Port Charles

I watched this show from Day One, and it took a little while to get going, but once it hit its stride, it was a marvelously smooth machine. I hate one-hour soaps, more filler than plot, and hadn't watched a soap regularly since Ryan's Hope went off the air). Once we got to murder and business intrigue and mismatched couples, the show took off. Unfortunately, the ratings did not, and the producers took the low road and decided to scrap all credibility and introduce supernatural storylines. Well! I thought the time travel arc was @ least well-written enough that it had a modicum of credibility (for all its fantasy elements, the storyline was fueled by Frank searching for his "lost" love). After that, it was all downhill. The vampire saga was sub-retarded, and it lasted for not one arc but TWO. I suffered through the angels, but stopped watching completely once Eve was killed. I even stuck w/ it a couple more weeks just to make sure she didn't come back as a zombie--which could have happened on this ridiculous potboiler. The core cast has always shown extreme poise under the conditions in which they are expected to perform, and I would gladly return to a show with problems that involved real human beings. If you're going to rip off another soap, at least have enough couth not to steal from the worst of the worst "Passions"! Good heavens, do these people know nothing?! If this is being a soap producer, then where do I sign? I could pretend to be as dumb as the people who drove my beloved little soap into the ground. There: tirade over!

It doesn't surprise me that Port Charles has been cancelled. I was never a big watcher of it but I started heavily watching it during the last arc, which I believe was well I don't remember the name of the arc but it was on between about April and June of 2003. Then I started watching the next arc and then I just stopped watching because I couldn't keep up with all the tapes I had stacking up. I don't know really what to say about the cancellation. I feel that some of the actors on this particular soap can't really act. One of them is Erin Hershey-Presley. I really don't feel like her acting is superb and Lynn Herring, who's been a veteran soap star for years is lacking in substance too. Maybe the writing for them is too teeniebobpish. I guess they need to shoot some pilots and show them to test audiences. I feel like bad acting and indecent writing is the reason why Port Charles is being cancelled. What's next, General Hospital? This is another soap that is just reaking havoc on plots and characters to keep audiences interested and by telling viewers they can catch the entire episode on SOAPNET tonight is no good if 1) they don't have soapnet and 2) their cable/satellite provider does not carry it.

I turned into PC during the end of Tainted Love. I love the story arc idea, at least each series has an ending. It's not as overpowering as Dark Shadows and it has interesting twists. The actors are colorful and the supernatural story lines are intriguing while keeping to the typical "love triangle" of ancient soaps. Brian Gaskill and Erin Hershey shine as the Super Couple. Lynn Herring is great, "Livvie" is the typical "soap bad girl, and "Caleb" speaks for himself. The show definitely needs more air time. I would love to see it go to one hour!

When Port Charles debuted in the summer of 1997, the show had potential and hope. Put seven interns in a hospital and Lucy Coe in her own element and you have the perfect material for a half-hour show. After The Cullingtons left the series, I really felt like the show lost it's identity: doctors in a hospital. Their workplace, what they do, how they function, what are their emotions if they lose a patient, what are their consequences if they act out of poor judgement.

Then, came Courtney Kanelos, Rachel Locke, General Homicide and DV(four things I cringe at when I think about the show) and you have a big trainwreck. Storylines that once focused on the characters, now centered on the plot.

I didn't really care if DV was Scott's dad or that Rachel came to town with a chip on shoulder. That is, until after Executive Producer Wendy Riche left PC, some bright genius decided to replace Riche with Julie Carruthers. Upon her arrival, Ms. Carruthers let the weak link Scott Hamner go and replaced him with Karen Harris. She put the hospital and the drama BACK into PC, where it belonged. And thank goodness, someone had the sense to turn Rachel into the town pariah rather than a Sheila-copycat!

PC became a community under this format, storyline developed, moved at a fast pace and ended, but there was always a new chapter for the character.

I liked the storylines under Carruthers/Harris: All American Guy who could contract HIV? Pill Popping Doctor revisiting her sleazy past? Rich bubbleheaded hospital voluneer seeks gangster with a heart of gold? Down-to-earth careerwoman competing for a board seat against a slimy therapist?

It was good TV folks. If you hadn't seen PC during the past three years it was on the air, then was the time to tune in.

But, some nutcase at ABC decided that Guiding Light's resident hacks, Jim Brown and Barbara Esenten, could perform emergency surgery on PC, a show that didn't need saving. Now, everything is plot, plot plot. "Screw character development. The audience is too stupid for that." I suppose they concluded.

The book format is so dumb, words can't describe it. Isn't the purpose of watching a soap to see DIFFERENT characters? Ian, Kevin, Eve and Lucy are front burner constantly while leaving talented actors who deserve a shot at a good storyline(Nolan North, Marie Wilson, etc.) out in Storyline Siberia.

For all this was worth, ABC should have kept The City. The plots seemed interesting on that show and they were actually beginning to gel until ABC decided to cancel it for this drivel.

Once can only hope when someone at ABC will decide to pull the plug.

It took only moments for me to formulate an opinion of this show. Once again, the brilliance of acting must suffer to mind dead scripts geared toward the key demographic that is, painfully, thirty and under.

Soap opera actors are a breed apart. They are called upon to learn pages of dialogue, just for a single show, CONSTANTLY. The actors here are no different. I can see that if they were given a REAL script to work with they could be extremely dynamic. Unfortunately, the need to work or contractual agreements kept them chained to this rehashed GARBAGE. This re-treaded idea that was sorry when it was "Xena", which was borrowed from the Hercules sagas [The Legendary Journeys] [[garbage], which borrowed from old Sinbad story lines that was campy GARBAGE back in the sixties and seventies. The actors must be positively relieved to not have to be chained to this foolishness any longer.

You see we are in a midst of a full blown ANTI RENAISSANCE of creativity. To actually NOT blatantly "borrow" from someone ELSES ideas that worked in the past is unheard of. This generation believes that since there's about one hundred years of recorded media to "borrow" from that they don't have to "waste time" by thinking up something NEW. Young people don't see the need to ABSORB knowledge when you can look up anything you need to find on the internet. This rubbish hit me in the gut as hard as when I heard the singer Little Romeo, "borrow" from Biz Markie's song "Just a Friend" a few years ago. That "artist" had borrowed from a song barely a decade old. I'd already been forced to live through the seventies AGAIN. How soon will I find myself looking @ kids with tall, box cut haircuts and "Cross Colors" yet again?

I've said it to friends and I'll say it to those who read this: I STILL remain optimistic that ONE DAY I will turn on a radio and NOT here music from MY past rehashed and desecrated by some blithering X or Y generation buffoon. ONE DAY, I'll turn on the television and NOT see herds of people contriving "reality" for some moronic coward living for free in his parent's basement to WATCH because he's too scared to go outside and experience it HIMSELF.

Now.I await rebuttals against what I've written here, no doubt presented in ALL CAPS, run together sentences, ridiculous grammar and lots of sentences using lowercase " i " to refer to themselves with. You'd think a generation raised on computers would know how the spell check function works on their word suites but then again, who do you copy THAT from?