Ahead of the Wednesday, January 8th, 2025 episode of General Hospital, a sensitivity warning was issued to viewers. They were warned about content for this episode and forthcoming ones but what was the reasoning behind it? Keep reading for more details.
General Hospital Gives Sensitivity Warning To Viewers
After a day’s hiatus due to the beginning of President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, General Hospital is back. They ended the Monday, January 6th episode sealing Chad Duell’s fate. The actor, who has played Michael Corinthos since 2010, announced he was leaving the show several months back. This was a huge shock to fans of the show as they had no idea he was even thinking of exiting. More so, Kelly Monaco’s character, Sam McCall had just been killed off after the actress was fired from the hit soap. Therefore, viewers did not know how much more they could handle.
On Monday, Sonny Corinthos’ penthouse went up in flames. His son, Michael was inside and was seen engulfed in flames. Of course, this angered fans as they were livid that he was given this send-off. They had begged Frank Valentini, executive producer of GH, not to kill off Michael. Yet, it seemed he failed to listen to them. Then, the following evening, January 7th, California was wrecked by wildfires. Show star, Cameron Mathison (Drew Cain) has lost his home in these fires. Due to the fires, the soap put up a sensitivity warning before today’s airing as the core storyline deals with fire.
They shared the warning via Twitter/X in hopes that viewers would see it and not watch the show as it could be triggering. Obviously, the General Hospital show writers could never have predicted what would transpire when they wrote Michael/Chad’s sendoff. However, this is the reality of the world so they wanted to alert those viewers who may not have tuned in for some time and are unaware of the current storyline. Though this was appreciated and the sentiment was great, some fans felt it was a tad tone-deaf.
Missed The Mark
There was a great level of respect for those who had lost their homes or were in danger of the fires. For those who saw images that they will never forget and use television to escape. General Hospital is not the show for them at this moment. However, some followers felt that this message could have been useful at other times, as well:
- Why didn’t you post this when the woman on the subway in NY was set on fire. May have wanted to reconsider your writing. So mad at GH
- Weak sauce, ABC should NOT be airing this show period given what is going on. Its a slap in the face to everyone who is being impacted by the fires.
- You should have just aired some classic episodes for a couple of weeks.
Others just felt this was a horrible way to write off Chad Duell and used the platform to express that. Do you think sending this message was a good idea or should the show have been shelved? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
