General Hospital News & Gossip
News for the week of 11-Aug-2008
Now that Tristan Rogers (Robert, GH:NS) has returned to ABC Daytime, his public online missives have gained greater notoriety. Recently, he’s popped up on his message board (and probably his MySpace page, is my guess) pumping up soaps’ vast influence on mainstream culture, as well as his current gig on the primetime, SOAPnet GH spinoff, where he’s more than a means to a February Sweeps but amazingly relevant to his character’s pregnant, HIV daughter Robin. On August 3rd, he posted a rather defensive treatise about shows resembling and being compared to other shows, prompted by the continual buzz referencing allusions to ABC primetime’s hit drama, Grey’s Anatomy. He doesn’t see it. Grey’s Anatomy is “a good show,” he wrote, but hardly copy-worthy, because that would presume it’s doing something no other medical show is doing. This sent Rogers down a rabbit hole of rationalizations supporting his claim that everybody borrows from everybody else, with soaps suffering or benefiting from the most unacknowledged influence, and Grey’s Anatomy or the medical drama du jour at present didn’t call the shots first. He cited the 1960s show, Ben Casey, as a true original, featuring a curmudgeonly doctor who does things his way. Today’s hits tend to be copycats following old, familiar territory. The stuff that paves new ground, he asserted, not so much, as evidenced by the quick cancellations of original gems found at Brilliant But Cancelled’s blog. “And then you have something like Saved By the Bell which went for butkiss number of seasons. The audience don’t necessarily want cutting edge television. They want familiarity and they want a comfort level. For the most part, they want what most soaps give them. They want to see their own problems handled in a somewhat dramatized format by a bunch of actors who they have a ‘living room relationship’ with.” If hit shows have anything in common, other than they tend to be derivatives of other shows before them, Rogers added, it’s “great chemistry within the players. You can’t program that. You can strive to find it and bring together a talented group you ‘hope’ will shine. But in the end it’s a crapshoot. If it wasn’t we’d have more shows that stood out not just the random one from season to season.”
Gossip columnist Sage Bourland reported on July 28th that actor Graham Shiels (Cody) may have revealed his true view of soaps and his GH soap gig by encouraging online fans to leave his name out of their YouTube video clips so that the general public (read: the bigshots doing the hiring in mainstream entertainment) doing word searches on him won’t see him associated with a soap opera. Wrapped up Bourland, “So basically, he's with GH to make some money until his real job comes along. We're the bad job he wants to forget once he's rich and famous. Bad move, Graham. Bad move, my friend. May you enjoy many happy years of asking GH fans if they want fries with their combo meal.”
A Megan Ward (Kate) fan e-mailed me to correct an error Soap Opera Digest editors had made (they sorely need a proofreader, this isn’t the only error detected) recently about the actress’s past, memorable audition that went awry. It was the audition for MTV’s Punk’d that she supposedly did, where she touched her “lady flower” while in an elevator set-up. Apparently, she never did any such audition, and blogged about it on July 28th: “I'm sorry if any of you were offended by the magazine's error or disappointed that I'm not as provocative as you may have believed, but this simply did not happen to me nor was I recorded saying it did.” Ward is doing some remodeling on her and her family’s home.
Sarah Joy Brown (Claudia; ex-Carly) went for about three years (right before her short-term ATWT gig) with undiagnosed celiac disease (it’s when the body can’t absorb nutrients and breaks down whenever a person ingests gluten). For the longest time, she couldn’t understand why she’d feel horrible after eating a slice of pizza, or why her face would swell up in a kind of allergic reaction. Now, she’s doing well on a strict, no-gluten diet, which isn’t easy to live with in a world that loves itself lots of gluten, hidden or obvious. An unintended consequence of adhering to her strict diet is a size-0 body, which those who aren’t aware assume must be from anorexia or some dieting issue. “I may be a size 0, but it’s not because I starve myself,” Brown said. “I’m very conscious of what I put in my mouth and I advocate eating well for everybody. I learned the hard way. You’ve got to know what you’re putting in your body.” –Soap Opera Digest, “Brown University” by Tom Stacy, August 12, 2008
Didn’t approve of killing off a kid in a bizarre mob hit gone wrong? Join the club, Brown agreed with most of the GH fans about this plot twist. As the original Carly, she gave birth to and eventually broke her storyline-dictated, post-partum estrangement with son Michael. As an entirely new character having nothing to do with a grown, ‘tween Michael, it appalled Brown to learn that her character’s ordered hit on Sonny would backfire on her in this way. But she played the guilt and the story as written to the best of her ability, grateful that she hadn’t watched Dylan Cash as Michael grow up the entire time on the show, or she would’ve been even more of a basket case about this scripted death by coma. She did also muse that maybe TPTB banked on the emotions she’d feel at losing Michael (from playing Carly once) in her subsequent scenes as guilt-ridden Claudia.
As proof that the writers and their PTB aren’t always clueless, they put Claudia and Nikolas together to see what stuck. Initially, Claudia’s Brown wasn’t certain this pairing would work. A lot of this skepticism might’ve come from her work in the ‘90s as Carly, who rarely had anything to do with a much younger Prince Cassadine. But once in, as another character entirely, she can now see enormous chemistry, and said she’s wrong sometimes.
