GL: Week of Nov. 26th

[MichaelGL]

The writers won't do a Mindy/Mallet/Dinah triangle cuz their too focuced on giving Harley and Cassie stories.

The potential is there, it's just that the writers just aren't using it.

A Mindy/Mallet/Dinah triangle would be good. Mindy and Mallet do have history. Hey, didn't Mallet have a part in helping Beth give birth to Lizzie?

[southsidegirl]

^^Yea, Michael he did. The way I remember it, He was driving Beth to the hospital and it was icy and was snowing. The car, either ran off the road or broke down and he carried her to the hospital. At least that's the way I remember it.

[Juliajms]

I really enjoy Cassie, but I agree other actresses should be used more. Blake and Edmund should be setting Springfield on fire right now.

I knew we wouldn't see the Bauers for Thanksgiving. Notice we rarely see Rick and Beth together. It really annoys me, but it's clear they are going to be dumped the second Beth finds out Alan is her child's father. I miss real Beth. She never would have given Alan the time of day.

[Vee]

This show blows through many of its random, nonsensical stories at lightning speed. I remember a few months ago Olivia was pining for her rapist and crazy-ass Brian Gaskill as FauxDylan was panting after Harley. Now in a fit of sheer randomosity, Olivia is supposed to be going after Gus, and Harley is all over Cyrus. What the [!@#$%^&*] is this show about? Where is it going? What are they doing? They have good actors and a good dialogue staff but virtually no budget and a lot of mostly bad stories (except a precious few). Why is Rafe not dead? Am I really supposed to take Alan's thing for Natalia seriously? Or Gus's? I've always loved Crystal Chappell but what is Olivia's character even about at this point? She's been with so many of the show's men but all the relationships, some of which might even have worked, run together in my mind, except maybe her with Phillip and Buzz. And what would Phillip even do if he was back? Edmund and Bill are great but why isn't Edmund seducing Cassie, who has now had a taste of the darker side with the loss of her daughter? I wouldn't want her crazy, just darker; this is the only time I have ever, ever been interested in that character. And as for Reva, who I've almost always despised, I hate Jeffrey but I like the way they write her now - realistically trashy, an aging good time girl. It's not always a pretty picture but it's authentic, and I never bought her as a sex goddess or raving beauty or princess - just a woman who loved sex. I prefer this take on the character.

I've always liked the Coopers but they should not be the only family and at this point while I like them, I really have little use for Cyrus or Marina. They need to go off the show and take a rest IMHO; her character is overplayed and while he's fun, his type is now very common on soaps.

[Greg's GL]

Yesterday's show (11/29) was pretty good, IMO. I have never been much of an Edmund/DAM fan, but this time around, his presence on the show has completely enthralled me. I can't really explain the reason why, but it's probably because Springfield is severely lacking a bad boy. Alan doesn't count. This regime seem to think that the Spauldings are "bad" and that's the way they write them. As a result, he's become somewhat of a cartoon cut-out, IMO. Perhaps Edmund is making me wish for the days of a true bad boy ala Roger. And he makes Cassie more palatable for me.

And Vee, I understand your point about Olivia. I absolutely LOVE Crystal Chappel. But it seems every regime has a different take on her character and subsequently, has been involved in a lot of unfruitful, forgettable romances. The reason she is "after" Gus now is simply idiotic. She's fearful of the imminent return of Philip (yeah, right), so she seeks protection from Alan. Alan wants Natalia for himself (never fully explained), so he gets Olivia to distract him. Lazy writing. The characters under DK show no reason or motiviation for their actions.

The show yesterday was very watchable mainly because of the performance of it's actors/actresses. I could have done without the Daisy/Natalia stuff, but other than that it was good.

And I am soooo missing Reva. I absolutely love KZ and that was another good point you have made about the way they are writing her these days, Vee. But of course, I have always loved Reva.

[Greg's GL]

LOL Julia. But you will always have me to discuss GL with. I've been watching this show for so long, I will stick it out til the bitter end.

[JackPeyton]

Have Olivia & Bill shared a scene yet? I loved them together.

[Greg's GL]

^ ^ Hey Jack. Yes, Olivia and Bill have had several scenes together, mostly discussing Emma. One of the first scenes they had Bill said something to the affect of "I can't do this again" to Olivia, which I assume was EW/DK's way of telling us that he no longer loved her and would not be put back with her.

I love DC's return, and right now, don't really mind that he's mad at Billy. But hopefully, things will get worked out between them and he won't keep acting like a jerk all the time.

