping with a serial killer I would be damn concerned. No one in town cares that Carly may have lost her mind? And we are suppose to accept that a member of our GH "Family" is acting this far out of character just because Ron says so? At least with the return of "Sonny will always be part of my life"-Carly we have something to hope for. But God did you ever want to be in a position where you hoped that Carly and Sonny would get together again?

[rur]

 

You can have an arc, but you need to look big picture, long term.

 

The only time we hear about a long term arc is when someone leaves; then we hear that a long arc, which would have been coming up soon, had been planned for that person. 

 

Perhaps we can draw our own conclusions about that.

[jsbt]

I think Ron understands this for other soaps, he knew that some where the Aldens of Loving and Corinth were still out there, he knows that Ryan;s bar still seves cold beer at good prices and that Frank and Meave and Johnny are all some where in New York. He knew that Stephen Clay and Lucy Coe were waiting for one last go round. He knew that soap characters live forever even if the show does not. Maybe it was when PP took away his ability to use the OLTL folks, or maybe it was his own ego but I do not think he thinks that GH exist without him any more.

 

Even the fact that half of this show is now taking place off screen and he some how expects us to know what is going on testifies to that. We all have a GH in our head, a thing that character's are doing even when we do not see them, for Ron though the GH in his head is a reality we have to accept,as if the lives of these people were his personal toy and not the communal property of all who love the show.

 

This much I will absolutely agree with you on.

 

The other stuff he gets hung up on are, like, in-jokes, just there for buzz that amuse him or might amuse media but have little to do with serving the characters. For example, he wanted to lure John Stamos back last year for the Nurses Ball - great idea, and Stamos was potentially into it. But before the show decided to relegate Blackie to being Frisco's drums partner, Ron's original thought was apparently that they could also lure Demi Moore back as Jackie. He wanted to have them show up at the Ball on each other's arm, and reveal that Blackie and Jackie, played by two of GH's biggest alumni, were married. What does that have to do with anything? Stamos claims he wanted what, IMO, couldn't have amounted to more than a couple days of taping where he had a little subplot showing that Blackie was out of jail and reconnecting with people during the anniversary month, something meaningful. GH refused and offered to let him play drums for Frisco. That's superficial. It might make a good gag on E! but it has nothing to do with what's right for the show.

 

The same thing went down at OLTL - according to Anthony Call, who had played Dorian Lord's off-again on-again husband Herb Callison for over a decade, they wanted him to return for the finale opposite Judith Light, a.k.a. Karen Wolek. Ron's idea for a gag there was that Herb and Karen, who had never been paired in any way, would be married. The joke is that Herb is the one who put Karen on the stand in those famous scenes where Karen is revealed to be a prostitute, and now they're a wedded pair. Judith Light claims she doesn't recall this proposal, but nevertheless she refused to return.

Edited July 24, 2014 by jsbt

[sunflower]

I was just reading some of Ron's tweets from 7/23 and he is just straight up nasty to anyone critical.  Sarcastic and knee jerk (see the storytellers convo).  That may be fine for regular people, but he shouldn't be responding to fans that way.  Someone like him should actually write draft tweets first, but if not for his soap, why Twitter?  

[Chairperson Meow]

He's copy/pasting a lot of OLTL stories imo.