TVSquad

The James Franco experiment has begun on General Hospital. Actually, we have now learned that the movie actor, best known for Spider-Man and Milk and The Pineapple Express, has decided to do a two-month guest role on the ABC soap opera as part of a project he's doing with a filmmaker named Carter.

Franco and Carter are making a documentary called Erased James Franco. His guest turn on 30 Rock may also be part of the movie. Nobody knows for certain.

One thing I do know for certain is that ABC is taking Franco's appearance on GH very seriously. They're working around his schedule, giving him a strangely interesting character to play, and promoting it like mad.

It's report card time. From time to time, the TV Squad Soap Report will take a look at a show and grade it accordingly. This week, we'll look at General Hospital -- you know, sort of take its temperature. To put it bluntly, General Hospital needs some intensive care. The show is suffering from post-dramatic stress disorder, not traumatic, dramatic. I'm speaking specifically of the shooting of Michael Corinthos, Jr.

Intellectually and from a writer's point of view, I understand why Robert Guza, Jr. -- the head writer -- decided to do this story. It's caused a major upheaval in the Jason-Carly-Sonny-Jax quadrangle. The situation he created, for those who haven't been watching, is this: Sonny's new love, Kate, urged Sonny to bring Michael to the coffee warehouse so he could see the legitimate side of his father's business interests and presumably be impressed enough to want to emulate him. Sonny had been worried that Michael was on the path to becoming a mini-mobster.