One of my favorite genre's on television is daytime. Once upon a time daytime use to lead everyone on television. If I remember correctly, daytime was the first to showcase African Americans in significant stories. They were the first to showcase interacial couples. They were the first to bring in a complex, emotional storyline focused on the Mob. A storyline pratically everyone has copied verbatim. From the Sopranos, to Kingpin, to Analyze That etc. Daytime was the first to deal with real issues. Along with these issues, they bought you real romances. Put together some amazing couples, that you just had to leave some time in your day to follow.

We remember Judith Light's amazing courtroom scene. We remember Anna and Duke or Anna and Robert. We remember the iceprincess story(over the top, maybe, but still intersting and fun to watch) We remember Sonny and Brenda, still one of daytime's most intriguing and lasting couples. Who can forget the intensity of the wire scene. Still talked about today. The intensity and wonderful acting and direction. Most of all we remember the writing. People today can still quote lines from those times.

Where has it all gone? What has happened? When I watch daytime today I am saddened by the utter lack of imagination. The destruction of well rounded characters by lazy writers who seem to don't give a dam. Storytelling seems to be a lost art. Nowhere is this more significant than on General Hospital.

General Hospital use to be one of my favorite daytime shows. I started watching in the 70's and have kept on watching, give or take a few sabbaticals up until a few weeks ago. I just couldn't stand the destruction of a show I love and as I said the "lack of imagination" anymore. In depth character studies that we saw with the writing for Sonny Corinthos and Luke Spencer is gone. Wonderful passionate romances and pairings are gone. Interesting and complex stories are ignored for the banal and forgettable.

One glaring example of this is the recent and curiously axed story of Sonny and Faith on General Hospital. One of it's top characters, Sonny Corinthos was paired briefly with a relative newcomer to daytime who plays the character Faith Roscoe. Finally I thought we may just get a complex, highly charged, passionate and intense pairing and story. I felt that because the actors involved in this brief pairing, Maurice Benard and Cynthia Preston captured our imagination with their interpretation of the story. They put so much subtext into the story that people were actually analyzing them . For one week people were excitied. This storyline bought back the edginess of the popular Sonny Corinthos and put some depth into the character of Faith Roscoe, add to that, the combustible on screen chemistry that Mr. Benard and Ms. Preston exuded on screen and your have a recipe for an amazing story. A storyline like Sonny and Faith would never have been ignored in nightime or cable.

In its infinite wisdom General Hospital decided suddenly and abruptly to end this marvelous story. I should not have been surprised; this is so indicative of the state of General Hospital and daytime. Instead of going for complex and passionate, General Hospital decided as per usual in these times, to go fo the ridiculous and juvenile.

It seems to me daytime has lost it's way and allowing everyone to run ahead of it in imagination, in wonderful complex stories, in interesting character, in wonderful pairings, in direction etc. When it seems that young blonde pretty people are promoted for the sake of acting skills, something is deeply wrong. When good actors are put aside for the very same young, blonde people something needs to be done. When good stories are ignored for the banal, somebody, somewhere have to say enough is enough, and get people who are competent at their jobs.

People in charge of daytime seem to be confused as why ratings are down, and why daytime is loosing viewers. Well if you consistently write ridiculous stories, and consistently destroy in depth characters, and consistently promote stories that are either dead or dying, and consistently showcase actors who are not up to the tasks of certain stories, then what do you expect? If you consistently treat your viewers like idiots, what do you expect?

It's time daytime got a wake up call, and take a serious look at what is going on. It's a genre that needs and should to be saved. It's a genre that needs people with vision. It's a genre that needs good writers, who can write character driven stories, instead of plot driven stories. It's a genre that will die a slow and decisive death if something or somebody doesn't take charge and stop the downward slide into oblivion.

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