Guilty Pleasure - General Hospital

I have a guilty pleasure. I can admit it. I watch a daytime soap. One of those dinosaur programs slowly dying on the air ... except that mine is roaring back in many ways (ratings included) but ...

First some perspective: I grew up watching General Hospital with my grandmother. Before I even went to kindergarten - which was a half day event for me - Grammy and I would watch every day at 2:00 p.m. (Central Time). After I went to school she would catch me up and on days I was home sick - which with asthma was a lot - we'd watch together. When I went off to college I continued to watch and actually tried to schedule my classes to me back at the dorm at 2:00 (especially on Wednesdays and Fridays when all the action happened). In fact. I had a very large dorm room so everyone on the floor gathered there. It was the 1980s the heyday of Luke & Laura and GH was all the rage.

On to the work-a-day world and time got in the way, although VCRs helped over the years to stay in touch with the folks in Port Charles.

Today I do record General Hospital every day. And this year is the 50th anniversary so right now they are bringing the "old gang" back for one thing or another. The Nurses Ball event, Lucy Coe, Kevin Collins, Anna Devain, Duke Lavery, Laura (Luke never really did go away), Ned (for Edward's funeral - that actor passed away), Frisco and Felicia Jones, Fazon, the original AJ Quartermaine, Scott Baldwin and even a doppelganger for Caleb Morely (vampire) played by the same actor in a different role now from the short lived Port Charles spin off (which is where we last saw Lucy). It has been lots of fun lately. 

And now I am annoyed.

ABC cancelled One Life to Life and ended up transferring some characters to GH [Todd Manning, Starr Manning and John McBain (the vampire lookalike)] and things have been going really well - the storylines have been tons of fun. Todd with Carly which is a hoot and McBain with Sam (now that Jason is "dead" which he is unless they recast it cuz that actor jumped ship to another soap - which would be a shame cuz the actor playing AJ looks a lot like Jason the brother casting is fabulous). Starr can go away, not really liking that match up with Michael but eh .. it is okay. There's been lots of fun with the vampire angle even Luke was taking pot shots at McBain early on with vampire innuendo. And since the actress now playing Sam was the same one who played Livvie (vampire love interest) on Port Charles they also made use of the whole "feel as though I knew you before we're connected somehow" thing.

The problem: One Life to Live (a.k.a. OLTL) is being rebooted on Hulu so the legal crap is pulling the characters and therefore the actors off of GH. Even if they find new roles for these actors on GH (which could happen) they won't be the same character. This sucks because the match up of Carly and Todd is really good, he is perfect for her - as screwed up as she is and so fun to watch together. And Sam and McBain are excellent together - they both play tortured very well, good chemistry  This pulling them off torpedoes some great storylines ... which apparently ended this past week. Which brings us to the "but" mentioned in the opening paragraph ...

One of the reasons GH is roaring back is the influx of past favorites/stars plus this new blood transferred from OLTL. New blood that is being removed from the equation. ARGH!!! The writers must be freaking out. Fans are freaking out. Seriously? Is this Hulu thing worth it? Is anyone going to watch? Are enough people going to watch? The reboot online of All My Children has a better chance of gaining legs and running - that fan base was/is pretty rabid. I guess I hope the OLTL tanks online which sucks because I don't like to wish ill on creative people.

Whatever happens I will continue to record General Hospital. Grammy has been gone since 1988 but every time I watch GH I remember her and feel her right here next to me.

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