vetsoapfan

Agreed. It was doing quite well in the rating, even during the years of GH's tremendous popularity and media blitzing. Why tamper with such a successful formula? I wish someone could or would interview Pamela Long and ask her tough questions about what the reasoning was beyond the mass and qratuitous slaughter of 1983-84. It certainly crippled the show, and precipitated TGL's long, slow, painful audience erosion.

To me, the best decade for the soaps was the 1970s, with the 1960s and 1950s also strong contenders. It was a mixed bag in the 1980s, with some soaps (ATWT for one) regaining past glory while others (GH, OLTL, TGL) disintegrated for many years during that decade. IMHO, even fewer soaps exhibited much quality during the 1990s, and by 2000, daytime TV was becoming a wasteland. None of the soaps in the past two decades have impressed me. My own GOAT soap, TGL, was atrocious in the 2000s. If I can take everything into account about the soaps being broadcast since 2000, including their histories from earlier decades, I'd still go with TGL because its total number of quality years is--to me--unsurpassed. Of course, AW was a masterpiece during Agnes Nixon's reign in the 1960s and then again under Harding Lemay from 1971-74-ish, as was Y&R under William J. Bell. We are lucky to have had so many fine nominees tgo choose from!

I would have never allowed the Lewis-Shayne brigade to take over the show, that's a given, and I would have kept Roussel as Hope. If ER quit on her own, however, I would have leaned towards replacing her with someone like Jacqueline Courtney once Alan-Michael was SORASED to a young adult. At 40-ish, Courtney was age appropriate as A-M's mother, she was a beloved daytime vet, a fine actress, and exuded a warmth and sweetness that would have been very beneficial to the woefully-depleted and alien Bauer family of the time period. I would have asked Mart Hulswit to return as Ed, and either tried to get Don Stewart to return as Mike, or replace him with Jed Allen. If possible, I'd also see if Ellen Demming wanted to make cameo appearances as Meta Bauer. The Bauers would return to their place of prominence, and the Lewis-Shaynes would never come to be (except for Josh and Trish).

I felt that Elvera Roussel was the best actress that TGL had ever cast in the role of Hope, and knowing that she was dismissed rather than choosing to leave on her own would have made me very resistant to any recast. That being said, I don't know today (based on everything else I have seen her in) if Kim Zimmer could have effectively played a sweet, kind-hearted ingenue. I suppose I'd rather have had Hope on the canvas than being "disappeared" forever, though, so I would have at least taken a wait-and-see attitude towards Zimmer's take on the role.

Technically, I agree with you that 1983 had its good moments. Some bits were quite well written, like Phillip's paternity reveal, but I could see the writing on the wall, as storylines which could have had long-lasting ramifications were casually dismissed, vets like Amanda and Hope were being axed, and even the longer-running characters still on canvas were being shoved onto the back burner. I loathed that story and the introduction of idiotic fantasy elements during the next year or so: the ghost in the attic, the Dreaming Death, Jonathan Brooks (ugh) and his talking computer, Nick/Santa Claus who could disappear into thin air at will. Cretinous low-brow camp might have been a staple of Passions, but it went against the very core and grain of TGL. And resurrecting Bill Bauer only to kill him off again (and in such a heartless, cruel manner) was a slap in the face to veteran viewers who cared about him and the Bauers. 🤮💩 Yuck. No thank you. Since the show was being mutulated so quickly and thoroughly, having Bert and Bill reunite would have provided stability and continuity in Springfield. I'd even have accepted Bert with Steve Jackson. But Bert Bauer saddled with a Lewis (the equivalent of the dreaded Dingles of Emmerdale Farm)? Take me now, Lord.👿 Yep. No one ever accepted "Fake Ed", and Katie was being treated like an irrelevant dayplayer. Thank God for Jerry ver Dorn, but by the end of 1984, the real TGL was no more. We had Texas Light Meets Scooby Doo in its place. Same here. I was finally excited about the show again after being unable to stomach it for several years, when Holly and Roger returned in 1989 and their story reignited so well. And what a blessing and relief to have Reva off the canvas! But after Reva returned and the show stupidly killed off its heart Maureen, the matriarch of the Bauer family, it was all down hill from there. TGL was on life support for the last decade and a half of its existence. Its cancellation was a mercy killing.

I always find this sort of question interesting and fun, but also difficult to answer for two reasons. 1. All the soaps have tremendous variances in quality during their lifetimes, with both excellent and atrocious years to consider. 2. Since many of the vintage soaps ran/have run for decades, many people responding to the question (myself included) have not seen the entire runs of the series first-hand, and I am always leery about critiques based on incomplete experience with any form of entertainment. Can we really give thumbs up or thumbs down to material we have not seen? In my mind, I tend to rephrase the question as, "What do you consider to be the greatest soap of all time from your viewing history?" With that being said, I would vote for The Guiding Light. It had an unparalleled run of quality from 1950 to 1982 (maybe pushing that to 1983, before the massacre of the vets), and then again from about 1989 to 1993-ish. So more than 35 years. Granted, I felt the writing slipped in quality during James Lipton's runs (circa 1967 and 1974; I forget exactly, after all these decades), but stalwart producer Lucy Rittenberg was always there to keep the light shining bright and on course. So even when the writing was somewhat weaker, the series continued to be a good soap. For the rest of the 1950-to-1982 time period, the writing was quite good-to-excellent. Knowing that Irna Phillips was guiding the show from 1937 to 1949, I'm tempted to opine that it was undoubtedly great then as well, but since my history with TGL only began in 1950, I won't try to critique the first dozen years which I did not experience first hand. If I did go with my gut and assume the years 1937-1949 were as good as all Irna's other work during her heyday, then TGL's run of quality would be...half a century!

