The Worst of 2004

This is the one I have been waiting for; the rant of all rants. Knowing where to begin is mind boggling, but I'll figure it out.

This is the one I have been waiting for; the rant of all rants. Knowing where to begin is mind boggling, but I'll figure it out. First, let me say that I love GH and have been watching for nearly 30 years. (I started watching very young, okay?) So don't take any of this to mean I hate GH or its actors or its writers. If GH ever got cancelled they'd have to sedate me. That being said, sometimes the wonderful creative minds behind GH come up with some truly putrid ideas. This happens in other places, too. For instance, you may recall several years back the wonderful advertising geniuses who produce and market Coke decided to change the formula of Coke and market NEW Coke. It was a flop, and they realized it and New Coke quietly vanished from the shelves and "Classic Coke" was re-introduced. These blunders happen in every walk of life.

That having been said... Oh, GH writers, what were you smoking when you dreamt up the "Dillon in drag" plotline? Or the "Dillon has Erectile Dysfunction" plotline? What on Earth did Scott Clifton do to you to merit such constant humiliation? I love that kid. If I was a teenager, or if I thought my husband wouldn't freak, his face would be plastered all over my wall with Tiger Beat shots. He's adorable and charming and any scene he is in is made better by his presence. So why resort to something as utterly retarded as being short 1 girl for a girl group and making him dress in drag and call himself Astrid? (Good Beatles nod, though) And why write a story where a horny teenage boy desperate to bed his lovely teenage girlfriend suddenly has to take Viagra? You couldn't think of anything better to do with a kid as talented as Scott Clifton? I seriously thought to myself "One of the writers must really hate this kid and is trying to get him to quit." I can think of 5 better storylines for him without even blinking. 1) Paul Hornsby shows up and he gets to know his Dad. 2) Lois accidentally hears him singing at L and B while he's setting up mikes and decides to make him a singing star. 3) Luke takes him under his wing and he becomes a partner in the Haunted Star. 4) He and Georgie finally have sex and she gets pregnant and he has to decide to go to film school or be a dad. 5) Sage haunts him from beyond and he befriends Lorenzo at her request. I came up with those in like 4 seconds. Better than Dillon in a dress and a bad wig? You decide.

Another problem the GH writers have is writing themselves into a corner and not knowing how to get out of the place they've trapped themselves. For instance, Carly and Lorenzo...The writers decided somewhere a long the line that Carly and Lorenzo had chemistry, and wanted to play that out without jeopardizing Sonny and Carly. But how? Sonny has that "Loyalty" issue, and Carly would never purposely cheat on Sonny, but... Say! How about if Carly gets shot in the head and the bullet wound gives her the kind of brain damage that makes her have sex fantasies about Lorenzo and thenshe can do him and blame it on brain damage! Say what? And then she can become so overwhelmed by her intense sex fantasies that she has herself committed to a mental institution! Seriously folks, if everyone who had sex fantasies had themselves institutionalized; the world would be one giant Mental Ward.

I think that whoever decided to take Anna Lee 'off contract' (a.k.a FIRE) should be committed. You don't fire a 90 year old film legend. You just don't. Even if all she was able to do was be wheeled in once a week and say "Good Morning Tracy, are you enjoying your juice? She was still worth the money. Of course, Anna Lee is no longer with us, and that isn't GH's fault, but her depression prior to her death over being let go? That was their fault and unspea.k.ably stupid. Sadly, Anna Lee wasn't the only key player we lost this year to boneheaded choices in the ABC casting office - How on Earth could they have decided to let John Ingle go as Edward Quartermaine, and the hire a new Edward who in real life is the same age as Alan? No slam against Jed Allen, but he's not John Ingle, and Lila's death and the funeral scenes were cheapened by Ingle's absence, as is every storyline since he left involving Edward. John Ingle has the innate ability to play both tender and ruthless, kind and conniving, he's nuanced and brilliant. They could never have pulled off the retarded "Heather seduces Edward" storyline with John Ingle, because his Edward was way too smart to have fallen for such a thing. He would have only pretended to fall for it if he had a side scam that she was playing into. Anyway, I miss that delightful charming man and I wish they'd bring him back.

We also lost Lane Davies, Kin Shriner, and Chad Brannon for reasons I cannot explain. All of them added depth and life to the cast; I mean give me Zander over Diego any day of the week and twice on Sunday. GH has this bad habit of casting off its True Gems and trading down for Cubic Zirconium. They could learn a lot from Bill Bell - The Young and the Restless is the # 1 soap, and they still prominently feature their veteran cast members in front burner storylines - Kay Chancellor, Niki and Victor Newman, John Abbot, etc. all had air time and actual storylines rather than walk on one liners this year, while GH took their veteran players and made them wallpaper. Bobbie, Alan, Monica, and Audrey, had about 20 lines between them for the whole year. Why not let Audrey experience signs of elderly forgetfulness and have Liz discover Gram has the beginning signs of Alzheimer's and follow that story along? Why not have Alan and Monica sue for Grandparents rights to visit Michael so he can have a new family influence in a Non-Mob family? Why not let Bobbie and John Durant have a "Love is better the second time around" romance. **Note to writers - you don't have to have exclusively young characters to get young people to watch. If you don't understand what I am saying, revert back to the Young and the Restless portion of this rant. Older actors have storylines on that show and they are the # 1 rated soap for...get this... the 833rd week in a row as of the 12/23/04 ratings period! 833 weeks.