[Farraday]

^^^ It was kind of a weird scene with Bill and Olivia. She knew right away that something was up and asked him what had happened to him. He kissed her to avoid answering the question which shocked her some. And that's when he went off on some tangent about how he couldn't be the same Bill who left Springfield anymore because everybody else was calling the shots back then and treating him like a kid.

[Vee]

It is completely unbelievable that someone has not killed Alan and burned the corpse by now. He seems to be twice the bad guy Phillip "died" as at this point and yet he still wanders around town. The only way to do something new with Alan is to make him vulnerable again, or to introduce a bigger threat, at least IMHO. The bigger threat should be Alex, but Alex is neutered because they've never really seemed happy with bringing Marj Dusay back (who I loved as Vanessa on AMC, but just don't care about this time around on GL), and should've held out for McKinsey or Constance Towers or something. Someone convincingly scary. Oh, sure, Alex did that whole business with Cyrus, Harley and Marina, but in the end that comes down to Alex being desperate for a man. That's not scary. When Beverlee McKinsey came on the screen, just her voice was enough to let you know you could be concerned. When Marj Dusay appears these days, I wait for Bea Arthur to appear with a rolled up newspaper and tell Blanche to get back to the sun room.

Olivia with Gus is so ridiculous it doesn't bear thought. CC's ITL scene where she struck her tragic bargain with Alan was very good, but only if you forget the history of characters - there is no way, IMHO, that Olivia should be able to get close to Gus, and there is no sane reason for Olivia to ever believe that Alan will put her interests before Phillip. Meanwhile, any stories with Phillip involved (or Ed Bauer, or Jonathan, really, despite his brief returns) are a lead balloon because we know none of them are coming back and GL will not put forth enough effort to change that (and I only really care about Phillip or Ed at this point). Oh, look, Harley's agency is going to look for Phillip. Gee, what are the chances they'll find him? And on top of all that, the Gus/Harley/etc story is so grossly misshapen and bloated. They both have too many romantic obstacles - Harley had Dylan, who now blessedly appears to be gone, and now they've tossed her into an unrelated story with Cyrus to take Dylan's place, and she looks like an aging ho. Gus has the dreadfully boring Natalia, but now he also has Olivia. How do you write for that?

The one thing I did like was little Will imperiously ordering his family to "all bow". That cracked me up. I always despised the San Cristobel crap from the very first day I saw it - I thought it was an embarrassing relic of Paul Rauch's royalty fantasy crap from his days on OLTL in the '80s - but there are some traces I think can be somehow kept, like Olivia, Will and Edmund. At first I didn't think that kid from The Omen could do anything but look spooky, but he seems a bit better lately.

It would be nice if they would cast a better, slightly older R.J. to compete with Will, since R.J. is one of the last really viable heirs to Roger Thorpe, whose bloodline I am more interested in. I had once, a couple years ago, come up with a byzantine mystery storyline involving Blake and Ross' SORASed twin sons (who, for the sake of plot convenience, were mildly retconned into being identical after all) that I thought was the perfect way to the future for a number of kids on the show, but so much has changed since then - Ross is dead, Blake is a non entity, and there would be little point in seeing that story done today. The fact of the matter is, thanks to Paul Rauch, Guiding Light has way too many kids, and you can barely keep them all straight. At least, I can't. Almost all the women are like brood mares, and while I was never a big fan of Cassie (until recently, and only then in terms of new story possibilities) or her seemingly endless stream of kids, with the way this show has been gutted, it seems more convenient and less messy to look at the kids nearer to the canvas than trying to do a story with the Marlers with them almost all gone.

I would still use Holly, though.

[Greg's GL]

Vee, I have to say that your posts on this topic have been very insightful. And again, IA with a lot of what you have posted (I feel like a broken record right now).

Alan Spaulding, and everyone with a last name of 'Spaulding' for that matter, are written (particularly under EW/DK) as cartoon villians. While they weren't always the most upstanding, moral citizens of Springfield, they did have some redeeming qualities. Other regimes found ways to humanize the clan that this writing regime is either unwilling or unable to do (even B&E were able to do this with Alan/Annie). Even Alan-Michael, historically a somewhat sympathic character despite his Spaulding last name, was recently returned to Springfield as a mushtache-twirling troublemaker. His character has always been torn between his Bauer/Spaulding roots but we saw none of this during his last return to town. And he actually SLEPT with Marina, whom he thought he fathered at one time! These characters show no rationale for what they do, nor are there any consequences for their actions. The characater of Alan does need some type of redemption, ala being stuck with Hope Bauer on a deserted island and coming back to town human again.

