Chris Van Etten Interview - General Hospital Writing Team - 2024 Daytime Emmys Winners

General Hospital's former co-head writer, Chris Van Etten, who is back in the ABC daytime drama writing team, took a few moments to chat with Michael Fairman on the Winners Walk at the 51st annual Daytime Emmy Awards.
Van Etten, who missed the on-stage victory moment with his winning team which included: former co-head writer, Dan O'Connor (now at DAYS) and current GH head writer, Elizabeth Korte, shared his excitement on winning the gold.
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[@Jay-xq3ri]

Sad news!

[@zeek2436]

Missing? Is he going to go back to writing one fatal disease after the other? Are we going to be subjected to more Nina abuse and Willow's devotion to Carly? Ugh; keep Patrick; give him more of a chance.
Chris, if you read this please know that there a lot of us who are sick (no pun intended) of the endless fatal disease storiess. Morbid, depressing, most of us hoping that the character we love has been misdiagnosed. Don't mistake GH for a teaching hospital; we dont' need to be schooled on every horrible disease known to man. And for every viewer who enjoyed having their hearts ripped out, twice as many of us can't stand it. Brain dead babies? Brain tumors? Huntingtons? Spina bifida? And then this last horrible, story (though Gregory Harrison was amazing in the role) with the tragic ending. What a loss of one of the best new characters GH has had in a long time and played by a great actor. If Gregory Harrison didn't want a long term contract, at least the door could have been kept open.
And don't revert back to the idiocy of making NIna the endless punching bag. The character is still the town pariah and Willow, a once good-hearted person with a compassionate nature, is still a condescending, patronizing, obnoxious character to watch as she gives ultimatums to her own mother, without an iota of understanding how it would feel like if Amelia or Wiley has been stolen at birth. Her unconditional love for Carly and her looking the other way (like everyone else) at all Carly has done to Nina is vile and maddening. And Willow and Michael aghast that Nina called in the SEC tip but perfectly fine with Michael spending a year trying to have Sonny locked up for life is nonsensical.
The show now has depth. The stories are interesting, there's more screen time and stories for the other characters rather then the endless Carly stories, and the Nina/'Drew pairing is brilliant. They should keep Nina and Drew together; let their attraction/hate turn into an actual love. Diane and 'Alexis? They FINALLY have their banter back; there's been a complete lack of fun writing for these two until Patrick and Korte took over the reigns. I don't know which of them is responsible for what but the writing's been good, after the initial craziness of having characters simultaneously turn on Sonny and everyone changing careers. It was upside down world for a while, but its been amazing since.
I personally think Valentini made a mistake to get rid of Mulcahey. But it is what it is, and if you're being given another chance to write for the show, don't turn the show back to what it was, because it sucked, award or no award. Endless Nina bashing, emotional abuse, one fatal disease after another and barely stories for any other characters. Think before you write....oh, and don't screw up the Mac/Cody father/son relationship. This is the first time Mac's been given a "child" of his own. Let the relationship be a good one.