GH History Lessons: Because History is Always Repeating Itself

[Asp Burger]

On 2/22/2022 at 1:01 AM, methodwriter85 said:

In any event, yeah. Like I said, there were some pretty hot and heavy B.I.'s about how CS and Jacob had a hard time filming fighting scenes because of how passionate they were. I believe it.

Their "rolling around on the ground" outdoor fight is legendary.

What's weird is that the writing didn't exactly help mitigate any awkwardness there might or might not have been. It was almost as though McTavish and her daily writers played into it. Those two were constantly hugging, mussing each other's hair, hanging out in intimate ways (like one sitting on the other's bed, etc.), and exchanging "I love yous." Much more than when any other two actors were Lucky and Nikolas.  

I never got into Nikolas and Gia. McTavish and JFP seemed to want for them to happen in a big way. Coltin's Nikolas was already a big strike where I was concerned (he's my least favorite of the three significant Niks by far), and Marisa Ramirez was pretty, but the whiny voice and constant bitch-face kind of killed my interest. I liked the second actress who played Gia, but the character changed a lot, and anyway, Nia was out and Nem was in by then. Gia mostly hung out with Zander.

[Hiyo]

I liked Nikolas and Gia, though that could be more due to the chemistry between the actors. And while I liked him just fine in the role of Nikolas, I do think it would have worked better had they cast him as a different character who ended up hooking up with Gia.

[jsbt]

I loved Nikolas and Gia. But the writing was often very weak for Scammer Nik, because he was much weaker than Tyler. His main draw was the chemistry with MR. I always thought it was a mistake the show never revisited Gia with TC, and I still do.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I just noticed this and abso-FUCKING-LOVE that one of the gifs for this thread is Robin hauling back and BITCH SLAPPING the SheBeast.

What?

[Hiyo]

 

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

 

LOVELOVELOVELOVE!!!!

Especially delicious because Robin is so wee/petite!

[statsgirl]

It was a better show when Carly was being called out for being a manipulative bitch instead of being lauded as a saint as she was today.

[Mirabelle]

2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

LOVELOVELOVELOVE!!!!

Especially delicious because Robin is so wee/petite!

I call foul on Robin just slapping her - there's no way Robert and Anna didn't teach their daughter how to throw a proper punch. Maybe Robin was restraining herself. 

[Asp Burger]

I haven't seen that Robin/Carly clip in a while. Carly is Carly, but I'm loving Laura Wright's hair. Was it a darker blond than presently, or was it a lighting issue? 

It seems to be a theme in Carly's catfights that she always starts in on the other woman for (some version of) acting perfect and better than her. She did it with Robin, she did it with Liz, she did with original Kate, and she's kind of done it recently with Nina. And usually I just feel that they really are inherently nicer than she is, so being "better" doesn't take a lot of theatrical talent. But the Carly fans buy into her claims of hypocrisy on the other woman's part. So I guess it's been a winning formula for decades of GH writers. 

I think my favorite Carly conflicts, though, are the ones with Ava. Ava will get laugh-in-her-face scornful and mock the shit out of her. She absolutely has Carly's number. Maybe because no one sees through a ruthless bitch like another one.

[Asp Burger]

Some of us were talking about Sarah Webber in the episode thread. Here's a look at the two versions of Sarah, for anyone who missed her and is curious.

From '97, the beginnings of the attempt to make Sarah and Nikolas happen as a popular young couple. Featuring Jennifer Sky and a young Tyler Christopher:   

Their chemistry stayed about like that. And that song came back a lot.

Still, I'm struck by how different the cutting and pacing were 25 years ago. We'd never get an entire song with a couple slow-dancing now, the hands over the back, the faces, close-up, medium distance with the crowd, etc. All the different stories of the day are chopped up into tiny fragments and stitched together.

For Sarah #2, I couldn't find the notorious porn-like Sarah/Lucky hook-up at the photo studio, but here (from '02) is Liz bitching them out on the hospital rooftop when she discovers their secret affair. Featuring Sarah Laine, Becky Herbst, and Jacob Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1dJjvUuso&ab_channel=traveshamockery

Sarah had been going to PC High in '97, so she had completed college and med school in under five years. I love soap time.

