The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Maybe it was Farah Fath, a former soap opera star, who said it best on Wednesday when ABC confirmed that it had renewed “General Hospital” for a landmark 50th season.

Congratulating the cast and crew in a Twitter message, she wrote, “A soap renewal in 2012 is nothing short of victorious.”

That’s how it felt for fans of the show too, who have been worried for months about its fate. Last year, in what was widely seen as a cost-cutting move, ABC ended two other soaps, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” and installed two talk shows in their former time slots. But it canceled one of the talk shows, “The Revolution,” on Wednesday, citing weak ratings.

“The Revolution,” which has a self-improvement theme, has retained only about half of the audience of “One Life to Live” since it started in January. Ms. Fath, who had been a cast member on “One Life to Live,” dubbed the talk show “The Revulsion” and wrote on Twitter, “It’s hard to even muster up an ‘We told you so.’ ”

The other new talk show, “The Chew,” has had steadier ratings. When the next television season starts in September, it will stay on ABC’s daytime schedule, most likely in the 1 p.m. time slot in many local markets.

Also in September, “General Hospital,” which is now at 3 p.m., will move to the 2 p.m. time slot in many markets, making way for Katie Couric’s new syndicated talk show, “Katie.” The moves were first reported by Deadline.com on Wednesday.

“The Revolution” will end a bit prematurely, though. In early July it will be replaced by an afternoon edition of the ABC News program “Good Morning America.” Tentatively titled “GMA in the Afternoon,” that show will have a nine-week run until “General Hospital” takes its place. The “GMA” co-hosts Josh Elliott and Lara Spencer are expected to lead the afternoon hour.

Vicki Dummer, who oversees daytime programming for ABC, has credited Frank Valentini, the former executive producer of “One Life to Live,” with rejuvenating “General Hospital.” When he took over the show last winter, he brought with him several cast members from that show.

Three other soap operas remain on network television: “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” on CBS, and “Days of Our Lives” on NBC.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...eral-hospital/

:thumbsup::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::bow::bow::bow::bdance::bdance::bdance: :rock2::rock2::rock2::dance::dance::dance::clap::clap::clap:

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Well gee whiz, SONNY CORINTHOS, are you a fan of GH? :D

I don't watch soaps, but it's kind of comforting to know that some long running ones still survive.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I was curious so I looked it up. Here's the original cast of GH (1963).

Steve Hardy
Jessie Brewer
Phil Brewer
Lucille March
Al Weeks
Eddie Weeks
Angie Costello

Elizabeth Webber is the granddaughter of Steve Hardy. Surprisingly, Scotty Baldwin was one of the longest running characters. He was introduced as a child in 1965.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

How devastating that ABC cancelled One Life to Live with a 43 year history for a show that didn't even last 43 weeks. What a waste.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Seriously? and that's their working title?

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Thansk for the news. I am thrilled to see it.

I've been following for over thirty years now.
The last couple of months have been fun with the transferring of a a few OLTL'ers including at least one more coming over soon Tea Delgado.

Heather Weber has been a blast as a still Crazy nut job.

Great news.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

:lol: Yes sir, i've been watching GH since I was drinking by first bottle in my crib. With the recent trend of giving long time Soaps the ax, I have been holding my breath for this announcement. I was really expecting ABC not to renew GH.

I hope they learned a lesson. It really does suck ABC canceled OLTO for that sleep inducing Revolution crap. AMC, while I was kind of sad to see it go, it had been on it's last legs for awhile now IMO.

I was catching up on yesterday's GH on SoapNet last night and it was followed by The Young and the Restless. Holy crap, I think anyone who has ever been on a Soap is now on the show. I saw Laura from GH, Angie from AMC, Stefan Cassadine from GH, Annie from AMC just in the first 20 minutes of the show. I also heard that Triston Rogers (Robert from GH) is headed back to Y&R for another run on the Soap. That show's payroll must be unreal.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

My wife is so happy about this, as she loves GH.

For the holidays, I got her tickets to see "Port Chuck" (4 guys from the show formed a cover band). Show is in 2 weeks, she's getting excited.

I think she would leave me for "Jason" in a heartbeat ;)

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Corinthos, what do you make of the Robin business with her being held captive in a room somewhere by an unknown captor?

I'm guessing Lisa or someone related to her. We never did see Lisa's body. Also since Robin is alive, who's body was that burned up corpse?

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I'm guessing it's Lisa behind Robin being held hostage. Like you said, we never seen Lisa's dead body on air. What i'm thinking is that Patrick blacked out for just a bit giving Lisa time to grab Robin and replace her with another body. She's crazy enough to pull something like this off.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Not a total shock that ABC wants to keep GH around, considering those replacement shows didn't do any better than AMC and OLTL did - although I bet you GH is getting a significant budget cut.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

What? I tuned in for awhile to see old timers (Anna, Robert, Luke, Holly). I thought Robin was gone. And what's this about "Heather Webber"? Is that Heather as in Heather & Scotty? She's back on the show now? I stopped watching again after they convinced Helena Holly's/Luke's son was really Robert's and sent him off on a journey to distract Robert from suicidal thoughts after Robin's "death".

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I think Carlivati will dig deeper into GH history for this. It's most likely Faison, or as a long-shot David Hayward who was married to Anna when she was on AMC.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Heather is back. She convinced her son Steve to take her in custody and allow her to leave the nut house.
This was after she told Sam the secret of who Franco is in ahem, relation to Jason.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Also Anna and Heather will give something to do for Luke for a change besides be all brooding.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Good call on that one. It wasn't Lisa but it appears to be two returning character
Involved including one that hasn't been on the show since 1990 and the actor who portrayed this character since 1989.

