General Hospital Watching General Hospital

[Ray&Donna]

What are they doing with Michael E. Knight? First he was trying to get Nelle paroled (mercifully it failed, though she is still polluting our screens as Sam's cellmate), and now he's helping Valentin look for Helena's ghoulish portrait? Nikolas is in hiding, but he keeps showing himself to people?

 

[Cliff Barnes]

The show has actually really turned around lately, they have made it exciting and fun again. Seems that changing out the co head writer made a big difference, I am seeing soap again instead of a seminar. There is action once more and some real focus on core families. I will take the recasts as they show a commitment to the main characters at this point. I do think they should consider putting Molly on contract or recasting her and maybe getting a new Serena Baldwin possibly, but the fact that they have refocused themselves is a very positive thing imo.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I too have noticed the show has gotten more watchable. I know some of the plot movement is a consequence of the new writers wanting to kill some of the past writers' plots, but after they drove a stake through the Shiloh plotline and are reversing Franco's "Drew" plotline...well, I'm a happy camper.

Yesterday's scenes with Ava and Nina ought never to have worked. Given their history, I never would have thought I'd ever see those two interacting without furniture flying through the air. It never would have occurred to me to even broach the subject of those two having scenes together. And yet I believe yesterday's scenes were the best I've seen in Cynthia Watros's tenure as Nina, and Maura West very nearly brought me to tears. The writers seem to have a better grasp of how to write mental illness, and how to use it to bring common ground to characters who know what it's like to suffer such issues. The realization that Nina, of all people, would understand Ava's feelings of hopelessness and despair in the face of mental health troubles (not knowing what was real and what was her imagination) washed over me as I finally made the connection between CW's Nina and Michelle Stafford's Nina, who spent a healthy chunk of time in a facility and was victimized by the system as well as her mother. Nina's empathy for Ava was real, and CW really sold it despite all the odds against the scenes actually working. They found a situation where the two actually had something in common, and I hope this means those two will actually help each other get over their awful past by working together to rain holy hell down on those Cassadine men.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Sam has already been in front of the parole board, despite only having been in prison for a day or two? I get so confused sometimes. It doesn't help that ABC skipped Monday's episode.

 

[Daniel Avery]

They're floating this plot point that the prison is overcrowded, necessitating some early releases. Harmony (or whatever her real name is--Willow's mother) got an early release, and of course Nelle thinks she's going to get out (and probably will, for plot convenience). Why not Sam, too? Heck, maybe Ryan will get released for Feb Sweeps.

As if Pentonville was the only prison in New York State.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Pentonville, Shadybrook, and Steinmauer--to say nothing of the WSB--have the worst security in the history of television.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Tracy arrived (unannounced, as usual) at the Q mansion today and my jaw dropped. Monica has redecorated the Q mansion's foyer and living room. Tracy was almost as shocked as I was! It's nothing major (mostly paint and carpet colors changed) but now I KNOW I'll get to hear Monica's mantra when Tracy pitches the inevitable fit. I also noticed that the set(s) are somewhat smaller than they were. Every time I turn around, they make that mansion shrink .

I can already imagine Tracy being upset because she likely wants the mansion to stay exactly as it was when she and her parents lived there. I know this because my father and his siblings act exactly the same way about the family home they all grew up in. My uncle and his wife have lived there for decades after all the others moved out. They decided to (finally) renovate and improve on the house, and it got all the brothers and sisters' noses out of joint. My mother (never a fan of her ex in-laws) cracked that if they had their way, they would have turned that old house into a museum and rope off all the rooms to stay exactly as it was when my grandmother died (circa 1970). But my aunt and uncle turned that old farmhouse into a beautiful modern home, and the other brothers and sisters can just grumble to themselves because time moves on.

"It's Uncle Peter's house...Grandma gave it to him."

 

[Ray&Donna]

We have seen the family room or whatever fairly recently...like Thanksgiving, I guess...but the front door being under the staircase doesn't match what was there before. I assumed it was the den or whatever we only see on occasion. But if that's the new living area, it has shrunk.

Tracey appeared at the hospital in the Christmas Carol episode Monday, so I can only assume someone got their wires crossed. Could the endless preemptions have led them to air them out of order?

 

[Daniel Avery]

That's exactly what happened, according to chatter elsewhere. Apparently they had promoted (advertised) that Christmas Carol-inspired episode to air on a certain day, but with pre-emptions they had to make a choice: air the surrounding episodes out of order, or push the special episode to another day. They chose to air the other episodes out of order. Or more likely, ABC forced them to.

I know these seemingly minor adjustments to sets are typically done to make filming easier, or to make it easier for the grips to set up and tear down sets as needed. But if the front door of the mansion is "under the staircase" then just what do the stairs lead to? I was too distracted by Tracy's reaction to get a good look at how this 'edited layout' would work. Of course moving the front door was a stroke of brilliance on Dr. Monica's part, because now when certain "unwanted guests" show up (*cough*Carly*cough*) they won't be able to find their way in.

 

[Ray&Donna]

I wound up missing the two episodes after that, so how long was Jane Elliot actually back home for Christmas?

 

[Daniel Avery]

From what I heard, she filmed a bunch of scenes that would be inserted into multiple episodes over a month or so. This is their filming style, to have actors arrive to do out-of-sequence stuff for multiple episodes that gets edited together later on. She still has stuff yet to air.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Yeah, after I asked I saw her again this week. And of course yesterday, I got exactly five minutes of viewing in before ABC news interrupted.

Nelle is really the gift that keeps on giving

 

[Daniel Avery]

Nelle is really the gift that keeps on giving

Why can't they impeach HER?

I also got the 10-minute GH yesterday (that is, the first five and the last five minutes), and was disappointed because this was the first time I've been able to watch live in two weeks. Every Julian/Brad shouting/threatening scene has this undercurrent that makes me think they're going to start ripping each other's clothes off any second....am I seeing something that isn't there?

 

[Ray&Donna]

The only thing I have seen in the past two weeks was the MLK Day episode, where Nik and Ava visited Spencer in the back room at Wyndemere, otherwise known as his boarding school. So if ABC has been showing it in an alternate universe, I am way behind.

 

[kenneth]

I really wish this show would dump a ton of Carbonic snow during a mob meeting and have them all freeze to death.

 

[Ray&Donna]

I really wish this show would dump a ton of Carbonic snow during a mob meeting and have them all freeze to death.

That would be the largest funeral in daytime history. Nine out of every ten people in Port Charles loves Sonny, and everyone else loves Jason, despite their past misdeeds.

 

[Ray&Donna]

What's the deal with Sonny's myriad relatives popping up...Gladys, Marlon Brando...doesn't he have enough family on the show as it is with his ten children?

 

[Daniel Avery]

"Oh, goody! Another foray into the old 2000s-style mob wars!"
----said no one, ever

 

[Ray&Donna]

It's funny how Jason and Sam are all, "Peter must pay for his crimes!" Yeah, because you always have

Though I am in favor of anything that gets him off the show. Though if we have to sit through a Maxie/Spinelli reunion, I might have to make liberal use of the mute button

 

[Daniel Avery]

I'm afraid to ask, but I will anyway: if Spin's moving back to Port Chuckles, what has become of Ellie? She was a favorite of mine. I would much rather have her back than him.