Can't a Girl Get a Good Romance?

I have a good job, cute dog, great friends and family, plus a pretty staggering collection of shoes and handbags.  But does any of that warm my heart?  Well, yes, the shoes and handbags sort of do, because I am shallow, but what really warms my heart is a good romance.  Because I am a General Hospital viewer, I therefore have a cold, dead heart.  (Or is it the other way around?)

Maybe it's just because I grew up watching Days of Our Lives in its heyday, but aren't soaps supposed to be all about overly dramatic romantic entanglements and family interactions?  The GH showrunners are failing on both counts, having relegated core families to window dressing status eons ago, and now killing off romance like it's trying to take over one of Sonny's docks.

GH Challenge #1:  Name a couple that has been together for more than a year.

This list will be short.  I think it might just be Jason and Sam, and Lorenzo and Skye.  A common denominator there is "mafia."  Oh, and also "doomed." There don't even seem to be any long-term couples on the horizon. Patrick and Robin were headed there, but then came the insane break-up. 

I get that soap couples can't stay together without dramatic interruptions, and breaking them up and then getting them back together is what makes them soap couples in the first place, but seriously, GH couples are apart more than they're together.  And they're apart and together for the weirdest reasons.  In college one of my best friends broke up with a girl because he found out she owned an Air Supply CD. That break-up makes way more sense than any coupling or non-coupling on GH right now.

GH Challenge #2:  Name a married couple.

Carly and Sonny don't count because 1) it's a fake marriage, 2) they're supposedly in the process of getting divorced, and 3) I cannot write about those two as the show's core couple or I'm going to start curling into the fetal position and whimpering.

I think that leaves just Liz and Lucky.  In case you hadn't heard the big secret, she's pregnant by a hitman, plus their last marriage lasted about as long as Britney Spears' most recent one.  These two are carrying the show's marital banner?  O...kay.

The recent Patrick and Robin build-up proves that even the idiots who write this show can do it, they can write a good romance, which makes it all the more irritating that they don't.  They choose not to.  They choose to instead focus on the mafia storylines. Yeah, I'd much rather watch a five-year-old girl be traumatized over having seen her sister the mafia girlfriend kill a guy during a mob shootout with cops, rather than another one of those over-the-top romantic storylines that created this genre in the first place.  Sure, that sounds like fun.

What happened to years of romance?  Months on end of sappy dates and then implausible relationship roadblocks? Capitalizing on great chemistry between actors, and   rewarding fan attachment?

I guess in a nutshell my question to the GH bigwigs is:  What does a girl have to do to get a good wooing around here?

- Evil But Twinless

Comments

[Anonymous]

do tracy and luke count? they have been together more than a year, and they're married, but we hardly ever see them do anything! so much wasted potential there, imo.

[Evil But Twinless]

D'oh, I had totally forgotten about them. Although it's a "fake" marriage too.

[zarathelawyer]

I think Luke and Tracy do count because the marriage now looks less fake, though it's scraping the bottom of the barrel to have to count them (as much as I love them).

On the other hand I'm not sure I really count Skye and Lorenzo as having been together more than a year given she spent months actively hiding from him - no matter that she completely utterly changed her mind later.

But yes, where for art thou romance? A hint with Coop and Maxie, and at the moment that's about it. We've said it before and sadly I think will continue to say it: it's bloody depressing around Port Chuck.

[RevengeMaiden]

Yes, where is the romance, hot bods and sexy fun that is the core of a soap? Hmmm? When did "General Hospital" stop and "General Hopeless" start? I am still waiting for 'Stone Cold' (is that a comment on his acting?) and Elizabeth to FINALLY get together. What has it been now, EIGHT years? C'mon! Lucky was her 'first love' (of sorts) and we see how 'first love' ended for Georgie and Dillon. Actually, Jason and Elizabeth have some pretty strong onscreen chemistry, but the writers (and the JaSam fans) refuse to let them get together romantically. So, we will continue to see the the hitman & the hoochie momma together, Sonny & Carly's disfunctional relationship and Alcazar and Skye (whatever THAT is about.) You're right! Unless you are a mobster or a mobster's girl, the writers aren't going to give you much air time, much less any romance. Remember, Cooper is going undercover for the...mob...so he & Maxie will ultimately get some degree of storyline.
Oh, regarding Luke and Tracy, they may be married, but the total lack of screen time, much less any fire or passion, hardly qualifies as romance.

[Stircrazy]

Luke and Tracy must count as a married couple since they torched the last remains of Luke and Laura in order to keep them going.

Any day now I expect Luke to tell Tracy that not only does he luvvvv being Mr. Tracy but he was foolish to waste his life on that dumb, blonde waitress he mistakenly made his first wife.

Maybe they could market a SoapNet special for that?