Olivia/CC is one of my favorite characters on the show and EW/DK have no idea what to do with her. They have transformed her into a man-chasing, manipulative wrench that seems to never be happy unless she's under a man. It's preposterous and a waste of a very talented actress. Crystal Chappel should be (one of) the stars of this show, not a supporting character. Her and Blake together in a story would be very interesting and would help to re-incorporate the Marlers back into the fabric of the show.

The bloodline of Roger (RJ and Peter) should not be thrown aside. I do believe the reason that EW/DK have Alan doing all these non-sensical things is because there aren't any other villians on this show! Springfield NEEDS EDMUND to stick around. To kill him off, as appears to have happened today, is a huge mistake. But then again, EW/DK probably think that having one "villian" (Alan) is enough. Ugh.

Hopefully I haven't veered too far off course with this topic being the weekly discussion of GL. But I think it's all very appropriate. What do you think Julia? You always have a different take and I wouldn't mind reading your thoughts on this. Or Michael - you've started watching again. Any thoughts so far??

[Vee]

Agreed that it's gotten off topic. Maybe some other time or other thread. But yes, the show does need Edmund, despite his origins, to take the onus off the endless Coopers vs. Spauldings - and more Thorpes, too. Sebastian was pretty flaming but he could've made Olivia his Bride of Thorpe. Come to think of it, maybe that twins thing could work.

[Greg's GL]

^^^ Right. Maybe we could continue further discussion under the "State of GL" thread further down. This has been a very interesting topic thus far.

On to today's episode, I'm wondering if we're seeing cracks in the still under-developed story of Reva and Jeffrey? After his admission to her today and given her reaction, things aren't looking too peachy. I guess EW/DK probably couldn't stand the fact that a thrown-together coupling like Jeffeva was immensely more popular than their beloved CRASH?!? Hmmmm.

[sungrey]

OK, I'll bite. I don't post enough about GL as it is even though it's one of the three shows I regularly watch.

I have been a DK supporter for the most part since he came on board, but he's been slipping as of late. It's like he's hit a wall, whether it's budget-related or whether he's just run out of ideas. And the ideas he does have tend to veer all over the place.

I don't think it was a very good idea to bust up Gus and Harley. Is this a case, kind of like Bob Woods and Hillary Smith over at OLTL, where the rumor was they didn't like working with each other so fans haven't gotten the Nora/Bo reunion they've wanted for years? If Beth and Ricky aren't on good terms, can't they get past it on screen?

The same for Marina/Cyrus... Harley has no place in the story. For the first time since Mandy Bruno took over Marina, I feel like the character has a purpose and a real storyline. The last time I felt Marina had that big a place on the canvas, Aubrey Dollar was playing her (which tells you how long ago THAT was)... Mandy works very well with Murray Bartlett and the two have good chemistry.

Olivia's heart problem may or may not be a convenient plot point. Is it something where if Crystal doesn't renew her contract then the character conveniently drops dead? Once again, it's called follow-through. It's a good idea, but can you execute it from beginning to end?

This could give Ava a chance to bond more with Olivia. It's a telling statistic when I think I'm writing Michelle Ray Smith better on Somerset (my SONBC blog -- she plays Annabella on it) than DK is on GL. She's a decent actress -- not great, but decent -- but more than anything her character has suffered from the hot potato syndrome. Put her with Coop... no wait, put her with Alan Michael... wait, no, make her Olivia's daughter... it's hard to like the character when the writer doesn't know what to do with it.

I'll leave my personal views on the subject out of this, but I think Daisy having an abortion on GL is just symptomatic of P&G not caring about the show. In the old days, DK would have been shot down in flames by Cincinnati over this story. Changing times? Changing values? P&G used to rule its shows with an iron fist, but now it seems like they're on the sidelines. Either way, Daisy going through with an abortion and then reconnecting with Rafe a few weeks down the road is just sloppy writing. I think if someone I was seeing aborted my child behind my back, I'd think twice about getting back together with them this quickly.

Josh/Cassie and Jeffrey/Reva just don't cut the mustard for me. I'm not a rabid Josh/Reva fan, but I would think keeping your signature couple sidelined with the Nielsens the way they are isn't the way to gain new viewers, much less bring back the old viewers who may have given up on the show in disgust.

Whew. Maybe there's more wrong with this show than I realized. I'm sticking with it, but CBS can't ignore the fans on this for much longer. Maybe this belongs in the state of GL thread below.

[Vee]

I'm just glad any soap let any character go through an abortion. Frankly it seemed for a long time like soaps had wound the clock back on pro-choice stories - just look at what Reilly did to Mimi on DAYS. But I agree Daisy and Rafe being sweetness and light immediately after is insane.