If I thought that ABC Daytime’s decision to refurbish the hospital set on its creaky, leaky but occasionally satisfying “General Hospital” meant a new focus on, oh, THE HOSPITAL, I’d be thrilled.

But GH has been batting me around like a bad boyfriend on a power trip for years now, so I don’t know why I expect things to be any different. They’ve run out of things to do – it seems every three months there’s some sort of natural disaster, hostage crisis, mass murder attempt or other dastardly doings that attempt to mask the fact that writers don’t have any clue how to:

— Write long-term storylines about lasting relationships, including friendships and parent/child relationships, and not get bored and just either let them wither or re-write them as if they never happened;
— Stop kissing the butt of the Mob characters;
— Respect its veterans;
— Finally stop pussy-footing around the truth that mobsters, gangsters and the people who help them, including their girlfriends and computer hacking buddies, are criminals;
— Stop disrespecting the police;
— Stop killing off veterans, only to bring them back as hallucinations or ghosts when they realize it was a mistake;
— Keep even ONE minority character on the front burner. And no, sassy nurses don’t count;
— Have somebody realize that Carly and Lulu are horrid shrews.

Until this happens, they could film the whole thing at Johns Hopkins and it wouldn’t help.