I watch the last remaining soap opera on ABC, General Hospital. I’ve seen my favorite soaps get canceled (or get terrible–I used to be a big Days of Our Lives fan), one by one, network by network. I love the soaps. My cousin got me hooked on Days in the late 70s, back when Marlena and Roman were only just beginning to be a supercouple, and Bo and Hope were still kids. One of the best jobs I ever had was freelance copy editor for Soap Opera Digest. The office was a great, open loft in the lower 20s near the Flatiron building. There were televisions on every editor’s desk, and the editors and writers were all really nice. The soaps were on in the background, and every time there was something big going on, like a major wedding, everyone would gather around during the scene, watch it, and then get back to work. It was so much fun it hardly felt like work. Alas, they didn’t want another staff copy editor, so I had to settle for being called in fairly regularly for a few months, then finding other work. One thing working for Soap Opera Weekly did was make me like soaps even more. I dabbled in all the networks just to keep up with what was going on in the soap world.
These days, since the demise of One Life to Live, I watch General Hospital–where some of the OLTL characters wound up after their show was canceled. It’s a smart idea, and it’s also because the former OLTL executive producer and head writer are now on GH. So we get to see some of our old favorite stars, and a few guest stars.
Today’s GH was absolutely a hoot. There has only been one other soap that I saw acknowledge when they had the same actor play two different parts–the long-gone Santa Barbara.
Now they’re doing it on GH. The actor who played Tomas Delgado on One Life to Live is the same guy who played Lorenzo Alcazar on GH. So his widow and ex-lover see an article in the newspaper about how Tomas Delgado is getting married this weekend, and the game is on.
I cannot wait to see how this plays out. I’m finding this mixing of General Hospital and OLTL a lot of fun.
So, any GH fans out there? How are you liking the mix?
Like you I’m a longtime fan of all the ABC soaps and now also Y&R on NBC. I’m loving the blending of story lines. Great creative writing. I’m glad we have the new writers as GH was getting pretty dark and depressing (Luke killing Lucky’s son, etc…) I was crying everyday. OLTL writers are funny (Todd Manning is the funniest) and less dark…can’t wait to see where this is going…
Well, that was disappointing. I guess they couldn’t get Ted King, but they’re going to do it all off-screen with him. Damn.