GL: March Discussion

[DRW50]

I don't remember CvZ being this bad before her operation. Did she just have better writing then? Or was she just more tolerable as a sympathetic character? Ashlee is horrible now. Those scenes with Lizzie, gah.

I don't mind Daisy if they can stop the Grady nonsense and give her better direction.

Whenever I hear "She makes me happy" I think of the Kermit/Miss Piggy duet from Muppets Take Manhattan. Imagine Otalia singing that for Emma's mother/mother talent show, or something. Cue the angst.

[Dan]

Call me crazy, but I wish Frank would have died instead of Coop. I could at least stand seeing John Driscoll in a scene and not want to put my hand through the tv. Not to mention that I truly do not get the brouhaha of the gun in the first place. Sure he shot off a gun but he also kept two grown men from killing each other at a funeral. From where I come from, that's a good thing... Not to mention that Phillip was the sole voice of sanity in that entire room. But whatever. This is why I can no longer stand the Coopers, every blasted one of them are sanctimonious assholes. Bring me back my Bauers. At least Ed KNEW he was [!@#$%^&*] screwed up lol.

[UCLAN]

I agree that Natalia and Olivia were the noteworthy story of the day. I'm sure some weren't fond of the Bible-thumping today, but I really enjoyed it because it was a realistic reaction for someone whose religion is a big guiding influence on their life. She's questioning her own actions and ethics, not simply of bedding Frank, but of her growing attraction to Olivia. She's going through this journey of self-discovery and it is very interesting to watch.

That's why I enjoy their story. Natalia is going through a journey of self-discovery. I like this Natalia so much more than when she first came to town. I am looking forward to see how this story plays out.

[Dan]

Come on GL! You're beginning to blow it! You have all this positive buzz for the first time in eons and what do you give us to followup? Endless scenes of Jeffrey caterwalling, Grady skulking around town like Jack the Ripper, and the tru wuv of Mallet/Marina. Let's go. This is sweeps now. The big time. Let's get the show on the road and get rid of the cancers NOW!

Yet again, the highlight was Olivia and Natalia. Their scenes have such an honesty to them that the rest of the show seems to lack. Honestly, I don't really care that Shayne is mourning Lara. I never "met" her and I never got an opportunity to invest in her and care for her as a character. Why should I care if she died? And why should I care that Marina and Mallet haven't received a child after 2 full months of marraige?

Why should I care that Jeffrey is having a hard time letting go of his control over the situation? I truly believe this story would be so much BETTER with Josh as the father and the love in Reva's life at this juncture. I could even agree with some of Josh's opinions in the situation because Jeffrey is just a complete and utter tool that I mute every scene he is on.

And why should I care that Reva was so happy to see Colin? If he is one of the many returns we've been promised, I'm dissapointed. I'd just as soon see the mailman return than him.

[Phoenix11]

Once again, Otalia today... killed me... I LOVED Josh and Reva back in the day... rushed home from school to see the show to see them... but I have never felt this way about a couple the way I do Otalia... CC and JL are just... ... I'm gonna be a wreck by the time they finally get together!

I really enjoyed today's show all around... Shayne/Marina and Mallet/Dinah were where they should be... it was so nice to see Colin again too!

[Greg's GL]

OK. So I have been waiting, trying to watch, to see if all this GL hype is for real. If JLH was the saving grace that we've been waiting for ever since Crapzman took over. If Wheeler suddenly became a competent EP. And I'm sorry my friends. But the answer to both is a resounding "NO". The emperor has no clothes.

I'm sorry. I may be posting this observation in the wrong thread (I think it technically happened in Feb), but the episode with Justin Deas and the sublime Fiona Hutchison were, in a word, HORRIBLE. Don't get me wrong. With Coop on his deathbed, Buzz should have been reliving the things he shared with his son. That was appropriate. What made it completely shitty for me was the fact that TPTB (Wheeler and JLH) decided to "recreate" the scenes instead of giving us the REAL scenes that we watched when it happened. We should have seen flashbacks of Jenna's death. Flashbacks of Buzz interacting with his son that WE SAW on screen. Perhaps the scenes with Buzz sending Coop away never happened on screen back then, but they shouldn't have tried to recreate that with a man that looks like he's waaaay too old to have an 8 year old boy!

