General Hospital Has a Perfect Couple To Attract Younger Viewers, But Keeps Ignoring It

Summary:

• General Hospital is an ABC soap opera that has been on the air since 1963.
• The show follows the lives of several main families and stand-alone characters in the fictional town of Port Charles.
• Although there are many young adult characters that General Hospital could have explored, it chooses to focus on the older ones.

Believe what you like about the demographics of soap operas, but the reality is that they're not exclusively watched by middle-aged women. Although female viewers make up the majority of the audience, the age range can vary widely as younger viewers get caught up in the drama while sitting in front of the TV with their older relatives.

Of course, depending on the writing, any character's story can be interesting to any viewer, regardless of age, status or occupation. However, the more similar the character on screen is to a particular viewer, the more likely they are to find the character relatable and enjoyable to follow.

In order to keep the younger audience watching and to ensure, if not another 60, then at least another 10 years of General Hospital, the team will have to put more emphasis on younger characters. At the moment that doesn't seem to be the case.

What Happened to General Hospital’s Joss and Dex?

Although every year General Hospital has a number of characters who find themselves dead, or at least presumed dead, the beginning of 2024 was the most ruinous for Port Charles yet. Fate was particularly cruel to the show's young adults, taking three of them in one week.

This is a perfect opportunity for the writers to delve even deeper into the Sonny/Carly/Nina drama if they want to. However, there is very little chance that the audience would ever approve. If you look at the reaction on social media from viewers of all ages, people are just tired of these characters.

Who could take their place at the top? Well, for a long time people were rooting for Spencer, Trina and Esme, but now that seems to be out of the question. At least not while Nicholas Chavez is busy with his Netflix production. Luckily, there is another unjustly forgotten couple in Joss and Dex.

While some might say that we only care about them for the sex scenes and that everything else up to now has been meaningless, others would argue that the lack of depth is entirely the fault of the writers. With Dex always busy with Sonny - doesn't he get any days off? - and Josslyn relegated to the background, they don't even get a chance to shine.

It feels like the writers, who finally managed to get them together, don't have a clue where to go from here, while the viewers would take anything better than them going stale. The chaos, the drama, the suspense, everything they were so good at before, now seems hard to recreate, even for a couple with undeniable chemistry.

Whether you think Jex deserves more screen time and well thought out storylines, or would rather see some of the other characters back in the spotlight, tune in to General Hospital Monday through Friday on ABC to make sure you don't miss another episode.