OT: Vampires on General Hospital

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I think Sam Hall did write for GH very briefly. Or at least it was announced at the '89 NY Fest that he was joining the GH writing staff. But if he did, he mustn't have liked it because before very long he was writing for SB.

[michael c]

for what it's worth GH was playing in my employee cafeteria today and i caught a few seconds...


lucy cowe(a character i recall from my youth)was freaking out on some guy calling him a "vampire". it seemed like he wasn't and she was just acting hysterical but i never watch the show anymore and had no context to put it into. but it was embarrassing and out of place.

the supernatural story arc is generally the shark jump for soaps. it almost never works. through some remarkable bit of alchemy and happenstance it worked on DS but i've never seen it succeed elsewhere.


i'm recalling some outer space plot on OLTL back in the 80's. wasn't it called "eterna"? and wasn't the main character on DOOL possessed by satan at some point on the 90's? if i remember correctly both storylines became major points of ridicule before the shows' writers came to their senses and abandoned them. i really hope GH doesn't "go there".

[DLA75]

Wasn't ABC planing transfer Gorden Russel then the head writer One Life to Live to same position on General Hospital at the time of his death in 1981?

[Gothick]

On the Monster Kids Classic Horror film board someone started a thread about General Hospital in which they recounted [spoiler]a woman identifying someone as a vampire--she was then, in a later scene, shown making a stake and driving it through the heart of this individual.  I suspect that what the person saw might have been a flashback to a sequence from Port Charles, given what was reported above--but it's not clear to me.  Perhaps it will be clarified elsewhere.[/spoiler]

I'm not a viewer and don't have access but it all sounded very reminiscent of my personal #1 All Time Favorite TV show...

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

What the hell was happening on GH today?! If as Frank Valentini claimed, there really are no vampires on GH, then why when I happened to go by the end of it today did I catch John McBain (the character who looks like PC's vampire Caleb) licking blood off of an arrow that he'd pulled out of some guy's body? Has McBain simply gone off the deep end? Or was more at play? 

[DLA75]

I't Caleb Morley from Port Charles I do not think McBain they just look alike they could be brothers separated at birth. It has not been established is Caleb being a Vampire translates to the General Hospital Universe other then in the head of Lucy Coe.

[Gerard]

GH can have all the vampires, werewolves, witches, ghoulies, ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night all it wants, just as long as there's not another Luke-and-Laura wedding.

Gerard

[Uncle Roger]

The presence of Caleb may be their way of holding on to Michael Easton if Prospect Park regains custody of John McBain.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Hmmm - that's a possibility because back when Valentini said there weren't going to any vampires was before Prospect Park insisted upon having their OLTL characters back. You could be on to something. Or not. Who knows? But time will tell... 

[dom]

<2 cents> Hopefully, Caleb is just a weirdo.

[quentincollins]

for what it's worth GH was playing in my employee cafeteria today and i caught a few seconds...


lucy cowe(a character i recall from my youth)was freaking out on some guy calling him a "vampire". it seemed like he wasn't and she was just acting hysterical but i never watch the show anymore and had no context to put it into. but it was embarrassing and out of place.

the supernatural story arc is generally the shark jump for soaps. it almost never works. through some remarkable bit of alchemy and happenstance it worked on DS but i've never seen it succeed elsewhere.


i'm recalling some outer space plot on OLTL back in the 80's. wasn't it called "eterna"? and wasn't the main character on DOOL possessed by satan at some point on the 90's? if i remember correctly both storylines became major points of ridicule before the shows' writers came to their senses and abandoned them. i really hope GH doesn't "go there".

I thought PC was a fun show in it's own right. It was certainly more interesting with vampires and slayers.
On OLTL Viki had an anuerism and while hovering between life and death she went to Heaven, which was a giant spaceship where old loved ones and enemies who had passed on were living. At least two of the characters were later revealed to be alive, but it didn't stop Viki from making a brief return visit years later.
Eterna, also on OLTL, was a secret underground city built by a cult that had long since died, and was the hiding place for a fortune in lost Nazi gold. OLTL also did time travel stories to the Old West, and back to the 60s. I love the kookie stories they used to do.
Marlena on DOOL was possesed by the Devil for awhile in the 90s, and I thought the story was a lot of fun.

[Uncle Roger]

I remember those OLTL stories very well, Quentin. They were, as you say, great fun.

Just about all soaps have flirted with the supernatural over the years. Usually it involves a loved one receiving a visitation from a deceased loved one. It's usually left up to the viewer to decide whether or not it was a dream or not. But not always. The last broadcast week of OLTL brought back a bunch of fan favorites whose characters had been killed off. They resolved situations where characters were placed in life or death situations. In one glorious scene that was worthy of DS, two of the show's most notorious villains carried a third off to hell.

One of the stories from General Hospital involved young Robin with a guy named Casey. Nice, friendly guy who just happened to be a space alien.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I saw in the synopsis for today's GH that Lucy and McBain meet, so I recorded the show on a lark just to see what was going to happen. Now I understand: McBain and Caleb are two separate characters. And as someone who was a faithful viewer of PC I have to say I loved seeing Caleb - especially his scenes with the professor - and I loved seeing Lucy and Kevin (though it does puzzle me that Keven seems to scoff at the supernatural and vampires considering that, yes, he may have felt that way at first, but he definitely came around while he was on PC, particularly after his daughter was turned into a vampire - so has he conveniently forgotten all of that?). And it would certainly seem that GH is going out of their way to imply that their Caleb is the vampire as depicted on PC, right down to his ring and the blood dripping puncture wounds on the neck of the professor's (presumably) dead body. So, I may definitely have to keep up with this to see how it all turns out. But at any rate, it's really interesting to sort of see a sequel to what had been happening on PC almost 10 years ago...

[michael c]

there's chatter on another board that GH has made the jump and is in fact doing a vampire storyline...


how awful. i feel so bad for all of the other actors who worked so hard to keep this show afloat in a reasonable way to get stuck doing this kind of schlock.

[michael c]

and before i get jumped on yes i know DS also made a similar jump in it's time...


but it had only been on the air for 10 months and hadn't really found it's voice or audience yet. GH has been on the air for several decades and this plot goes completely outside of it's well established sensibility and tone.