[dubbel zout]

2 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

Jennifer Sky

She'll always be Cleopatra 2525 to me. Heh.

[Jaded]

12 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

She'll always be Cleopatra 2525 to me. Heh.

That's the show I was going to mention. It was fun and campy. I wish it had lasted more than two seasons and 28 episodes in total.  That was during a time when first run syndicated TV shows were still a thing.
 

 

[statsgirl]

3 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

Sarah had been going to PC High in '97, so she had completed college and med school in under five years. I love soap time.

A friend of my daughter's did that. She didn't want to waste time so she went to Europe where they go straight to med school after high school without having to do the undergraduate route first.

[Ambrosefolly]

19 hours ago, statsgirl said:

A friend of my daughter's did that. She didn't want to waste time so she went to Europe where they go straight to med school after high school without having to do the undergraduate route first.

Side note, I wish they would do something similar here. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Ambrosefolly

[dubbel zout]

I wonder if that will happen eventually, giving the crippling debt most graduates get saddled with.

[Ambrosefolly]

6 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I wonder if that will happen eventually, giving the crippling debt most graduates get saddled with.

It wouldn't make much of a difference. My cousins undergraduate education was nearly paid up, but his med school education was $250,000 in loans, and his was a relative bargain compared to some of his doctor friends. Also side note, that is why I suggested it as a possible storyline of TJ working for Sonny to pay off these loans. 

[statsgirl]

My daughter's friend could do it because she went to a special academic high school. Most North American curricula are a couple of years behind European ones.

38 minutes ago, Ambrosefolly said:

 Also side note, that is why I suggested it as a possible storyline of TJ working for Sonny to pay off these loans. 

That would be better than most of what's on right now. TJ could get into trouble overhearing stuff and have to wrestle with his conscience.

Although given this show, everyone would probably be applauding Sonny for being such a good guy. After all, everyone associated with TJ and Molly, from Alexis to Ric to Curtis to Stella have already been associated or worked for Sonny.

[racked]

On 3/17/2022 at 12:03 PM, Asp Burger said:

Some of us were talking about Sarah Webber in the episode thread. Here's a look at the two versions of Sarah, for anyone who missed her and is curious.

From '97, the beginnings of the attempt to make Sarah and Nikolas happen as a popular young couple. Featuring Jennifer Sky and a young Tyler Christopher:   

Their chemistry stayed about like that. And that song came back a lot.

Still, I'm struck by how different the cutting and pacing were 25 years ago. We'd never get an entire song with a couple slow-dancing now, the hands over the back, the faces, close-up, medium distance with the crowd, etc. All the different stories of the day are chopped up into tiny fragments and stitched together.

For Sarah #2, I couldn't find the notorious porn-like Sarah/Lucky hook-up at the photo studio, but here (from '02) is Liz bitching them out on the hospital rooftop when she discovers their secret affair. Featuring Sarah Laine, Becky Herbst, and Jacob Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1dJjvUuso&ab_channel=traveshamockery

Sarah had been going to PC High in '97, so she had completed college and med school in under five years. I love soap time.

You are so right about the pacing and I know this is a FV thing and he thinks it helps keep viewers watching the whole show, but I hate it so much. We used to get the time in a scene to invest in what was going on, to let the emotion build. It’s a shame that’s gone.

I didn’t completely hate the original Sarah. They made her saccharine and saintly but I enjoyed all of Liz’s ridiculous but entertaining schemes against her for that brief period. 

[SlovakPrincess]

5 hours ago, racked said:

I didn’t completely hate the original Sarah. They made her saccharine and saintly but I enjoyed all of Liz’s ridiculous but entertaining schemes against her for that brief period. 

I didn't really get what Liz's schemes were supposed to accomplish.  Although to be fair, the only thing I really remember is her slipping condoms into her sister's backpack or something, but was she hoping they'd fall out in the middle of class or something and embarrass Sarah?  Convince Nik that Sarah was not a "good girl"?  It made no sense LOL.  

