GENERAL HOSPITAL: The trouble with Nina

In soap circles, getting Michelle Stafford to sign on the dotted line and commit to General Hospital was a coup.

In my world, though, it’s a travesty.

I have nothing against Stafford. I have watched Young and the Restless over the years and she seemed to be having a good time as Phyllis – a character I could take or leave at any given moment. She was never a favorite and she was never a least favorite. She was really a non-entity to me.

I know that Stafford has her fans – but she still has no place on GH right now.

General Hospital is a soap that is overloaded with characters. There’s too little air time and too many people to spread it amongst.

Head Writer Ron Carlivati has his favorites – and he likes to prop them above all others -- which doesn’t exactly help the air time problem.

When RC first came to GH, his world revolved around Kate and her alternate personality (a story he beat to death on One Life to Live for years). After about a year of her dominating screen time, he lost interest and killed the character off.

After that, he moved on to Sabrina and let her serve as the central point of everything (and everyone) for

almost a year. I mean, he even created characters that had no other purpose (Felix) than propping Sabrina. RC seems to have lost interest in her, too, though. I’ll be curious what happens when Sabrina’s portrayer returns from her maternity leave. Will she languish on the backburner and then get booted? Or will she even return from her maternity leave? It will be interesting to see when it happens.

Then RC focused on Ava – and she’s still dominating air time. I mean, Ava is a character that has no redeeming qualities. She shot Olivia. She seduced her daughter’s husband. She killed Connie. She framed AJ. She had crypt sex with Sonny. Now she’s holding a baby over Sonny to keep him from killing her.

And, this is just a guess mind you, I’m starting to think that Kiki is somehow Nina’s daughter and Madeline either gave the baby to Ava so she could hold on to a piece of Silas or Ava somehow stole the baby. That’s just a guess, though.

So, with all of this, you would think Ava is primed for a murder mystery. Instead, she’s on four days a week then we go four weeks between sightings of Mac, Felicia, Lucy, Scotty and Kevin.

How is that balance?

There is no way that Stafford is going to be sitting on the backburner. None. That means RC must have promised her some significant air time.

Here’s the thing: I don’t care about Nina.

Not at all.

I don’t care that she’s obviously crazy and can walk and is playing Sam and Silas.

I don’t care that she’s been in a coma for twenty years and pretends that the Internet was invented in that time.

I don’t care that she seems “surprised” that Silas’ brother was a serial killer – even after admitting that she

had people look Silas up. I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing that when you Google someone, a serial killer connection is going to be at the top of the list.

I don’t care that Nina is broke.

I don’t care that Nina and Nathan are cousins and not brother and sister (although she seemed to take that in stride – which makes me think she already knew).

I just don’t care about Nina. I guess, though, it’s fair to ask: Why should I care about Nina?

I care about AJ, and RC completely ruined his resurrection and then killed him off at the hands of Sonny. That was a total slap in the face to fans.

I care about Robin and RC threw her under the bus to prop Sabrina.

I care about Anna and RC has bumbling around the police department as Sonny and random other mobsters make her look like a fool.

Why not fix those travesties instead of bringing in another newbie that no one cares about?

Quite frankly, that’s the challenge I want RC to undertake.

What do you think? Do you care about Nina?