Guza is promising a huge new storyline, involving a lot of the cast, that will take the world of soaps into another realm. It will be unlike anything ever seen in daytime television.
General Hospital is no stranger to changing the soap world. One need only look back to the late '70s-'80s to see the beginning of super couples embarking on daring adventures, a formula that shot General Hospital to #1 and earned Luke and Laura the cover of Newsweek.
Well, what could this be new ground be? The residents of Port Charles over the years have suffered through fires, train wrecks, snowstorms, shootings, mob wars, serial killings, epidemics, threats of being frozen - how much can one town take?
There was talk at one point of a funeral during which the story takes us back in time to the events leading up to the funeral. Whose funeral, who knows? Is that new? No idea.
Could it be the situation so brilliantly shown in the Kurosawa film Rashomon, in which viewers get the same story as told from several different perspectives? Might be very interesting, fascinating even.
Could, like Dallas, St. Elsewhere and The Bob Newhart Show, that a story arc the viewers experience is just a dream? That might make viewers invested in it pretty angry.
It's not aliens - GH already had an alien. Hmm... I suppose someone could be abducted by an alien...any votes?
How about the It's a Wonderful Life scenario, where someone finds out what life would be like had he never been born? For instance, Sonny. Mind-boggling.
Here's one that Will and Grace did and that Desperate Housewives has coming up - a story that takes place in the future. That is risky. For instance, seeing Spinelli and Maxie married with five kids kind of ruins what they have going on now. It would have to be a story arc in the future that doesn't spoil a present story but is intriguing and leaves us wondering when we get back to the present, what the circumstances will be that will bring our characters to that situation in the future.
I like that one, and I'm leaning toward it. There's one other plot I've always liked, the story told in the old film Repeat Performance where a woman, on New Year's Eve, realizes that she's repeating the same year over - a year of incredible tragedy. Knowing what's going to happen, can she change the fate of those she loves? The only problem with that one is, if you're going to do it, you have to do it New Year's Eve.
Those are just a few plotlines that Guza might use. Whatever it is, he's set himself, the writers and General Hospital up with this hype. He's promised to leave us "breathless." It certainly sounds exciting. I for one can't wait.
