Mark your calendars and set your Tivos for Thursday; it will be Rick Hearst's final appearance on GH as Sonny's maniacal brother Rick Lansing. After seven years on GH, three time Emmy winner Hearst was dropped to "recurring status." If you don't know what that means, imagine if your job said to you "We want you to still say you're an employee here at the XYZ Company, but we might only need you twice a month." I think most of us would pass.
So, instead of wondering whether or not he'd get enough work to pay his rent, Hearst found a full time gig on the Bold and the Beautiful. I encourage you to turn on B and B and watch Rick there to let him know we appreciate his work even if GH did not.
GH has had a very bad habit of firing off popular actors and characters, and the soap world has the very good habit of picking up their contracts. For instance, Lynn Herring, formerly the quirky Lucy Coe on GH and Port Charles has now signed a contract with As the World Turns. Wally Kurth, formerly Ned Ashton of the Q clan on GH has been snapped up by Days of Our Lives. The Bold and the Beautiful has snapped up many former GH actors which I listed in my B and B Two Scoops column this week,
Even if you don't watch B and B, I encourage you to read my Two Scoops column from B&B this week just to see how long the list of discarded GH faves that went to B and B actually has become. It's like Port Charles old home week at Forrester Creations.
And what is the outcome of all this? GH is in the ratings basement. I wrote about that a couple of weeks back and here I am writing about it again. Why? Because I hope that someone in the GH offices says "Hey maybe that loud-mouthed columnist is right! We should stop firing all of the viewers' favorite actors!" Of course that won't happen. They will continue to make boneheaded moves until GH loses so much money and so many viewers that it gets cancelled. And that will be a tragic day in Tamilu-land.
I grew up in Ohio and the Cleveland Indians were my team. My Dad started taking me to games when I was five. Being an Indians fan, I got used to this concept "Don't get too attached to the players, they won't be here very long."
The Indians had a nasty habit of hiring a bunch of young kids, keeping them long enough to build them into a really strong team, and then selling them off. We would see player after player go to another team and soar, and it made me sad and angry every season.
I wonder if ABC is employing the "Major League" theory. Perhaps they are TRYING to kill off GH so they can focus on some other project they would rather be working on. "What else do we have to do to get those stupid loyal viewers to leave? We already got rid of Laura Spencer, half of the Quartermaine family, aged all the adorable kids into annoying teenagers, broke most of the happy couples, focused solely on mob, murder and violence, and burned down a lot of their favorite sets of Port Charles landmarks. Why are they still here?"
Well, why ARE we still here? What is going on in Port Charles that I still actually care about? I loved the Luke/Ethan storyline. Their chemistry was alive and brought Tony Geary a long lost twinkle to his eye. But I hunger to see that one play all the way out and have Laura come back and discover Luke has a son by Holly.
Okay viewers, don't hate me, but I still want Luke and Laura to reconcile. I don't care how much Luke says he is committed to Spanky Buns, I choose to believe that if Laura came back from France and dangled the worm, and Luke would take the bait. The love of your life is the love of your life, period.
I care about Carly and Jax having a healthy baby. Jax has tried to have a kid and wanted to have a kid and almost had a kid more times than I can count. Enough. Let them have a happy, healthy baby. Please? Of course if Jax kills Michael for pushing Carly, she might not be able to forgive that one...
I want to see Claudia busted and kicked to the curb. Sonny dumped poor Brenda who actually loved him just for wearing a stupid wire. Brenda actually thought she was saving him! So when Sonny finds out what Claudia has done, he had better kick her to the curb, too, baby or no baby.
I want Johnny to throw himself in front of Jason and risk his own life to save Jason. I don't want Johnny to die, but I want him to almost die so Claudia will get a freaking clue. In Johnny's head, he understands the mob, but I don't think he is actually cold-blooded enough to stand by and watch Jason die without intervening. I hope he proves me right.
While I like the chemistry between Johnny and Olivia, I still am hoping Johnny and Lulu reunite. I want Lulu to have more to do than go around town visiting people. They worked so hard to find the extraordinary Julie Marie Berman, an actress who could hold her own with Tony Geary, for instance, but now she is rarely on screen. Now that Kate Howard is "out of town" and we can stop wasting air time with Kate sending Johnny and Maxie on fake dates perhaps the writers could come up with an actual storyline where Lulu and Johnny reconnect.
NuKristina is getting far more air time, and in my opinion she's not a character I am interested in. She's a cute kid, but again, GH is pushing a fan favorite into the background to highlight a character they are trying to push on us. Every time they do that, I see more people changing the channel in the window of my mind. I don't care about NuKristina, her creepy boyfriend, or their fake ID's. I find it very hard to believe that with all of Coleman's dealings with Sonny over the years that he doesn't know what Sonny's kids look like and wouldn't chase their underage butts out of his bar.
I care about Robin and Patrick and am delighted to see them functioning as a couple again. Of course, they have been thrust headlong into a malpractice suit and a murder mystery, so it's not like they get to rest in domestic bliss. I loved the scene in the hospital shower where they tried to recreate the injury of the deceased. Fun. But, did Robin relapse and hide Emma? We used to hear her crying all day every day and now she is invisible.
Martha Byrne made her first appearance as Mayor Floyd's manipulative wife, and I am reserving judgment about this storyline. It has potential to be interesting, so I am waiting to see how it unfolds.
As to Nikolas and Rebecca, even though she came to town with the intent to con, I think the girl has fallen under the spell of Prince Nikolas. Ethan is cute, but he can't compete with a Prince. I would guess his salary at the remarkably still open Haunted Star isn't enough to buy Rebecca one sleeve of the gown Nikolas bought her last week.
It's kind of creepy that the two of them were hanging around down at Emily's grave and then Nikolas bought Rebecca some Emily look-alike gown and made her waltz. But Rebecca seems to be into it, so to each their own. Will Nikolas be able to forgive her once he discovers she is in cahoots with Ethan?
Sonny is going to be in a bad way soon, I predict. First, Claudia was involved in Michael's shooting and when he finds out, it's curtains for her. He is feeling very protective of Olivia, but when he discovers that A) She knew about Claudia and Jerry's role in Michaels shooting and didn't say so, and B) She has a son with Sonny that she neglected to tell him about for 20 years, I doubt that will go over very well either.
And let's not forget that Carly doesn't know Jax lied to her about Jerry's role in Michael's shooting. I predict sometime down the rode another Sonny/Carly liaison after they both find out their significant others have bamboozled them.
Here's an interesting math questions, if Michael is supposedly 17 now, and Dante is 20-something, how do you explain that? Before Sonny was with Carly, he was with Karen, Brenda, Lily, geez, I can't even remember. He has been in Port Charles since 1993, which of course is only 13 years, not 17.
Supposedly he and Olivia conceived Dante while they were still in High School. Which would make Dante...just a little older than the newly aged Michael? Of course they might give the 46 year old Maurice Benard a 35 year old son, which has happened before on GH.
What will happen tomorrow dear readers? Will B and B snag five more GH castoffs to move to Forrester Creations? Will Mayor Floyd find a new hoochie Mama to take the dead one's place? Will Michael join Fight Club? Will Johnny do shadow puppets in Jason's head in the red laser light beam? Will Rebecca be okay if Nikolas yells out "Emily" while they are making whoopee? Will I find out what Carly's cute new haircut is called so I can get it? Will Olivia ask Jax for a raise so she can buy a new car instead of having to take it to the garage so often?