[Asp Burger]

I think it was the stolen test answers, rather than condoms, that Liz planted in Sarah's bag. Liz was forced into counseling for that (didn't Sarah and Nikolas tell her if she didn't see someone for help, they'd tell Audrey?), and she was still pissed off at them, so she wrapped a box of condoms up in Nikolas's sweater...somehow staging it for Sarah to find them and get freaked out. The condoms fell out of Nikolas's sweater in front of Audrey, and Sarah was all "This isn't what it looks like, Grams! We haven't even talked about having sex!"

IIRC, she was just peeved about Sarah's romantic success (she had had both Lucky and Nikolas pursuing her early on) and being negatively compared to Sarah in everyone's eyes. She wanted to bring her down. 

Then Sarah got written out, Robin left the canvas, and Liz had her three years or so as the angel of Port Charles, adored by all and in heavy story rotation. That lasted until the JFP/McTavish era. For whatever reason, those two didn't seem to have any use for her.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Asp Burger

[Ambrosefolly]

If Liz worked as a character, it was because of Rebecca Herbst and not the writing. Writing was much better, but soaps always had their blind spots when they transform a character for what the canvas needed. 

As for all of Liz's schemes: she was a teenager. 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Ambrosefolly

[UYI]

On 3/19/2022 at 8:28 PM, Ambrosefolly said:

If Liz worked as a character, it was because of Rebecca Herbst and not the writing. Writing was much better, but soaps always had their blind spots when they transform a character for what the canvas needed. 

As for all of Liz's schemes: she was a teenager. 

It probably helped that she had Michele Val Jean as a writer, too (MVJ was responsible for the majority of Liz's rape storyline; she's a rape survivor herself). She's probably still the only writer who ever cared about, let alone LIKED, Liz.

(It's such a shame Claire Labine never returned to GH; I imagine she would have done wonders for her as a character.) 

[jsbt]

She was great. I still believe MVJ intended to either pair Liz with Sonny or make them siblings in 2000 though, lol.

[Ambrosefolly]

40 minutes ago, jsbt said:

She was great. I still believe MVJ intended to either pair Liz with Sonny or make them siblings in 2000 though, lol.

As if being Dr. Steve Hardy's granddaughter wasn't good enough. I am glad that never happened. 

[Asp Burger]

2 hours ago, jsbt said:

I still believe MVJ intended to either pair Liz with Sonny or make them siblings in 2000 though, lol.

"Siblings" is what I always heard. They would find out and decide to keep the knowledge between them for Liz's safety. Carly (who already disliked Liz over Jason) would keep getting more intensely anti-Liz from her incorrect assumption about the amount of time those two were spending together.

I don't know anything for sure, but that long-term plan would fit with the framework of what was going on in 2000, when Val Jean was writing so much.

But it was absolutely vital, for some reason, that Sonny have a sister. Liz! Gia! No, this new girl who drove into a tree! 

[UYI]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:32 PM, dubbel zout said:

I feel like the parents were mentioned in passing, but there was nothing substantive.

In 2013, shortly before Steve went to prison and during one of Heather's MANY stints of insanity, Liz said something about "his" mother causing all of this grief, and Steve said something to the effect of, "She's not my mother. My mother is the woman who raised you, me and Sarah."

Not that you would mention your mother's first name in regular conversation with your siblings, mind you, but it was SUCH an obvious troll about the fact that no one knows that woman's name however many years later, LMAO. 

[dubbel zout]

Like how the Who?s were adopting Wylie from "the birth mother," and she didn't become Willow until they cast Katelyn MacMullen 18 months later.

[Grinaldi]

Megan Mctavish was the absolute queen of heretofore unmentioned sisters. She brought at least two to every one of her head writing stints on various shows. And 80% of the time they were blonde and suuuuper boring. So Toonces was coming as soon as the ink on her contract dried.

Connecting Liz and Sonny could have made some sense in terms of the canvas. But I am certainly glad they didn't do that. It's a minor miracle they never really tried to pair them in their 25 years on the show. (Unless there's some story I missed while on the barge)

[jsbt]

I highly suspected Gia was Sonny's sister at the time in 2000, given the Taggert angle and Mike's existing past with their mother, Lynne Moody's character Florence. I would've been for that because I loved Gia. The Liz business I didn't know about til some time later. Either way, the sister angle for Sonny pre-dated Megan and JFP but they absolutely appropriated it. They even used the name Jill regularly inserted into her shows because it was her daughter's: Courtney.

