General Hospital's Biggest Problem? It's a Soap That Doesn't Soap
Doing something for 60 years straight is admirable, but everything must come to an end one day.
General Hospital has been on American television for so many years that it has united several generations of viewers.
Launched in 1963, the soap opera about the operation of the New York City hospital has been drawing crowds to their screens every working day for many years.
Now, 60 years and 15,200 episodes later, fans are beginning to worry about the future of their favorite show.
Even the most dedicated viewers couldn't help but notice the slow decrease in the quality of the plot that has become much more apparent over the past few years.
One by one, the storylines have become more repetitive and less meaningful.
Unsuccessful casts and recasts of actors do not add to the fun either: once beloved characters lose their former charm, new ones fail to resonate in the hearts of fans.
Many agree that General Hospital has reached the beginning of its end.
"That is how all the stories go on GH with Chris and Dan as head writers. They revolve [the] characters' whole story on some drama that never happens. It makes no sense why it's so hard to write a good climatic ending or why they don't even try. This is a soap that doesn't soap," Redditor TCalikool said, perfectly summing up what worries the audience the most.
General Hospital's most recent writer's block happened in 2015, when head writer Ron Carlivati was fired due to declining ratings. Since then, the audience can remember the huge disconnect between the newer episodes and the older ones.
But even though the audience is so harsh on Chris Van Etten and Dan O'Connor today, that wasn't the case just a few years ago, in 2020, when everyone was praising the show after the post-pandemic hiatus.
The decline in story quality has become more pronounced over the past few years...to the point where fans are not sure if General Hospital is worth watching anymore.
"It's clear that the writers aren't very committed to flushing out characters anymore and pin their hopes on the natural charisma of the actors filling in the gaps," Another Reddit user, Amazed_and_Bemused, noted in a discussion about recent character development, or the lack of it.
The current state of the soap does not hold very well, but General Hospital is not new to the writer's change.
This move could actually save the longest-running show from ending at the 60th mark and give viewers many more years of medical drama.
Tune in to ABC every weekday to see how the story continues now.