The bottom line is the production values are horrible. The sound is still fucked up. The pacing is non-existent. There MAY be one or two good stories, but the rest of the show is crap. Where's Reva? Why wasn't she there to comfort Buzz when he lost Coop? They were married at one time and are still good friends. The absence of Harley in this story is a gaping hole. I am not the biggest Harley fan, but the fact is that she is the heart of the Cooper family much more so than Buzz has been lately.

And the couples on this show. GMAMFB. Are there any happy couples besides Mallet/Marina (ZZZZZ) or the rapist and Reva? It's insulting.

It's great that Phillip is back. Olivia and Natalia are somewhat interesting. nuShayne is great. Outside of that, what do we have???? Really? A (mostly) great cast wallowing in idiotic stories with no sense of why the characters do what they do. Actors being forced to sweat (or in this case freeze) their "balls off" in Peapack, NJ in scenes that make absolutely no sense. Subpar production values. Horrible sets. Horrible sound quality. HORRIBLE sound tracks (I'm sorry but a legacy character like Coop dying while some "contemporary" music plays in the background completely takes the dramatic affect away from the scene).

This show still has a long. long, long way to go.

[Dan]

Let's be honest, Justin Deas looked too old to have an 8-year-old son back when he HAD an 8-year-old son.

[DRW50]

I was of two minds with the recreated flashbacks. I can see where you're coming from. I think aside from the scene where Jenna told Coop the truth, I don't think most of what they chose to recreate was that essential to be shown in original form. I think showing Jenna's death would have been overkill on the grief.

Reva had scenes with Buzz a few days after Coop died. I'd always like to see more with them, but I think showing her at the hospital with Buzz would have overshadowed him.

I was a big Harley fan for years, but I think she had become a very empty character some time before Beth Ehlers left. Most of her relationships in the Cooper family seemed strained and had none of the energy they once had. I think Buzz is probably the heart of what is left of the Cooper family, for me the family just hasn't had any heart since Nadine died. They are low on actors who have charisma.

I know what you're saying, but sadly, that GL has three very good elements means they have a few more than most of the other soaps at present.

If they don't cut out the crud with the kidnapping and Grady if they keep on with the current lackluster Spaulding/Cooper feud, the show will not improve, but I think what you mentioned is strong enough that they can improve, if they make the effort.

The production values still don't bother me. I don't know why, I'm probably one of the few who isn't bothered by them. The music DOES bother me and I have to resist to urge to write a letter to GL, since I doubt a letter will change anything.

[Dan]

I can't believe I'm saying this considering everything I've said about GL for years, but I agree and disagree with you Greg. The show does have alot to improve upon. Namely, the complete removal of the albatrosses known as Jeffrey, Grady, Mallet, Marina, Ashlee, Daisy, and Cyrus. However, some of the things we've been hearing for the future do sound promising, which is why I'm going to keep GL on my tv schedule for awhile. Obviously, the show needs to improve, but what good there is right now is really quite good.

Again, I agree and disagree with you. On one hand, i think we could deal with the original flashbacks and the difference in quality between then and now. If the writing is good, the fans can overlook a great many things. In fact, there's one great scene between Buzz and Coop on a park bench circa 1997 I wish we would have seen again. However, the recreations weren't all that bad either. I think Carl had said that some of them were written verbatim from the original scripts.

I loved Harley, but Ehlers needed a break. She completely phoned it in her last four years on the show.

Agreed. None of the couple on the show currently are the ones that SHOULD be on the show. Josh and Reva should have been back together or working their way slowly back together like yesterday. Thank God Beth and Alan are through, but I wouldn't mind a Phillip/Beth reunion right now.

