GH ponderings…

After finally catching up on General Hospital, more so the Lulu & Laura scenes, I’d like to pose this question to viewers who have been watching. 

Is Laura Spencer really awake or is she still catatonic and what we’re seeing is really just Lulu’s imagination showing us what she really wants to see.

After reading Perkie’s observations over at Daytime Confidential, it does bring up a good issue.  Are viewers really just watching Lulu interact with Laura through her own imagination? Laura is telling Lulu everything she wants to hear. Also, Laura seems to respond to Lulu almost instantaneously whenever her presence is in the room. Lastly, why would Laura want to keep her waking up a secret from the rest of the family? 

Hmm… thoughts anyone?

A breath of fresh air on GH so far…

I haven’t been an avid GH watcher lately… (blame the Olympics on screwing up my soap viewing at night), but the minute I found out the date of Genie Francis’ return, I marked it on my calendar.

Seeing the Laura and Lulu scenes so far this week (albeit, there haven’t been many yet) are like a breath of fresh air. Seeing Lulu break down in front of her mother and Laura just reaching out, it melted my heart. Laura has indeed woken up from her catatonic state, but it’s because of the meds she is on, as per the ABC Soaps in Depth article. The scenes are simple, yet touching and Julie Berman’s emotion is just perfect at every moment. The mother/daughter chemistry between Genie and Julie is still there and neither has missed a beat yet.

While there isn’t much to comment on yet, except for the fact that it’s touching to see Lulu and Laura interact, I’m sure there will be more to discuss in the coming days. From what I have read, Lulu tells Laura the truth about what happened to Rick Webber, and eventually will open up about what happened with Logan. There are definitely some emotional scenes down the pike.

For now, Laura Spencer is the breath of fresh air needed on GH right now, since it is always under the cloak of mob wars.

GH – Night Shift Premieres Tonight!

GH Fans, the moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The second season of Night Shift premieres tonight on Soapnet at 11:00 pm ET.

Judging from the promos that have been running, it looks to be an exciting season. Of course, it helps that Antonio Sabato Jr is back, as Jagger and he’s bringing along a special person at his side.

Tune in tonight… and stay tuned here for commentary on each episode.

How…”Original”

Soaps are known for treading new ground, often times being original and going where no other show has gone before. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, since it seems there is one writer for all three shows, alternating which storyline should appear where and during what time frame.

Your prime example – the ghostly hauntings on GH and now, AMC.

GH had Alan Quartermaine stick around and haunt his sister, Tracy due to what she did with the Quartermaine fortune. For days, weeks on end, he’d sit in his chair, wearing sweats and taunt Tracy. The family thought she was going mad and eventually had her committed, and even there, he appeared to her, too. Alan’s reason for haunting Tracy — to get her to admit what she did to Alan’s will, changing who would inherit what.

Is Alan still around? Not quite sure since he hasn’t been seen lately… then again, maybe GH decided he was of no use anymore.

And now, we have AMC — Dixie has decided to haunt Adam into telling Tad the truth about Kathy, who is really Kate Martin. For the last 2 weeks, Dixie has been appearing to Adam wherever he goes, taunting him, blowing cold breezes, slamming doors and setting his suits on fire (I think Alan made it storm once on GH… I can’t remember.) But anyhow, what takes the cake is that Adam gets committed too! His family ships him off to the loony bin, just like Tracy had been shipped off by her family.

While at the loony bin, Adam receives yet another visit from Ghost Dixie, just like well… you know…

Seems so “original,” huh? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. And ghostly hauntings aren’t the only storylines that the ABC soaps have shared… but that can be saved for another entry on another day.

May Sweeps or May Sleeps?

It’s May Sweeps, isn’t it?

If so, then why has ABC’s soaps been sleep inducing lately?  Okay, so not everything is sleep inducing, but the storylines seem to be lacking that ‘umph’ factor to keep us at the edge of our seats.  One would think April would be the build to those “edge of your seat” stories that will air in May, but lately that hasn’t been the case. The build has been painfully slow throughout this month. And it isn’t really all that interesting.

That’s not to say that Cady McClain’s current stint as ghost Dixie isn’t exciting, because it is quite honestly enjoyable to watch. Who doesn’t enjoy watching Adam being tormented.  But other than that, there isn’t much to get excited about.  Angie and Jesse are getting married again, but it seems no one is making a big issue about it.  And amidst all this, Uncle Rob Gardner is on a search for a toy elephant that supposedly has diamonds or something in it? Hmm… okay.

On OLTL, we’ve got the Adrianna/Rex/Gigi stuff going on…. with Adrianna going to all lengths to ruin Gigi’s life.  And then we have the Manning family and their ongoing Starr drama. Please don’t get me started on the obssessive father Todd is. On the upside, at least Tuc Watkins is making appearances as David Vickers. He’s always the comic relief needed during those sleep inducing moments.

And lastly, on GH.  Mob…mob… and more mob… The fallout of Michael being shot continues. Carly cries…and cries some more (Laura Wright is doing a fabulous job, though.) And the fallout just keeps going… and going… and going.

Someone wake me when there’s something good happening.

Emily’s final goodbye

Today, another Quartermaine will officially say goodbye on General Hospital. Natalia Livingston, who portrays Emily Quartermaine makes her final appearance to Nikolas before his surgery to remove that pesky tumor in his brain.

Last week, Nikolas was able to have one last dance with Emily, one that brought tears to both their eyes. GH has a knack for writing magical scenes on occasion and this was definitely one of them. It was an emotional tugging of the heartstrings and brought every hopeless romantic to tears. In essence, Nikolas was given one last chance to have a dance with his beloved Emily.

Natalia Livingston and Tyler Christopher sold the scenes perfectly, their emotions so very palpable as Nikolas struggled with the reality that he needed to move on with his life and heal. Living in the past and in his head was no longer an option and as much as he enjoyed seeing Emily, albeit a hallucination, this could no go on forever. Throughout these final moments, watching them dance, hold each other and cry, one could not help but feel for them. No one ever wants to say goodbye and with the fact that Emily was simply a vision in Nikolas’ head, it only made it harder for him to get a grip on reality and realize that he needed to live life.

Scene by scene, Nikolas and Emily allowed the viewers to dance with them and ultimately cry. Nikolas wishing he had more time with Emily, trying to find the crossroads where he could have made that one decision which could have changed their future. Emily, being Emily reminded Nikolas that there was no use in thinking about the past and that he has the future to make things better for himself. And even though she was no longer physically with him, she’d always be in his heart. What topped it all off was the music montage to Lifehouse’s “Broken”, whose lyrics truly describe what Nikolas was feeling as he said his final goodbye to Emily.

“I’m falling apart, I’m barely breathing. With a broken heart, that’s still beating.”

In so many words, the above lyric best describes how broken Nikolas has felt in the last few months. Will Nikolas ever love again? Who knows. Emily reminded him that life does go on and that he will love again, despite his enormous love for her.

From a fan perspective of this couple, I wish GH had never made the decision to kill Emily. It has been such a pleasure to see Nikolas and Emily come together, break apart and slowly come together again, without anything being forced (their last reunification before Emily’s murder.) Couples deserve their happily ever after and while Emily told Nikolas that “happily ever after” was only for fairy tales and they were not a fairy tale couple… I’m inclined to believe they were in a way.