Other GH actors were called back to the cast and then...a black hole swallowed them up? Robyn Richards and Kristina Wagner were both re-hired only to barely be a blip on the radar. Maxie didn't even make an appearance for Christmas! Lucas had a good thing going with Brook Lynn until Diego showed up, and then he was never heard from again. Ned surfaced around the time Brook Lynn came to town, and now we only see him occasionally arguing with NuLois about who she is dating. Which leads me to ask - how much more would they have had to spend to get Rena Sofer back? I think we should offer ABC to personally pitch in and pay the difference to get a Lois we like. I also think Mary Bishop, the wonderfully talented Catherine Wadkins could have been salvaged. Send her to Ferncliff or Shadybrook for awhile and let her be Laura's or Heather's roommate. Before she went totally batty had that killing spree, she was sweet although a kook. I think it was the Scooby Doo Mystery of the Channeling Board that finally pushed her over the edge. She didn't kill Trent because he walked in on her killing Sage, she killed him so he'd stop saying "Channeling Board." Did anyone but me notice that half or Port Charles was in the nuthouse this year - who are these doctors who can be bribed to commit someone?

Riddle me this...What kind of Billionaire Playboy bets a chick 10 Million Bucks that she can't go 6 months without having sex with him? This sounds like a premise of a reality show that even UPN would have passed on. First, for 10 Million Bucks ANY woman could resist ANY man because women have more self control than men do when it comes to sex. Had the bet been reversed, Courtney could have had Jax in bed about 10 minutes in - like "The Contest" episode of Seinfeld when Kramer slides across the hall 4 seconds after the bet is made and says "I'm out!" And really, Ingo doesn't have to pay 10 Million or even 10 cents for sex. Jax is as handsome and charming as they get. It would be like James Bond having to pay for sex.

Now a question - when did Port Charles get so... White? Mind you, I have nothing against white people, as I am one, but I live in a city where there are people of diverse races and cultures visible and in my life daily. And I LIKE it. Right now in Port Charles, we have only Justus and Diego to represent the fact that there are people in the world who aren't white. Remember the days of the Ward family? Or Gia and Marcus? Or Jade and her pals in the Asian Quarter? Where did they go?

Next on the chopping block...Michael Corinthos as Mini Me Mobster. Don't like it. He ran away about 14 times, and I could never figure out why Leticia is still working for them. If I had a nanny who let my child escape ONE time, I would so Emily Gilmore her butt right out of my house. Worse though is Michael telling people he is connected and threatening them. Sure, he sits on the staircase and listens to things he shouldn't but I have never heard Sonny or Jason tell anyone they were "Connected" so where did he pick that up? Dylan Cash is so adorable and such a great actor, I hope they let him get back to being a kid and stop with the 'L'il Hitman' crap.

This next rant is a delicate topic so know that I have a deep respect and love for all of my readers. HOWEVER, while some of you write me really wonderful letters and insightful comments and good ideas and others of you...Nitpick. For instance...a lady wrote me snotty note last week to tell me to stop using the word Dude, as she hasn't heard that since her daughter was in Jr. High, which meant nothing to me as I don't know her daughter, and she might have been in Jr. High last week, or in 1942, who knows? Anyway, I pointed out to her that it falls into the category of "Regional Words." She's from Ohio. I pointed out to her that I live on the beach in Southern California and everyone says Dude, pretty much daily. Swear. Dude is an actual usable word here. Some establishments even have their bathrooms marked "Dudes" and "Chicks" Many times it is preceded by "Yo", as in "Yo! Dude!" Which in the Midwest translates to "Hey Buddy!" and is generally used to get someone's attention when you can't find a parking space at the beach - here it is used in a sentence; "Yo Dude! You headin' out" which means "Excuse me sir, are you leaving? I'd really like your parking space." You can see how "Yo! Dude" is more efficient, right? While Dude usage may confuse a Buckeye Gal (note I didn't call her chick) us California Chicks know what it means. And it's okay for me to slam the Buckeye Girls as I am originally from Stow Ohio, but escaped to San Diego so I could call people Dude. I occasionally slip and use Ohio words like Pop and my friend laugh hysterically and remind me to say Soda. Californians do not know what Pop means, but they actually do say Dude.

Then there are the Official GH Historians...I make some simple comment like "When did Elizabeth go to Liz? No one calls her Elizabeth anymore since Jonathan Jackson's Lucky wrote her that song years ago. (Also note that Greg Vaughn must not be a singer as his Lucky never whips out his guitar and sings.) and I get "Geek Corrections Letters" in response like "On the May 7th episode in 1964, Audrey Hardy told Steve that someday she hoped to have a granddaughter named Liz so Steve must have mentioned that to Jeff Weber in 1982 when Liz was born but Jeff wanted to rebel and called her Elizabeth but when Liz found out about Audrey's talk to Steve she adopted the nickname Liz." Ummm... Okay... thanks for the info. I guess it just startles me when there are bigger geeks than me out there.

Even though this is "The Worst" column, I reserve the right, (since it's my column), to add one more thing to my "Best" list since it hadn't happened last week when I wrote it - the costume for the masquerade ball were AWESOME. I am sure it took hours in makeup and wardrobe, but it was well worth it. Everyone looked amazing - what inventive and original costumes. Loved it. Ditto the new interior of the Hotel Du Courtney, or whatever Jax called it, it's visually appealing and I hope we get a lot of scenes in there. But, if they could have used that set building money to get Rena Sofer or Billy Warlock back, I may have to rethink.

What will happen tomorrow dear readers? Will your hangovers be gone? Will we all stick to our New Year's Resolutions through January? Will it take Carly 8 jars of Noxzema to get the masquerade glitter makeup off her face? Will Sonny be allowed to babysit his own kids anymore if he can't watch them for 6 minutes without having to get help? Did I forget any good stuff I could have ranted about? If I did, will you please write and tell me? Oh wait; did I mention the Cassadine Curse and the Garden of Moronditey?

Only tomorrow knows dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows. Happy 2005!

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