Faced with threats of cancellation in 1978 after several years of stagnant ratings, ABC Daytime executives brought on Gloria Monty as Executive Producer and gave her 13 weeks to increase ratings. Monty had much experience in the genre from directing "The Secret Storm" for years. Monty is credited with increasing the pacing of the series, and introducing action adventure storylines, which "General Hospital" was first among soap operas to do. Reportedly not agreeing with the increased pace and also not wanting to relocate to Los Angeles, California where "GH" was produced, Marland left the series and was replaced by Pat Falken Smith. The introduction of the WSB spy agent Robert Scorpio (and later fellow agents Sean Donely (John Reilly) and Anna Devane (Finola Hughes)) led to several popular spy mysteries involving secret formulas, hidden treasures and world domination schemes. A few of these plots were considered preposterous, such as the 1981 storyline in which Luke, Laura and Robert saved the town of Port Charles from being placed under a deep freeze by maniacal Mikkos Cassadine's Ice Princess weather machine. "General Hospital" bounced back from the brink and subsequently became the highest-rated American soap opera from the 1979/80 season until 1988 when they tied with "The Young and the Restless".