I love soaps – don’t get me wrong.

Summer and soaps, though? Yeah, that can be a different situation.

Typically, summer is the time when soap operas stack their casts with talentless young teenagers, pack them in itty-bitty bathing suits and place them front and center to try and entice younger viewers.

I’m sure this worked in the past. Hey, I was enticed by shirtless Steve Burton and Antonio Sabato Jr. back in the day. It can happen.

The thing is, the young people back then were at least mildly entertaining. I mean Burton and Vanessa Marcil are still wildly popular ‘General Hospital’ performers.

This summer, though, I can’t help but be irked by GH’s crop of nubile teenage players.

Michael and Starr are clearly the center of teenage love these days – and I’m not against their pairing. Starr is certainly better than Michael’s last girlfriend – who looked old enough to be his mother.

That being said, Cole and Hope have been dead for like five minutes – and yet she’s already moving on with Michael. There’s no slow burn here. There’s just full steam ahead.

I’m not a Starr hater. I know a lot of GH fans – especially those that didn’t watch Kristen Alderson grow up on screen over in Llanview. I think that’s why she gets a pass from me – because I still remember her going toe-to-toe with Asa when she was a child and loving her.

Of course, though, GH is falling into the same trap as OLTL did. They’re letting her sing.

It’s not that she’s a bad singer – because she’s not.

She’s not a great singer though, either. Pushing her “singing” career on viewers and forcing them to watch her cut a record on the Haunted Star (really?) isn’t going to make viewers love Starr.

There were plenty of ways to launch a Michael and Starr romance. Rushing it was not the way to go.

That being said, Starr and Michael are 10 times more entertaining to watch than nuKristina and Trey.

Listen, I have nothing against Lindsay Morgan. I’m sure she’s a very nice girl. She’s just not Kristina to me. If this is why they recast the character – just so they could put her in a teeny weeny bikini and make her harp on her brother like she’s a spurned lover instead of a concerned sister – then they made a really bad mistake.

Then there’s Trey. The introduction of Trey was right out of the manual “How to Launch a Soap Opera Character and Annoy Everyone Who Watches.”

Not only was Trey thrown in our faces from the get-go – a sleazy reality television producer no less – but he was also tied to another mob story, which fans are really sick of.

Then fans were hit over the head with anvils that Trey was Kate’s son – all the while he walked around shirtless.

Now, I’m a fan of gratuitous shirtlessness – that’s why I watch ‘True Blood.’ The difference is, if you’re going to do it, make sure the actor in question has a body people want to see.

Erik Valdez is sometimes charming – don’t get me wrong. It’s just rare. His body is fine – for the real world. This is a soap, though, we want extraordinary. We want young Burtons and Sabato Jrs. Yeah, I’m shallow, sue me.

Valdez is also being pitted into cutesy scenes with Starr – and the writers are clearly building a quadrangle that’s going to have an uncomfortable intersection because Kristina and Michael are brother and sister. Yeah, gross, I know.

The funny thing is, GH didn’t stop with the uncomfortable foursome. They also decided to throw some middle school angst in as well when they paired Molly and T.J.

Actually, to be fair, I think Molly and T.J. could have some potential. The idea of Alexis being forced to look inside herself and really acknowledge why she doesn’t want Molly and T.J. to date could have some funny consequences.

The problem is that the story just isn’t that well written. It’s better written than the Trey and Kristina story, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not up to the rest of GH’s current standards.

The thing is, I’ll watch a teen story – if it’s well written.

As it stands now, I’m much more interested in Heather’s shenanigans, Sam and McBain’s burgeoning romance, Johnny’s descent, Lulu and Dante’s marital problems, Anna taking charge of Port Charles and Todd – well, I’ll watch Todd do anything.

I’m not going to watch a teenage story just because it’s a teenage story. It has to be entertaining, too, and the current GH teen scene is severely lacking.

What do you think? Do you like all the time being given to GH’s teenage nation?