Edited March 23, 2022 by jsbt

[Grinaldi]

I'll take her inserting that name over a Tim Gibbs Lucky recast which you just know she considered.

Sonny was always going to get a family once he became the lead of the show. I'm actually glad they created Mike and Courtney rather than making him like Jessie's son or a secret Hardy or something even more gross.

Understand I am NOT grateful for Courtney, just that it was a new character.

[Ambrosefolly]

16 hours ago, Grinaldi said:

Understand I am NOT grateful for Courtney, just that it was a new character.

Courtney was fine when she was AJ's wife and disliked Sonny. She became insufferable when she became Jason's mob moll. Steve Burton and Alicia Willis were pretty chemistry free except maybe their first kiss. Even Sean Kanean, who never shared a scene with ALW's Courtney, had more passion for her  when he declared "She was MY WIFE!" then Steve Burton did. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Ambrosefolly

[ffwbe]

3 hours ago, Ambrosefolly said:

Courtney was fine when she was AJ's wife and disliked Sonny. She became insufferable when she became Jason's mob moll. Steve Burton and Alicia Willis were pretty chemistry free except maybe their first kiss. Even Sean Kanean, who never shared a scene with ALW's Courtney, had more passion fo her  when he declared "She was MY WIFE!" then Steve Burton did. 

I found SBu and ALW to be pretty similar in the way that they relied on their screen partners to carry their pairings. I found both put in the bare minimum themselves with made Journey extra painful. 

[Grinaldi]

 I was on the barge/havent seen anything in my youtube binges about Neil's death. Why would Harmony kill him? Was this about Shiloh or Cyrus?  And info would be appreciated.

[Asp Burger]

Shiloh died/left the canvas in September 2019, and Neil not until August 2020. The Shiloh story was pretty distant. Harmony was being forced to work for Cyrus at the time of Neil's death, because he had pulled strings to get her released.

I was watching during all of that period, and this doesn't make much sense to me either. It isn't playing like long-term planning. One theory is that Harmony killed him with Cyrus's drugs because he represented some threat to her. Cyrus didn't seem to be directly involved, as we saw him asking a lackey if the drugs were his (they were). 

[Grinaldi]

Thanks @Asp Burger. So maybe this is tied to some other story. Seems like a weird thing to circle back to.

[Grinaldi]

I have been catching up on some Laura and Luke stuff from the last ten years. Am I expected to believe that the Triple L Diner, the Campus Disco, AND the Spencer home have sat, unused and unchanged, since the moment Luke Spencer left them?

Is there some time-traveling government agency tasked with the historical preservation of all things Luke Spencer? Was it Casey the Alien? Because that story was easier to buy than that a middle class house in upstate New York sat undisturbed for 52 years. The baseball bat was still on the floor! 

This seems to have been mainly a Ron thing. That guy does have a boner for history shizz. So I'm yelling at ghosts. And I have no doubt this was much commented upon when it aired. But jeezalu. I'll buy Anders Hove passing himself off as Ian Buchanan.  I'll go with identical cousins and psychopathic popsicles and carbonic snow. I'll even put up with "good" mobsters and get out of jail free tumors and Jason Quartermaine somehow becoming Batman.

But you will never convince me that in 40 years no one turned the Campus Disco into a Bed Bath and Beyond or something.

That said, the scenes with Laura talking about the rape with Kevin in 2016 had some really lovely beats. The stuff about the forgiveness being all on her was some insightful writing.

[jsbt]

I was under the impression Lucky burned the Spencer house down while Liz was living there, in 2011, on a drunken binge after Luke was thought to have hit and killed Jake with his car. ETA: Oh, you mean Tim Spencer's house, nvm.

Yeah, a lot of the L&L stuff under Ron was terrible, especially Fluke which was originally meant to be Bill Eckert but turned into shitty DID when we figured it all out. Plus there's the Frank Smith revisit which was awful, and TG's refusal to play a reunion.

