This USED to be a GREAT show. Now...?

Smoothpants

General Hospital used to be a great show. Back in the late-70's and early 80's..it was THE SOAP to watch.

In the early 90's, when Claire and Matthew Labine took over head writing duties, General Hospital spotlighted so many fantastic, heartwrenching, and honest stories. I mean, what fan of this show will EVER forget Stone and Robin's love story. Stone, dying of AIDS-blind due to it...takes his last glimpse of his love, Robin by a window and hapilly says "I can see you"...then passes away. Or will the forget the Breast Cancer storyline, when Monica cuts her bandages off to see that she has no breast, and she just begins to cry uncontrollably. Or, the revolutionary and GUTSY storyline when young Maxie is dying from a heart condition, and is need of a transplant. At the same time...her cousin Barbara Jean (B.J.) is rendered brain dead in a school bus accident. Tony and Bobbie decide to donate her organs. Meanwhile Felicia (Maxie's mom), gets the news that a donor heart has been found. So she goes to Bobbie happy that they have found a heart for her daughter. Her happiness turns to horror when she finds Bobbie crying. Instantly, Felicia knows...

"Noooo. Not Barbara Jean. Not Barbara Jean's heart."

And she collapses to the floor, crying. I cry now as I think about it, and this was ten years ago. And then the scene where Tony hovers over Maxie, as she recovers from the transplant. And he leans down and places his ear over her chest to hear the beating heart that belonged to his deceased daughter. Oh man...

This was OUTSTANDING TELEVISION!

Sadly, GH has regressed so much under the watch of Bob Guza, Jr. I don't care what anyone says....it's BLASPHEMY to put a Spencer with a Cassadine!!! To me...this show is long gone. With the loss of some of my favorite actors (Johnathan Jackson, Amber Tamblyn, Kimberly McCullough, Sarah Brown), and some truly horiffic writing, storylines and pairings....I can never watch this show with the same enthusiasm as I did ten and twenty years ago. For me though...there are few saving graces for this show. The Quartermaines': John Ingle...whom not only has filled the shoes of David Lewis' "Edward Quartermaine" character...but has greatly improved on the original (and this is saying A LOT, as David Lewis was FANTASTIC as Edward), Leslie Charleson, Stuart Damon, Anna Lee, Jane Eliot (always a good watch when she returns from time to time), and Robin Christopher (GREAT). Maurice Benard as "Sonny" still delivers the goods. And of course, Tony Geary as "Luke Spenser". I just wish the material was better. Sadly, unless the Labines come back, or someone can be the second coming of Gloria Monty...I'll just be a viewer on occasion.

score /10

Smoothpants 18 June 2003

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0080114/