Do They Know What They Are Doing???
....I have got to believe that they do. As a soapfan
for 24 of my 25 years, I have to have faith that The
Powers
That Be (TPTB) at General Hospital, led by the great
Wendy Riche and Bob Guza at that Hollywood studio, have a concrete plan that covers all of their bases. Now, with that said, I sure hope I'm right!
GH is sitting on the potential for their greatest
adventure story of all time. Once again, they have
reached into their treasure vault of the past and
created a perfect blend of classic history and
current favorites. The evil Cesar Faison has
returned secretly from the dead and taken beloved
Lucky Spencer prisoner, while convincing all of Port Charles the young man died in a fire. It's brilliant! The potential is limitless! Faison has all the power. He has complete control of Lucky. Luke is crippled with his grief and isolated from his allies. The Ice Princess has resurfaced. No one in Port Charles is unaffected, from the Quartermaines to the Scorpios. There are even rumors of Sonny having ties to Faison. By all means, we should be preparing for some major fireworks, especially when Faison plays his trump card and reveals that Lucky is really alive.....
But, wait - there is one little problem.
Jonathan Jackson is leaving the show.
How can you bring Lucky back from the dead
with no Lucky?
The past few weeks the landscape of Port Charles
seems to be transforming right before our eyes. A
friend of mine made the comment, "I feel like it's a
new place.... like I don't know that city anymore," and I knew exactly what she meant. All spring we'd been told the war between the
Cassidines and Spencers was heating up and most of us were prepared for some dramatic
way the young, Spencer heir was to be written off the
show. However, as we plodded through the early spring
months wondering where most of these stories could
possibly be meandering to, were any
of you prepared for the way one event turned the entire town upside down? I wasn't! Since that dramatic episode of April 16 that ended with Lucky's room in flames, every place has a different feel,
from Kelly's to the Q. Mansion. Every relationship
seems to be coming from a new place, whether it was
Luke and Laura, or Carly and Jason. And every story
line seems to have been rewritten over night. I don't know when the loss of one character has so completely affected every scene on a show.
It seems to me that GH has returned to it's gothic
feel. "Gothic," I've always thought, at times,
describes GH
perfectly and sets it apart from other soaps. There
tends to be a mood of mystery surrounding the every day
events in Port Charles. The generations-old feuds, the
presence of the mob, secret passages, bodyguards,
masque balls, even the dark lighting of the docks
all cast a gothic shadow over things. At other times,
GH has focused a lot more on social driven stories
like Stone's AIDS and Monica's cancer. Those were
both fabulous stories I am thrilled GH chose to tell,
but they were quite removed from the style and feel of
the classic Ice
Princess story, or Frisco and Felicia's Aztec
adventures. A good soap, in my opinion, needs a variety
of tones, like this. Now with this new story dominating
the canvas of Port Charles, we have returned to the
very dark and mysterious.
The center of this story is still human emotions of
grief and desperation, but it has also returned us
to such mysterious elements as a high tech bunker/cell
complete with "Star Trek" like sliding doors; hidden
cameras keeping constant surveillance over the
citizens of Port Charles; switched medical records to
fake a death; and a madman who's returned from the
grave to mastermind it all.
All of this has created a dark and gothic feel that,
I, for one, am thoroughly engrossed in. I certainly
don't want GH to fall into the trap that several other
shows have of trying to outdo
itself with more and more of the bizarre, "Outer Limits"
type stunts - we accept the unrealistic on our soaps,
but not the unscientific - but, there are so
many different directions for this story to take if they
continue along this path. Faison could turn Lucky
against the people he loves: after all, wasn't mind
control one of Faison's talents? He could use the
fact that Lucky is alive to control both the Spencers
and the Cassidines. The Spencers and the Cassidines,
or at least Luke and Nik, might be forced to work
together in order to get Lucky back. There are dozens
of twists and turns they could take, just packing this
story full of shock and mystery! Except, there is
still that little problem I mentioned before:
Jonathan Jackson is leaving the show!!!
What is GH going to do with all of this if their
Lucky never returns to finish the story? Everything
about this story is centered on Lucky being alive.
Why would they go through all of this and then kill
him anyway? That would be ridiculous! So, how does
Lucky come back from the dead when there is no more
Lucky?
I know the word that is going through most of your
minds right now. That dreaded soap word: RECAST.
Yes, I suppose it's a possibility, but one I find
very hard to take seriously. Recasting Lucky would
almost be like recasting Luke! I just don't think it
can be done successfully and, if I can see that, I'm
sure those Powers that Be can too. I have heard it
quoted that Guza is
hoping and praying that Jonathan Jackson will come
back to see this storyline through. That is, of
course, what this soapfan is doing too.... with all
my might! But, what if he doesn't? What will happen
to this great, gothic adventure then?
Will a massive search for Lucky end when they
discover that Faison has gone ahead and killed him,
after all?
Will they wait 3 years, 5 years, or even 10 years
and then bring Lucky back as a different person?
Will Lucky come back only to break Elizabeth's
heart and leave again, similar to the tragedy of
Frisco and Felicia?
Will the truth of that Lucky is alive just never
come out?
I have to say that any of those choices would
sacrifice the great, gothic storyline they have
begun to create. And none of them would be very
satisfying to the fans. Surely GH thought of all
this and weighed all the options before taking this
chance.... right? They must have a clever idea
tucked away, a trump card to play in the
eventuality that Lucky never returns to Port Charles.
They have to! They can't leave Lucky a prisoner of
Faison's forever! They can't expect us to watch
Elizabeth move on without him! After all the pain
we've already gone through with the residents of PC
grieving Lucky, we deserve a glorious reunion! If
GH can't pull that off.......
Do they know what they are doing?
