ATI's Romanovich on Tony Geary & Luke's Storyline

ATI president of Worldwide Media and Entertainment Jim Romanovich, producer of the Daytime Emmy telecast, shared his thoughts with We Love Soaps on the current Luke Spencer storyline on GENERAL HOSPITAL.

As you probably realize, I’m somewhat opinionated when it comes to the business. And I have to remind everyone that I’m also a fan. But I’m a fan with the insight of the community. As a former actor and theatre major, I understand the art of the actor. As one who deals with the studios and sponsors, I understand the business, the real business at hand.

Over the last several weeks, the Luke-Ethan storyline has some fans and many critics up in arms. TV Guide recently interviewed Tony yet again on this and I felt that there’s still that great divide that perhaps I could explain as the way I see it.

If you read that article you would see that Tony Geary is absolutely right. As an actor, he still has more to say with this character. But you can't play nostalgia. It doesn't translate to anything on screen. There will always be Luke and Laura. The fact that Luke and Laura are so revered is because they've been off the canvas more than on. Had they stayed on GH as a couple, they would have been the next Steve and Audrey. Happy and boring. The love and commitment of soaps' greatest couples are not tangible qualities. They're spiritual. They're star-crossed. They survive all that's thrown at them. There was a girl I dated in college that I thought was the one. Actually, she was. But we parted because I graduated two years before her. We tried to keep the long distance thing going, but other factors, people, got in the way. Twenty-five years later, she's still the one although she is married and I've been married. But the tangible was not meant to be. The spirituality of it, however, never dies. And I'm sure she feels the same way even though we haven't spoken in over two decades.

So, Luke and Laura. I can believe this story with Ethan because Tony sells it well. I'm not saying it's a great or bad story. It is, however, one that I can believe. Luke and Laura connected over his raping her. Laura was with Stavros and had a child because she believed Luke dead. When you think about it, the time she disappeared in the fog until she reappeared at the Mayor's mansion was not all that much time. So she seemed to be OK with Stavros early on. Even begrudgingly. Luke eventually met Holly. In the 90s, they separated, and Laura hooked up with Stefan-Luke's worst enemy. Luke hooked up with Felicia. And so on.

But as the parade of changing partners passed by, the light of Luke and Laura never dimmed. They may not have always had their tangible relationship, but their spiritual one was unshakable. I can buy that Luke and Holly coincidentally met and, under duress, had sex. That's a very real thing that people do. They're not thinking rationally. They're thinking of that moment. It wasn't about love. It was about comfort. Holly was never about love with Luke. Laura was and is. Even with Tracy. Luke and Tracy may be a fun couple, but they're not people who will die for the other. He won't even stay in town for her. When Laura calls, Luke goes. Always did.

So dramatically, that's how I buy it. Would I have liked Ethan to be Robert's kid? Yes. Better choice in the same con artist story because then you can wrap Kim and John York into it. But eventually, you would need Robert and that looks like it just won't happen whether story or politics is the reason. And Tony Geary is an actor on the canvas looking to act. You need conflict. You need dynamic. I think he felt that this was the story to really challenge him because even Tracy and Luke were becoming repetitive. I think Julie Marie Berman has other interests and therefore not as available for Lulu, so it seems, and GH apparently doesn't have the same zeal for Greg Vaughan as they did for Jonathan Jackson. By the way, I sincerely feel that if JJ were still on the show, there would be no need for Luke and Ethan. When JJ left, they brought in Jacob Young who was fine but really changed the dynamic of Lucky and Luke. When JY left, they continued the evolution JY brought to it with GV. To GV's credit, he probably felt that the more Luke was out of control, the more Lucky should be in control. A reversal of roles. Lucky the parent and Luke the child. What GV didn't realize at the time is that he was slowly painting himself into a corner because stoicism on camera is on par with watching a tree grow. GV is a good minimalist actor and there are many great actors who do not rely on grand gestures to get their points across. Trevor St. John and Michael Easton, for example, are great minimalists. And don’t forget the granddaddy minimalist of all-Eric Braedon. What minimalists do is make you watch more closely. But there has to be a twinge of mischievousness to make it interesting. That’s not Lucky. He can play that barometer of good and evil well. But the barometer is only the measurement system and not the force. Enter Ethan.

And there you have it in my humble estimation.

Romanovich will be a guest on "We Love Soaps Radio" next week to talk TV and soaps, to reveal the latest Daytime Emmy news, and to provide an update on "Daytime Gives Back."