This column was originally published at The Huffington Post. It is reproduced here in its entirety, but to get a sense of just how upset viewers were when Jake needlessly died, check out the dozens of comments the story received at the time. Here’s hoping Jake’s return prompts former fans to start watching the show again; and that Helena Cassadine, the all-powerful villainess who has been keeping Jake hidden away for so many years, also has a few of those “late” Quartermaines tucked away, as well. One could argue that the pointless deaths of Alan, AJ, Emily and Georgie (who was once married to Tracy’s son Dillon) did as much damage to the show as Jake’s untimely end.
“General Hospital” has been looking a bit anemic in the ratings of late. Absolutely nobody wants to see this 50-plus year-old broadcast institution come to an end. Trying circumstances call for dramatic measures, especially in daytime drama. Continuing to undo the egregious damage done by previous writing and executive regimes surely couldn’t hurt.
And now, a blast from the past, with one hindsight caveat: I’m glad young Josslyn is still with us.
“General Hospital” Tragedy: Has This Soap Finally Gone Too Far?(Originally published March 29, 2011)
Anyone who is still wondering why broadcast soap operas are disappearing before our eyes need only review recent episodes of ABC's “General Hospital.” Don't blame shrinking audiences. (Viewers aren't really going away. They're just harder to count.) Don't blame competition from other media. (Overall media consumption is on the rise, boosted by ever-evolving digital technologies that make following a favorite soap easier than ever.) Don't blame the recent round of network budget cuts. (Low-budget serialized storytelling is thriving on basic cable television, and there is no reason why broadcast soaps can't adapt.) Whatever you do, don't blame the actors. (There are dozens of fine performers of all ages on the six remaining soaps.)
So what's the problem? Take a good long look at the current Death of Jake Webber storyline on “GH” and you'll have your answer. It's the writing, plain and simple.
I've never been a fan of soap stories that involve the deaths of children, and that includes the now legendary Death of BJ Jones saga on “GH” almost 20 years ago, another tale in which one kid died a sudden death and made available a critical organ to save an afflicted child elsewhere on the canvas. At the time, I thought the loss of Nurse Bobbie Spencer Jones' little girl would in the long term damage the show, in that I could imagine dozens of stories about BJ in her troubled teen and young adult years and the impact her behavior would have on her mother, who had been a rather combustible teen herself.
For the most part I was wrong about that. The show found plenty of stories to tell even without BJ, and the transplant story was so magnificently written and played that it brought a new level of respect to daytime drama. The only downside was that it forever damaged two previously vital characters: Nurse Bobbie and her husband, Dr. Tony Jones. Bobbie fared better than Tony, who suffered an emotional breakdown, lost his family, his job and the respect of his community, was physically brutalized by mob assassin Jason Morgan and gunned down by Carly Benson (the baby that Bobbie gave birth to during her time as a teenage prostitute and then forgot about for 20 years). Tony slowly put the pieces of his life back together only to fall victim to a fatal sweeps-induced virus.
The “GH” writing team, which for much of the last ten years has specialized in telling repetitive stories about local mobsters that play like a low-rent version of The Sopranos, has also during that time gone to great lengths to viciously subvert storylines and destroy characters from the show's most creatively successful periods of the past. I haven't been fond of those stories, but that has often been a matter of personal taste. My issues were with the stories themselves, not the way in which they were being told.
The current Death of Jake Webber disappointment is another matter entirely, and it comes at a time when soaps overall are in dire peril -- and in desperate need of stories that respect their shows' histories while reinventing them for the future. In that regard, this latest GH tale has done everything wrong: It has made viewers feel bad about the time they have invested in the Jake storyline during the last few years and killed off a character that was uniquely positioned to be at the center of dozens of compelling stories in the years to come. That's no way to improve a show or support a dying daypart.
If you aren't a follower of “GH” you may wish to stop reading now, because the examples used to illustrate this point won't be of much value to anyone unfamiliar with it. If the writers and producers of “GH” felt it necessary at this time to tell a story so reminiscent of the Death of BJ then they should have killed off baby Josslyn, the daughter of Carly and her current husband Jax and the recipient of one of poor little Jake's kidneys. (One of many telling aspects of the sub-par storytelling here is that Josslyn wasn't even sick two weeks ago and wasn't diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer until the night Jake was run down by a car. In the BJ story we had watched her little cousin Maxie suffer from a weakening heart over a period of time, a compelling tale in itself even before her cousin BJ was abruptly killed in a bus crash and Maxie received her heart.)
Why should they have killed Josslyn? To begin with, it has been reported that the actor who portrays Jax will be seen less on the show, which makes his one child comparatively unimportant in the long-term. Second, if Josslyn died and Jake needed a transplant, it would have been a fine opportunity for the writers to finally humanize Carly, a frequently detestable character with the emotional stability of an ill-tempered eight-year-old. She has done all sorts of nasty things during the last 15 years, but she has never been more disturbing than in recent weeks, when she chose to focus on sabotaging her ex-husband's wedding rather than deal with the fact that her oldest son had been raped in prison -- an incarceration that she had as much to do with as anyone else (as it was her decision to remove the boy from his family, the much put-upon Quartermaines, and insist that he be raised by a dangerous mobster). It would have made for powerful drama indeed to watch Carly and Jax say goodbye to their little girl, and then to watch Carly decide to give one of Josslyn's organs to Jake, the son of her best friend Jason Morgan and one of the countless women with whom she does not get along, Nurse Elizabeth Webber. I believe that would be the first time in the history of the character that Carly would have been motivated to behave in an entirely unselfish manner.
Why shouldn't they have killed Jake? He's actually a member of four core families on the canvas: The Hardys (his maternal great-grandfather is Dr. Steve Hardy, the main character when “GH” began), the Webbers (his maternal grandfather is Dr. Jeff Webber, the illegitimate son of Dr. Steve), the Quartermaines (his biological father Jason is the son of the late great Dr. Alan Quartermaine and the stepson of Dr. Monica Quartermaine) and the Spencers (his adoption father is Lucky Spencer, son of the legendary Luke and Laura). Jake's true identity as Jason's son has been kept secret in order to keep Jake safe from Jason's mobster enemies. It isn't too much of a stretch to assert that Jake could have been the very foundation of the show's future.
The only good thing I can think of to say about this story is that it has been a showcase for several actors on the show, especially the incomparable Jonathan Jackson, who plays Lucky. I haven't seen a performance of such emotional intensity on a daytime drama since Judith Light's still unsurpassed work as a tortured former prostitute forced to tell all in court on “One Life to Live.” Similarly, Steve Burton, the actor who plays Jason, hasn't been this good since the story of Monica's breast cancer, and Rebecca Herbst (pictured above with Jackson), arguably the most popular female actor in the “GH” cast, has never been better as Elizabeth. (ABC recently reduced Herbst to "recurring status,">