Soaps By Remote

Jason Cook to GH

SoapNet is reporting that Jason Cook is coming to GH as a new doctor.

Hmmm, how does one feel about this?

I only ever saw the tail end of Cook’s run on Days, mainly where Shawn was paired with Mimi. A couple I did like. I have seen virtually nothing of Cook’s onscreen pairing with Kirsten Storms. I liked Cook well enough, he’s rather cute, and frankly I’m not taking anyone’s lazy acting during the Reilly era of Days as a guide to anything (see also, Storms, Kirsten, and Peck, Austin).

So, based on my Days experience, I’m pretty much unbiased.

From a GH perspective, I’m pleased that he’s playing a doctor because it’s almost always a good thing when there are more doctors around.

Provided, of course, that professionally speaking he’s just a doctor, and not an ongologist-plastic surgeon-drug dealer-drug smuggler-mob hitman with bad aim or a doctor-CSI. A doctor with a single specialty would be really nice.

The possibility of a pairing of this new doctor with Maxie in an attempt to recreate chemistry is a bit more problematic. The idea of bringing in a new young doctor for Maxie and keeping her relationship with Spinelli as a friendship is appealing – though I kind of wish they would go down the Logan path with her, as there’s some good chemistry and angst to tap there – however, GH’s history of recreating the spectacular chemistry of couples from other shows has hardly been stellar. Stefan and Katherine? Alexis and Cameron? Exactly.

Anyway, we shall see.

(via Daytime Confidential and We Love Soaps.)

Winey

That's winey, not whiny.

I've spent the last few days cruising around the countryside (translation: wineries), eating and drinking a lot of really good food and wine and have accordingly spent three entire days away from the computer and the television (though not, inevitably, the phone or the blackberry).

Regular programming (and whining) will return momentarily...

Three Weeks, Three-ish Topics

I made quite a lot of notes during my immersion catch-up on 3ish weeks of GH over the last few days. But as is usual in these matters, it is not worth posting all of those. Not by a long way.

What I do feel like posting are notes on the following three topics:

1. Fashion: the fabulous, the misguided, the mean, and the hammer to the side of the head;

2. Maxie Jones: love, love, love; and

3. History and Character Realisations: positives and negatives vis a vis the shooting of Michael Corinthos III.

And one non-topic, summed up as follows: goodbye first character ever to be subjected to blackmail and an abusive relationship, seduce a cute and troubled guy, be involved in a murder, an explosion and a holiday romance, be recast, and still be so utterly, utterly boring that she doesn’t last two months on screen. Farewell Marianna, we “admire” your ability to be boring below all others and will forget you ever existed by the time I’ve finished typing the next sentence.

So, Fashion. Kate continues to look fabulous and I particularly adored her black and white ensemble in the second half of last week – and not just because it was the dress of glorious Lulu smacking down - though I cannot find a flattering photo of it. Also being dressed well in the last couple of weeks were Alexis, Carly (gulp), Elizabeth, and Robin, aside from this disaster of epic proportions.

Oh yes, and...

...GH also really needs to update its credits.

In yet another giant flashing sign of WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS SHOW, on top of the always misogynist ending of the credits, no fewer than six of the characters currently in the credits are DEAD.

Emily, Alan, Justus, Lorenzo, Georgie and Coop.

Add to that Skye, Dillon and Ned having left town, and an update is clearly in order.

Maybe they can add a few more frames of Sonny, Carly and Jason.

Wouldn’t it be nice…

...if, in a year or two – with the whole writing team changed – Michael Corinthos woke up from his lengthy coma, mysteriously aged into his late teens, and didn’t remember anything about his pre-shooting life. Upon being filled in by his heartbroken parents, Michael is horrified and rejects them and their greedy lives, unable to understand their way of living. Instead he moves in with his paternal grandmother and expresses a new ambition to become a doctor, refusing to heed Carly’s desperate cries of “but you always wanted to be a mob boss!”

I Don’t Think That Word Means What He Thinks It Does

Right, it’s my turn to step up to bat and take a swing, or three, at General Hospital’s decision to shoot Michael Corinthos in the head.

As mentioned in my post below, Mallory at Serial Drama has already laid out a wonderful piece expressing disgust at the story and Robert Guza’s attempted justification of it in Entertainment Weekly, but it seems to me that the more voices the better on this one.

Plus I really feel the need to rant myself.

There are so many things wrong with the story, and with the attitude of the writers that it’s hard to know where to start.

So I guess I’ll begin with the fact that I don’t like Michael and have long wished that he’d be sent off to boarding school for a few years before returning SORASd like any other soap child. It appears that this – much like the long desired SORASing of Lulu Spencer – is a major lesson in “be careful what you wish for”.

I’m not really spoiled as to what happens for Michael and whether he’ll recover from a major head injury in the short, medium or SORAS-induced long term, but only on this show in this era would you be in a position where the potential method of SORASing a child is to shoot him in the head and put him in a long term coma. Instead of, you know, sending him to military or reform school for buying a gun and accidentally shooting someone and leaving them for dead. Just by way of random example.

Which brings me to problem number one with Mr Guza’s underlying justifications for his decision to shoot a 12 year-old in the head. Guza notes that Michael needed to suffer the consequences of shooting Kate, and it was Guza’s decision that those consequences would be for Michael to get shot himself.

Hmmm. It appears to me that Mr Guza does not actually know what the word “consequences” means.

Word

Believe me, my own rant will come on this later, but in the meantime I would like to keep things simple and just say:

Word.

Way to go Mallory for taking the hit and reading through GUza's crap where I would have choked on it several times over.

Momentary hiatus...

...due to unexpected house guests.

Back soon.

Probably in a ranting mood.