Edited March 31, 2022 by jsbt

[dubbel zout]

4 hours ago, jsbt said:

Fluke

*shudders uncontrollably*

[GHScorpiosRule]

7 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

*shudders uncontrollably*

[Ambrosefolly]

5 hours ago, jsbt said:

I was under the impression Lucky burned the Spencer house down while Liz was living there, in 2011, on a drunken binge after Luke was thought to have hit and killed Jake with his car. ETA: Oh, you mean Tim Spencer's house, nvm.

Yeah, a lot of the L&L stuff under Ron was terrible, especially Fluke which was originally meant to be Bill Eckert but turned into shitty DID when we figured it all out. Plus there's the Frank Smith revisit which was awful, and TG's refusal to play a reunion.

I think Liz had moved out by then or never moved back in after the engagement was broken. I think it was Guza's rage at the GH past and it was right before he was fired. Burning down the house that Laura absolutely loved, because, god forbid, you put down roots while your children are still children and settle down for a few years. 

[jsbt]

I understood the dark narrative choice on a drunken, bereaved Lucky's part. They still should've rebuilt the house.

[ouinason]

we need to clarify FakeLuke from ..... that, please, I almost puked before I realized what you meant.

[Grinaldi]

Not to trigger anyone but...are Fluke and fake Luke different things? Is one Faison and the other the "DID"? I have avoided most of that story in my YouTube adventures.

I did see the Nurses Ball performance of "I Am What I Am" which was just...we get it Tony. 

Yeah I meant Tim Spencer's home but I agree that they should rebuild the Ward/Spencer house. 

[UYI]

1 hour ago, Grinaldi said:

Not to trigger anyone but...are Fluke and fake Luke different things?

Fluke was originally the nickname of the infamous Felicia & Luke pairing in 2000, which was pointed out at the time of the Fake Luke story, but I guess no one ever came up with a new nickname for the latter to avoid confusion between the two stories.

The vomit gifs certainly apply to both, though. 

[Grinaldi]

5 hours ago, UYI said:

The vomit gifs certainly apply to both, though

Oh God. I had forgotten about the original Fluke. And now I have triggered myself. Thanks?

[jsbt]

Question for the Anna fans among us: Some Wiki stuff online lists Finola as coming back for one day - 2/25/1992 - after Monty recast the part for Anna's last month and cut her loose at the end of '91. Does anyone know if this is accurate? Did Finola appear once more after the brief month-long recast with Camilla More? That episode appears to be one of the few missing from the period on YT.

[IDFfm0870]

On 4/10/2022 at 6:12 AM, jsbt said:

Question for the Anna fans among us: Some Wiki stuff online lists Finola as coming back for one day - 2/25/1992 - after Monty recast the part for Anna's last month and cut her loose at the end of '91. Does anyone know if this is accurate? Did Finola appear once more after the brief month-long recast with Camilla More? That episode appears to be one of the few missing from the period on YT.

According to the episode recap of that episode that you can find in the link below, My guess is they had probably used flashbacks of both Finola and Tristan, as this was his last episode back in 1992. I think the recapper would have mentioned it here if Finola had returned.

https://www.angelfire.com/tv/curlyqgrl/gh/eps/gheps1992.htm#2/19, 2/20, 2/21, 2/24, 2/25, 2/25

[Dr.OO7]

On 3/31/2022 at 10:08 PM, Grinaldi said:

And now I have triggered myself. Thanks?

Well, you've certainly triggered me. That storyline was SO. . . ICKY. And it made Felicia (already not the sharpest knife in the drawer) into this utterly moronic slut--she kept ditching her husband and kids to run around with Luke, then whined about them all hating her.

[LegalParrot81]

Just reading to catch up (haven't watched in a while) and what pops up.....the F word.   That falls into the category of "them which shall not be named"!!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by LegalParrot81

[Hiyo]

I think I must be the one person who didn't hate the Luke/Felicia pairing. They weren't the greatest couple, but I felt there was potential there but the execution at the time wasn't the best.