GH has really been fun this year.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

It really has. It's nice to be able to laugh during GH again, and not slit your wrists because it's so dark. They need to bring back Heather ASAP. Teaming her up with Todd has been the best pairing on this show in ages.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

:( Steve Burton Quits General Hospital. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Steve-Bu...l-1052432.aspx

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I think he can see the writing on the wall and is taking his best opportunity to exit. As loyal as ABC has been to GH, I can't imagine it will still be on the air three years from now. The biggest problem with daytime soaps has been their refusal to adapt...people no longer want stories that run slower than real-life does. Yes, budgets and production values are low, but that's no excuse for lazy writing. Shake things up, stir the pot, do crazy stuff...no - they seem satisfied with the status quo - and that's why they're all dying a slow death (the few that haven't already been axed).

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

That takes cajones to leave a decent paying acting job that you've had for 20 years.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

It's a whole heck of a lot easier than leaving a decent paying acting job you've had for 1 year.

Two stories to pass along:
General Hospital's John Ingle who played Edward Quartermaine Dies at 84

Sean Kanan Returns to General Hospital (maybe as a recast for Jason)

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

It's sad to hear of John Ingle's passing. He was in a episode last week and he looked really bad. As far as Sean Kanan goes, I think he would be perfect as a recast for Jason. He and Steve Burton are cousins and have similar looks and features. The Jason character is too important to the show to just write off so you know they are going to have to recast the role.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

His appearances have drastically reduced over the last few months so I knew something was wrong.

His last appearance was when he gave up a anti serum to Pattricks little girl so I'm sure they planned on
Letting him die offscreen.

I didn't see it today yet but I'm sure they made mention of it at the beginning.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I hope they actually kill off Edward and dont recast. The character is probably close to 137 years old by now.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Yeah, John Ingle was great in that role, but I'll always picture David Lewis as Edward Quartermaine (who died in 2000). Die-hard fans will remember they DID kill off Edward (when Lewis was playing him), then had him come back as the voice of a portrait (talking to his wife) and then finally revealed he was alive after all (I think Anna Devane found him at a bar in some third-world country!).

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I agree with this.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

They did.

His gravestone or more accurately his cover stone said he was born in 1918 making him 94 when Edward died, ten years older then Ingle.

the tribute was really nice.
They used a body double without shouing his face as he watched the family in their home, then he and Lila, still in the wheel chair, went to the main staircase, Lila rose out of the chair and they both went up into the light together.

Edward says to lila, "What would you say if i asked you to renew our commitments to each other?" Lila says, "Of course I will." then she gets up and they both go up the stairs.

Right at the end of the video.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fbDPz-ATxRQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



On wednesday they had a pic of Tomas and Blair in the news captioned with them getting married.
Skyy and Carly saw the picture and were shocked to see that Tomas looked exactly like the dead Alcazar and ran off to talk to Todd.

So it looks like they may be bringing back Ted King.

Also the new Kate who isnt really new anymore has been knocking it out of the park. she has done the dual roles brilliantly. Now I doubt the other woman could not have done it so well.

GH has incorporated the OLTL group extremely well.

They even did a call back with Skye to her appearing on AMC with a mention of her uncle Stewart.

btw if anyone cares Soapnet has been airing older eps from when Laura left with Scotty when Scotty tried to win her back while Laura was in the nut house. I think these were about 6 years ago.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

One of the most fun things about General Hospital right now is the way they're playing meta-games with the history of all the ABC soaps.

You've got a guy or gal who's played different roles on different soaps? Collide the universes and see what happens! It's the kind of thing comic books are famous for, isn't it? Back when TNG finished and DS9 was the only trek mythology show, they were suddenly free to do absolutely whatever they wanted and they were all the better for it. GH has that kind of freedom now and they're running with it.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Laura coming back to GH.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/01/08/ge...eral-hospital/

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

:thumbsup: :banana: Great news! It would be nice if she stuck around for awhile. The Luke and Laura stories from the 80's are classic. I wish they would release them on DVD.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I'm hoping for one more L&L adventure for the 50th anniversary. If anyone can do it, Ron Carlivati and Frank Valentini can.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

abc.soapsindepth.com/general-hospital/

More names and one surprise returning to GH.

According to tv guide and that link above Scotty and


Will return.

Also coming back is Jon Lindstrom as Dr Kevin Collins.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Wow. Tempted to tune in again for another nostalgia fix (I tuned in for a few episodes around Robin's death when Anna, Robert, Holly, and Luke were there).

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I'm really surprised an effort hasn't been made to bring back John Reilly and Sharon Wyatt as well.

Wally Kurth ("Ned") came back this week.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

I don't think Tiffany makes any sense without Sean Donnelly. Also, they're already bursting at the seams with staff.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Actually Ned has been back a few times in since Edward's on screen death. I'm loving GH right now. Love the story with Lucy and the vampires... That was good for all the Port Charles fans. lol

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Tiffany and Sean came back about four years ago for a stint on GG Night Shift.

re: The GENERAL HOSPITAL Discussion Thread
 

Sharon Wyatt battled a bone disease and lost half her jaw. She won't be acting any time soon.

How much longer til the ugly duckling turns into a swan on the show? Damn Sabrina is hot...
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV...500_SY700_.jpg