The music does bother me. And the scene you are talking about with "Downtown" blaring in the background pissed me off to no end. However, I disagree with the rest of production values. I think the last month has been a bit of a vindication to me considering some of us were saying that the production values weren't the problem, the writing was. When GL showed flashes of brilliance last month--when Phillip tenderly helped Beth out of her blood-stained wedding dress, when Buzz softly sang "Downtown" to a dead Coop, when Daisy and Reva discussed love and loss, when Jenna and Buzz reunited--I didn't CARE that the sets weren't up to par or that the shots were a bit claustrophobic or the sound quality wasn't very good. I was swept up in the moment and to have GL do that for me again was really quite nice. I'm just hoping they can follow up on that, continuing what works and throwing out what doesn't.

[Greg's GL]

Eh. Maybe. But 15 years ago, Deas looked a hell of a lot more convincing than he did last week.

Good points, Carl. I don't really particularly agree with the "overkill on grief" with Jenna's death, because this is a soap. As much as EW has tried to recreate GL to be the antithesis of it, it still is supposed to be a SOAP. I think seeing Buzz relive Jenna's REAL on-screen death when thinking of his own son's impending death (she was his mother) would have been very soapy. And I would have loved seeing those scenes again. It would have given the story alot more drama and shown the history of the show.

I hear ya on the Cooper clan. EW/DK completely destroyed the Harley character for a lot of viewers, especially when she started sniffing around her niece's boyfriend. And like I said, I was never (even in the Harley heydays) a big Harley fan, but since she left - for me - there is a void in that family. Her daughter is still hanging around town whoring around with the loser from the outback and no one seems to care! Even though I didn't like Harley, she had a way of bringing the family together in the tough times. I like Buzz, but he never had that because of his history with abandoning his family when they needed him.

I guess I'm too old school to look past the production issues. One of the biggest issues is the "edgy" music that EW seems to think adds value to dramatic scenes. What is she thinking?!?! All one has to do is look to Y&R and the way they have dug out the old scores and the fans reaction to them to realize how important this is to dramatic storytelling. But when you see snowfall in one scene and obvious melting snow in the very next, you have to ask yourself WTF is going on with the show.

I would love to be enjoying the show like some of y'all are. Believe me. There are just too many issues remaining for me to join the club. The cast is fantastic - Reva, Dinah, Beth, Shayne, Olivia, Natalia, Buzz, Phillip, Lizzie, Bill. But if the story and production aren't there to support it, it falls flat for me.

[Dan]

Oh I agree greatly with both of these. Whoever this new Supervising Music Director Gabrielle Solarino (sic) is, she needs to rethink her musical vision for the show because it just isn't working. Whoever thought I'd miss Robyn Cutler?! And yes, I don't know the logistics of soap music themes (does the show still own them outright or do they have to still pay royalties to the composers?), but I would kill to hear some of the older cues.

And yes, the scene continuity needs to improve too. Surely it is not impossible for them to CHECK WEATHER.COM BEFORE SHOOTING IN PEAPACK! Or even shoot one episode's outdoor scenes together.

[Soapsuds]

I see Greg's point of view. I too wasnt thrilled with the recreated flashbacks. Were they trying for us not to remember the good old days of better production values?? The show will never return to the production values it once had. It has been nice to see Phillip and Co. back but of course GL has so many problems. The show was in the bottom of the toilet. At least for me the show isnt sitting at the bottom anymore but a bit higher from the toilet...lol...but not by much. Any improvement is a positive. They still need to get rid of a lot of dead weight characters like Dan mentioned.

[Greg's GL]

It's good to see you in the GL discussion thread, Dan. I've always enjoyed your insight into the show. And your avatar is one of my fave GL memories!!! That being said....is the "quite good" enough to overcome the albatrosses??? For me, the answer is a resounding NO.

If TPTB are worried about the difference in quality between 15 years ago and now, then they should be! That's no excuse - at least for this viewer - to recreate scenes that never happened with someone that looks (now) too old to be playing the scenes. If EW was a competent EP, she would have found a way to make it work regardless of the realities of producing GL budget-wise between then and now. I am not going to give her a pass on that one simply because she's partly responsible for sinking GL to it's current bottom of the barrel ratings.