Annie M. Fitzgerald (Yvette, GH: NS) will appear on August 12th in a story, where she tries to shed light on a troubled patient, sister Danielle.
EYE ON SOAPS’ Katrina Rasbold shared last week her unique view of the July GH Fan Club Weekend (she and her crew were there for most of the events), including confirmation that actor Kin Shriner (Scott) was an “ass” to a lot of fans waiting in line in vain for an autograph or even a small acknowledgement, and Steve Burton (Jason) was there a lot to promote Monavie’s nutritionally beneficial elixir. She also covered the past cast event, which thrilled her and other long-time GH fans to no end.
By supposed mutual consent, Carolyn Hinsey stepped down from her Soap Opera Weekly job as editor. Insiders claim that the decision is due in large part to cutting back on the budget and Hinsey’s fine with it. Hinsey’s status at Soap Opera Digest is, at the moment, unknown.
Gossip for the week of 11-Aug-2008
Rick Hearst (Ric) surfaced in the media to address the rumor of his departure once his October contract comes up for re-signing, or earlier, when he’s off from his vacay. He said nothing’s been decided yet, he surmised both he and TPTB would rather everything remain status quo in terms of remaining, and is hoping for the best. When he does return to the show from vacation, he’s involved in a shirtless scene. However, Hearst – as of the other week – said he and TPTB haven’t opened up contract talks yet, so who knows.
Jerry could acquire an insta-family, when his son shows up.
Soap boards across the online land rejoiced when David Hauslaib’s Jossip broke the news August 7th that Soap Opera Weekly’s honchos gave editor Carolyn Hinsey her notice based on saving money in staffing and “[N]umerous HR problems and complaints about Hinsey, who’s said to be ‘a yeller and screamer’ and a ‘bully.’ … ‘Anger management classes were mentioned several years ago,’ says one well-informed source.” This released a flood of commentary from those who claimed to be in-the-know about Hinsey behind the scenes. They don’t paint a pretty picture. There’s mention of narcissism, name-dropping, and a negative reputation amongst the soap press and soap actors. Kudos to the few on SoapZone’s GH board who tried to school the rest of us years ago.
While investigating Karpov with Spinelli, Maxie picks up on a lead linking the Russian kingpin with Dr. Matt Hunter and the illegal drug ring. But maybe there’s hope for Matt, yet. He seems to spark well with Nadine. He also may be working undercover for the same noble goal as Lucky and Sam.
Elizabeth and Jason will either have one last fling, or will restart their beautiful affair into something more long-term. She may also be included in the plan to nab the drug ring, and help Lucky and Sam out.
Patrick and Robin go ring around the rosie with a marriage proposal. He’ll try to get her down the aisle two different times before she asks him for his hand.
GH: NS’s Antonio Sabato Jr.’s headed over to the mother ship when the summer’s 2nd season of the spinoff is concluded.
Take a peek at what may really be going on behind the scenes at the troubled GH set. It’s troubled because – IMHO, and I’m in the majority for a change – of head writer Bob Guza Jr.’s fixation on the dysfunctional, misogynistic mob glorification. Guza may be suffering from a paranoid god complex, in that he’s assuming the critics are out to get him and make him look bad, what with all the leaks. The leaks even prompted an “informal (electronic) meeting” last week, according to a SoapDish insider. There are also meetings about the ratings’ downturn of GH this summer. TPTB were banking on the popularity of Johnny and Lulu when they put them on the run. They banked wrong, as the numbers showed. Instead of writing a soap opera with fair and balanced interaction of the rest of the cast, TIIC lured Genie Francis as Laura back for a short-term in order to deal primarily with Lulu losing her mind, banking on Francis’s popularity to boost the numbers for Johnny and Lulu, GH’s current cash cow. Focusing more on the mob isn’t doing them any favors either, as more and more fans are fed up and tuning out. If the mob fixation continues to bottom out, the network higher-ups will step in and remove the problem(s). Couples TPTB love and remain committed to are Jerry and Alexis, Lucky and Sam, Sonny and Kate (they better keep this couple together, or else Sonny’s Maurice Benard might not re-sign his contract), Patrick and Robin, and a tentative triangle with Nikolas, Claudia and Nadine. “Nic and Claudia and Nadine are the classic soap story revisited. Good girl loves good guy who is drawn to bad girl. Will continue this way with Claudia winning initially but don't count out dark horse Nadine.” TPTB aren’t so sure what to do with Spinelli, Maxie and Matt, or what’s going on yet with Elizabeth and Jason. Although, Elizabeth and Jason will heat up the screens this week.
The word on GH: NS’s 2nd season is favorable for a 3rd round. Ratings and reviews are up all around. Alas, even a soap as relatively new as NS suffers from its share of backstage drama. Billy Dee Williams (Toussaint) and Sonya Eddy (Epiphany) were supposed to lock lips in the last episode, but they just talked intimately instead. Could this be because Williams doesn’t care for the pairing? Additionally, diva-man Williams reportedly has a tendency to bail to show his disapproval of the pairing or if he has to wait for his cue, even if it’s only a few minutes, which may or may not be giving the production crew fits.
General Hospital News & Gossip, Copyright © 2008 Carol Banks Weber. Published by SoapZone.com / Jeff Jungblut. No part of this page may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Opinions expressed on this page are those of the author and may not be representative of SoapZone.com or its advertisers. Don't steal scoops.
