The Show Must Go On
Michael Logan on Soaps
TV Guide - November 18-24, 2000

The prospect of canceling Port Charles -- daytime's lowest rated soap -- is about as welcome in the halls of ABC as a lap dancer at the pope's birthday party.  In fact, execs at the Disney-owned network are so strongly opposed to dropping the General Hospital spin-off (a Neilsen gutter ball since it hit the air in 1997) that they are pumping up the budget and giving the show a radical revamp.  Starting next month, PC will on the the style of telenovelas, the wildly energetic, lushly romantic serials that are big crowd pleasers in Spanish-speaking markets.  Loaded with cliff-hangers, melodramatic climaxes and sudden shocking plot twists, telenovelas run for only a few weeks.

Here's how it'll work at ABC:  Effective December 1, PC will be driven by one major plot that will last 13 weeks and feature three or four of the show's top stars (the rest of the cast will be seen in far less prominent storylines until it's their turn at bat).  The first telenovela -- replete with car explosions, amnesia and a major character being hit by a truck -- kicks off with the kidnapping of Ian and Eve (Thorsten Kaye and Julie Pinson) by a dying billionaire.  The second, set for late February, features Scotty (Kin Shriner) and reportedly has a supernatural slant.  To encourage daily viewing, ABC is promising a big plot payoff with every episode, a bigger one every Friday and an even bigger one every fourth Friday.  Writers Jim Brown and Barbara Esensten (famous for cloning Reva on CBS's Guiding Light) will mastermind the revamp.

Why is PC so important to Disney?  "No one here wants to lose a soap," says ABC Daytime president Angela Shapiro.  Disney chiefs "Michael Eisner and Bob Iger both came from daytime TV, and they get the soap business.  They are putting money nto PC at a time when they could easily walk away, because they understand the importance of keeping the form strong.  We will all do whatever we can to make PC grow."