IA Dan. BE was phoning it in for quite some time before she quit. Most definitely.

Dan! IA that a Phillip/Beth reunion (done right) would breathe some life into this show.

Dan, you make some good points. But the only response I have is Tammy's Death. Brilliant. Some of the best soap opera I have seen within the last few years. And a month later....complete crap. That's one of the BIG problems with this show. There are times when it's soap wonderland. But those times don't last and you're left with 8 months of nothing special. It's like going outside in FL in August without "OFF" on and thinking that tomorrow the misquitoes won't be so bad. But they are. And they will be until something drastic happens to change the situation like never going outside again or always going out with something protecting you from the horror that will eventually happen!!!

[DRW50]

I think part of a soap is balance, which GL struggles with and has for a long time. I actually was hoping they'd have a scene with Jenna and Coop together after Coop's death, just to balance all the devastation. I think Jenna dying young was an implicit part of the story, but trying too much to crush the viewer might make the scenes too difficult for people to watch. I was watching Coop's death with my aunt, who recently started GL again, and she was so upset about seeing him die, seeing Jenna die again would have been too much for her to sit through.

Speaking only on a personal level, I didn't want to see the scenes again because they would have made me angry. Killing Jenna was a huge mistake and the story was dumb and rushed. GL killed so many people in the 90s who should have been key characters. I preferred seeing more of what Jenna and Buzz were when she was alive.

I don't even know if Harley had the same hack job done on her most of the other characters had with EW/DK. The Cyrus story was crap but even then it was nothing compared to what happened to some other characters. I think Beth Ehlers just stopped caring. When I look at Beth, who has had years of insane, horrible, character-shattering stories, I still see the Beth I knew, because of Beth Chamberlin. Beth Ehlers had a spark which slowly dimmed after her return (the last time Harley was the Harley I spent so long rooting for was when she came back for the 60th anniversary and fought with Reva in the ladies room). What Harley was supposed to be is what Dinah is now. Gina Tognoni brings life to anything she's given. That's what Beth Ehlers used to do.

I think she would have been out of place as the center of this story because she barely had a relationship with Coop. He was Buzz's son and represented all of Buzz's failings as a father and a man.

I just think the Coopers don't have any charisma to them. The last person in the family who did was Aubrey Dollar as Marina. There was a fire in her eyes. When they do the "rah rah Coopers" I don't care anymore because there's no one who shines the way early Harley, early Marina, Nadine did. I don't know what can help them now. As much as she annoyed me, I think bringing Sonia Satra back for a visit might not be a bad idea, because she did have some of that (for lack of a better word) spunk which the family could use.

Believe me, I know GL has plenty of problems. I get frustrated when I see them because I know the show can't afford to have these problems.

The biggest reason I keep watching now, even though I know I could run off again as I have many other times this decade, is because some of what we're seeing now feels like "my" GL again, or some of it does. The proper use of history, the small, complex, psychologically interesting scenes between a few characters, the humor, the family, the sense of community. There's still nowhere near enough of that and I know I'm going on lowered expectations and those can't last forever. But for the first time in a long, long time, I see some of the GL I grew up with, the GL which was so strong before JFP run amok, before Rauch, before Conboy, and then EW/DK. I don't want to let that go again.

[Dan]

Aww thanks! And yes, I love me some Holly. I will absolutely [!@#$%^&*] my pants if Maureen Garrett comes back in ANY capacity.

As for your question, sometimes. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad, but as we've seen this week, when there's only a sparce good scene that completely keeps the episode from ruin, that does tell us that we still have a ways to go. And we do. I just hope that some of the things we've been hearing about for the future can help out.

EW is still on my [!@#$%^&*] list. She isn't off the hook for the last four horrible years of her tenure and the horrible decisions she has made.

I confess I never saw it. That was during MY "GL really sucks" period, lol. To be fair, that period only ended about a month ago lol.