People often ask me to specify my personal favorite soap opera of all time, or the single best daytime drama of all time, but those are tricky questions to answer. Daytime serials routinely have major ups and downs throughout their lifetimes, and all the long-running shows have had both stellar years and painfully-subpar years. My own favorites are whatever soaps are beautifully done at any given time. My favorite soap in, say, 1976 is not necessarily still my best-loved program in 1980. It all depends on the writing, producing, and actors/characters involved at the moment.

Right. By 1984, the venerable, stable and classy The Guiding Light was no more. Overrun with often-irrelevant and/or abrasive newbies, and featuring low-brow, far-fetched fantasy and "camp" plots, the next several years saw the light dim significantly.

Jon-Michael Reed's obvious vexation at TPTB's destructive decimation of a once-fine show permeates his critique. All the gratuitous changes infuriated longtime fans, and ended up crippling The Guiding Light in the long run.

Sadly, considering how incompetent and out of touch with both the show and its audience TPTB were during TGL's last few decades, I'm sure that is exacly what they would have thought.😑💩

I would rather watch a thousand mob-inspired shoot-outs in the Bauer kitchen than have any Bauer associated romantically with the dreaded Buzzard. 🤮

I'd say the first year, from 1973 to 1974. 1975 was excellent as well. Considering how god-awful the P&G soaps were during their final years, the fact that someone like Alan got hired just...sums up the problem.

I would say that Lemay was also not very adept at penning "business intrigue" stories or murder mysteries and trials.

Unfortunately, the writing was weak (Lemay's material started to deteriorate around 1975) and Susan Harney just did not have chemistry with anyone. It was a stark contrast to Courtney, who had had such magnetic chemistry with George Reinholt, and who exuded an indefinable "star appeal," which even Harding Lemay later acknowledged. It was similar to when Bennye Gatteys replaced Denise Alexander on Days of Our Lives. Harney and Gatteys were okay on their own, but paled in comparison to Courtney and Alexander, and the fans never really warmed up to the replacements as they had the original actresses.

Actually, the adoption story was never mentioned as any part of the reason Courtney was fired. She (rightfully) opined that Alice becoming romantically involved with Willis was illogical given their history. Courtney did begin the adoption story, which was later continued with Harney. At one point, JC's Alice signed paperwork to get Sally, while remarking that she couldn't bear to lose the child too, after the other recent tragedy in her life. Courtney and Cathy Greene (Sally) worked together long enough for JC to acknowledge in the press: "I really loved that child as my own!" The whole story did seem to peter out and end abruptly. I always thought that one of the main problems was that Jacqueline Brookes came across as so weak, bland and wishy-washy as Beatrice, and that long-time viewers were not warming up to Harney's version of Alice.

That is actress Jennifer Leak, who played Greg Foster's love interest/former prostitute Gwen Sherman. She later played Olive Gordon on Another World.

Yes, that entire plot was jaw-droppingly stupid, and continued to butcher the show's already-damaged credibility. When Dorian confirmed that there was doubt as to whether or not that version of Victor was in reality the REAL Victor, I was mollified that TPTB were at least trying to do damage control. It did not solve or erase the problem, but it was better than nothing. Bringing back Aunt Meta absolutely shocked and thrilled me. The character's 1950 murder trial was the earliest plot in TGL's history that captivated me (and was one of the show's best of all time, IMHO). I doubt we would have seen Meta again if a star of Mary Stuart's stature had not been available, but we were lucky to have her back. Another unexpected, shocking, but thrilling set of returns.

Well, if you are the one who cleaned it up and upgraded the video as much as humanly possible, then you deserve a round of applause too. I notice that in the comment section, one snarky poster felt the need to leave a (really stupid) reply. Don't take the trolls seriously.

Another trader once sent me an entire slew of SFT eps (maybe 16, IIRC) from 1966. They were excellent. But material from the 1970s is even more difficult to find. Even if this Youtube channel only shared brief clips of all the Mary Stuart eps from way back then, it's wonderful to know that the full-length episodes probably still exist in the uploader's collection.

I agree. I basically think of her Margo as a cold, shrewish harpy. Yuck. Dolan is my least favorite of all four Margos.

It was discussed on-air during the 1970s that Victor Lord knew Meri was not his daughter.

Would that REEEEEEALLY be so bad? 🤔🤭

Michael Ingram was playing Vinnie when the character died. Vinnie and Viki had a nice, poignant scene in the Carriage House that she shared with Joe Riley, in which she told Vince what a decent human being she had always known him to be. I was soap-savvy enough to realize this was foreshadowing the character's demise. Then, after Vince died, Larry went to view the body ("played" by Ingram), said goodbye and kissed him on the forehead. So the "Jim Craig funeral Vinnie" must have been a temporary or emergency recast, and then Ingram returned to play out the character's final days. And that is very true: Jimmy Jonz, who portrayed Tony Lord immediately after George Reinholt, is not listed in any of the history books or on line anywhere. Certain actors and characters truly do fall through the cracks completely.

That's not Michael Ingram, but it's weird OLTL recast the role just for this. And the child is not the same one from the 1970s, but did do a fine job here.

Why TPTB sidelined Fulton/Lisa, and kept her in the degrading position of a glorified day-player for so many years is a mystery none of us will ever have the answer to, alas. I've always been perplexed why they didn't just fire her completely, instead of just giving her a scrap or two here and there.