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Last week's #GH highlighted the show's long, long, *long*-running problem with sloppy writing for a character who has absolutely aged out of the role he's supposed to be playing. My latest for Diagnosis Daytime pleads for change: diagnosisdaytime.blogspot.com/2026/09/crit...

Yuri backgammons; Carly corrects; Charlotte argues; Jordan smirks; Chase thinks; Valentin counsels; Hudson bores us; Willow wonders; Desmond wants to go home

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 27/09/2026

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 26/09/2026

“Overhaul” Get fucked, NYT.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 26/09/2026

Just be a car, Leslie. Is that so hard?

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 24/09/2026

Now THAT would be a story…

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 24/09/2026

Couldn't agree more. The show really was a lot more evolved in a number of ways. Less diverse, certainly, but...

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 24/09/2026

I'm right there with you! I was swept up in all of it. (Or most of it, anyway.) I was a huge Frisco fan, and never once did I detect the overwhelming whiff of Velveeta emanating from his performances.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

Looking back on it now, though, it's a lot easier to appreciate how well it still adhered to the standards of good soap. Pacing, dialogue, plot points — we were in capable hands.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

I was unhappy at the time because it had started to feel a lot less like "my" GH, particularly the '83-'86 run that included a lot of my favorite stuff. It felt more sterile to me, somehow?

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

I'm up to June of '88. The early dawn of the dreaded Canadian "Frisco's Grave" caper, Scotty's Meditech gambit is heating up, Olivia is out to get her hooks into Duke, and Colton can't decide whether he really wants to be the host of his own talk show.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

And you also get some fantastic characters. Marco, Brad, Jenny, David... a lot of excellent soap before Rauch entered the show in the great '80s sci-fi/action daytime sweepstakes. And a lot of *that* stuff was pretty great too.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

I think Karen left in '81, maybe? I think it'd be fun to start from the turn of the decade. The early Buchanan era has some fun stuff — Asa and Bo fighting over women, Llanview's pro football team, some made-up substance they were trying to drill or mine for...

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

"I told Steven Lars I was going out for a gallon of milk and a pack of smokes."

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

His biggest crime was being deadly boring in spite of it all!

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

But Colton painted the Seaman's Church for free and turned down Ami Dolenz when she let herself into his room above Kelly's for sex! Doesn't that make up for an attempted murder while brainwashed?

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

Oh man, there's so much fun stuff in '80s OLTL — and not just the greatest hits, like Eterna or Tina over the falls. There was a villain with a robot hand at one point! I'd rewatch the entire decade if I could.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

Oh, and Felicia trying to figure out what happened to Frisco while Colton chastely pines for her.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 23/09/2026

All true, although it hadn't happened yet at this point. Early '88 is about Jake abruptly fucking off to the jungle and Scott returning, Cheryl managing everybody's money with one kidney, Simone miscarrying and going on a cruise after Tom punches a racist, and Duke trying to legitimize the Jeromes.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I don’t know — they were pretty great together. Could have really been something if Edie had been allowed to stick around.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I'll say this much: it's better than I felt it was at the time, and certainly leagues better than today. Still a comedown from the years immediately preceding it, though — and nowhere near as cuckoo bonkers fun as late '80s OLTL.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I'm currently up to June. I'm pretty sure you've been having more fun.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

My GH viewing takes place during the last 40 minutes of my workouts, and because I watch via Hulu, I'm always a day behind, which means I don't have a new episode to watch on Mondays. I go back into the past on those days, and for the last couple of years, that's meant revisiting GH '88.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I don't mind the slow build with Dante and Elizabeth. What bothers me is that her relationship with Ric takes place almost entirely offscreen, so you don't feel the stakes of a love affair being threatened. It's all tell, no show. I'm sure scheduling makes this very difficult, but still.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

Wow! I need a million more just like you!

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I'll make up for it next week!

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I laughed out loud while watching Nina get dragged out of the PCPD. Bless Watros. And I hadn't thought about Charlotte's plan that way, but... you're not wrong.

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

I'm not sure how we do it either!

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Jeff Giles @jefito.com · 22/09/2026

We've had worse in the not-so-distant past, but... yeah. Not good.

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