GL Oldtimer

It would be amazing if other soaps did this. I believe I once read, however, that many of Guiding Light's earliest decades weren't preserved. In fact, I think I remember reading that producers had to lean on the actors' tapes to produce the Roger Thorpe: The Scandal Years video that was released in the 1990s. I'm sure there's a fan with a basement full of beta or VHS tapes that probably has a decent chunk of episodes covering some of the lost decades. Annette

Happy one-year anniversary! You must watch the early 90s! Love your recaps. Annette

Oh my gosh, I would love to see all of these episodes too. What a treat that would be! Annette

@Speed Racer , I'm a big fan of this period as well. The writing for Roger was extremely effective, especially his reaction to Holly turning down his marriage proposal. The way that he coped with that by going after several other characters on the show was brilliant. Annette

I wished the writers had given Vanessa and Holly more scenes together. I think having these two actresses share the screen together more would have been a smart move. This is a great scene between the two. Annette

@alwaysAMC Thank you very much for this information. Annette

@Speed Racer , THIS! So right! I absolutely loved these years. Annette

I think the date of that episode is January 13, 1992. When Blake Marler's YouTube channel was up and running, I jotted down dates of certain episodes that were memorable to me. Here's a clip of the scenes via YouTube:

@Soaplovers One of the reasons I enjoyed watching Guiding Light so much in the early 90s is because of the way the entire town of characters seemed to interact with each other. The writers did such a great job of weaving characters in and out of each other's orbits. That really did get lost by 1995 or so. Annette

The Roger and Holly scenes in Acapulco were soap opera gold! I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next. The other scenes that were soap opera gold were when Alex blasted Roger in front of Springfield at the County Club — another fantastic set of scenes. Guiding Light was unbelievably solid at this point. Annette

It's such a loss that the Blake Marler YouTube channel was removed. There was so much work put into that channel, with so many episodes from the time that I watched in real-time. I miss it everyday. Annette

@DeeVee , I absolutely agree with you. Guiding Light had some of the best young talent in the business! I thought Melissa Hayden was fantastic! Annette

@GL95 , I was a big fan of Maureen Garrett's Holly too. There was something about the character that I found very relatable, and like you, I wanted to grow up to be just as poised as her too. I found Garrett to be very memorable and intriguing to watch as well, and her scenes with Michael Zaslow were magic. I know winning an Emmy doesn't define an actor's abilities, but it still boggles my mind that Garrett was never awarded an Emmy. For me, she was one of the most gifted actors working in soaps when I watched. There was just such honesty about her work. The thing that bothered me the most with the Holly and Fletcher pairing was that once they got married, the writers stopped putting Holly in Roger's orbit and vice versa. I think there was a lot of missed opportunity there, and while I do understand why some fans didn't want Holly and Roger paired as a romantic couple, I do think the characters should have orbited each other in some way, if only because their history and chemistry was so strong. One of the reasons I got hooked on Guiding Light was because it just felt more real to me than other soaps, not to mention the acting was top-notch. I started watching it during the summer of 1988, and by the time 1996 rolled around, it just wasn't the same soap. Instead of strong, character driven stories that explored human emotions, the writers relied on farfetched plots that compromised legacy characters such as Reva, Beth, and Holly. I imagine it's very challenging at times to come up with compelling storylines as frequently as soaps demanded, but so many of you have done just that on this message thread. Annette

@DRW50 , thank you so much for tagging me, and sharing this classic episode! WOW!!! Annette

@P.J., I totally agree with you. I would also add Maureen Garrett to that list. Annette

@alwaysAMCSince you're a fan of Holly and Roger, you really do need to see some of their key moments from 1990 to 1994, starting with the Acapulco storyline in late 1990. I would also recommend the Cliff House storyline in late June and July of 1993. Great stuff! Annette

This is about the time I really started to lose interest in Guiding Light. I thought there was a lot more that could have been done with Roger, Holly, Fletcher, and Meg, but all of these characters were thrown to the wayside. It was frustrating to watch in real time. Annette

@SoapDope, thank you for posting this episode. I have never seen the rape scenes in their entirety. Powerful stuff. Annette

@MLH, Thank you so much for the link! It's a treasure trove. I'm certainly going to enjoy reading what people had to say. Annette

@MLH, can you direct me to that forum? I would be interested in reading what was said about the tribute. The situation with Michael Zaslow breaks my heart to this day. Thank you. Annette

Roger and Mindy were intriguing to me. I didn't love them together for many reasons, but I didn't hate them either. And unlike all of Roger's other women, excluding Holly, I actually thought Roger did love Mindy. Not as much as he loved or wanted Holly, but I did believe he loved Mindy. Loved the showdown with Roger and Alexandra at the Country Club over his affair. Classic stuff. Annette

I remember doing the same exact thing - rushing home from school and rewinding the VCR recording to watch these scenes! They were riveting. The chemistry between those two just radiated through the TV screen. Annette

Since we've been discussing Roger and Holly, I have a questions for those of you that have a lot more knowledge about these things than I do. I wasn't old enough to watch the show in the 1970s, so I didn't see any of their groundbreaking storylines play out. When the characters returned in the late 1980s, was there a push by the fans to reunite them as a couple? Were they a popular pairing with fans in the 1990s? Annette

You are completely right about that. In real life, this wouldn't even be up for discussion as far as I'm concerned. But in soaps, especially in the years that I watched, I always felt like the writers made the victim be the key to the perpetrator's redemption. Annette

I hated when the show paired Holly with Fletcher. As a Roger and Holly fan it was a tough watch, especially since the writers spent so many years working Roger and Holly back to one another. Several pages back, @MLHhad mentioned that it didn't make sense that Holly went back to completely hating Roger. I totally agree. Too much progress had been made by that point in their relationship for her to revert back to hating him. I do think the writers wasted an opportunity once they paired Roger and Holly together as there was a lot of baggage these two had to work through just to be together, and I thought that was something that could have been explored more while they were together. Mostly though, I was so annoyed at how Maureen Garrett's talents were wasted for almost two years after the writers paired her with Fletcher. Holly got backed into a corner with that pairing and the writers didn't seem to have any interest in untangling her from it. Annette