Reception and Impact
Patrick and Robin became one of daytime's most popular pairings within a year of their debut. In 2007, TV Guide named them one of soap opera's best supercouples. Los Angeles Times described them as "one of the mother ship’s hottest new couples".
In early 2007, with daytime soap operas "in peril" and "in need" of rescuing, SOAPnet, a Disney-owned cable channel, embarked on "a mission to revive the genre in the evening hours". Their goal was to lure new fans, as well as old, and increase the ratings and interest for daytime dramas. General Hospital: Night Shift, a spinoff of General Hospital, was launched to achieve this, with Patrick and Robin as their primary characters and love story." "The show is being described as an episodic medical-mystery drama – think equal parts General Hospital and House," relayed Los Angeles Times. The move was considered "risky" by the network, but worth the risk. "We’re hoping to attract not just lapsed fans but viewers who aren’t hooked on a soap yet," said Jill Farren Phelps, executive producer of the series and 20-year veteran producer. Of the decision to have the series focus on Patrick and Robin's romance, Ed Martin of the Jack Myers Report stated, "...it’s a real treat to see two characters of such historical importance to General Hospital be allowed to grow."
Daniel R. Coleridge, former TV Guide columnist and author of The Q Guide to Soap Operas, said that power pairs like Patrick and Robin are precisely what is missing from the daytime genre. "What soaps lack isn’t slapping or catfights. It’s romance," he said. "Soaps are really devoid of good romance. There are no supercouples anymore."
In October 2008, Soaps In Depth named Patrick and Robin one of soap opera's 100 greatest couples. In December 2008, soap opera website Daytime Confidential named Patrick and Robin the #1 couple for 2008. Also, soapoperasource named them "Best Couple of 2008" and SOAPnet named their wedding as "Best GH Wedding" of 2008.
On Tuesday October 12, 2010, David Letterman named Patrick as #9 on President Barack Obama's Top Ten Enemies List for his affair with Lisa Niles.
Read more about this topic: Patrick Drake And Robin Scorpio
Famous quotes containing the words reception and/or impact:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)