CBS cancels Guiding Light

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Now that GL is canceled, I wonder if P&G will lease some episodes to Hulu to broadcast, like they did with AW. They started AW with episodes from 1991, where SoapNet left off, it would be a treat if they started GL from the same era - the beginning of Curlee's work.

[CSF]

Out of curiosity, why did SoapNet stop airing Another World? Did their contract expire or something?

[MarkH]

Reportedly, unmeasurable ratings (Ratings of ZERO) for some airings.

Not enough people watched to count.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It was pulling in HORRIBLE ratings for SoapNet. I think it was reported that its 18-49 demo ratings was almost nonexistent in terms of people in that age bracket watching.

But as I was watching it, it just seemed like run-of-the-mill soap to me. Donna Swajeski's writing is just blah to me, I wonder how much better that show would've been had Harding Lemay was actually allowed to stay before Swajeski was chosen over him.

[CSF]

Thanks for that info!

[RavenWhitney]

One need look no further than Wednesday, April 8 episode of GL to understand the reason the show was canceled. It's just run out of steam; the writers and producers are tired adn out of ideas. The governor, the judge, Philip's release. I wrote better scripts in my elementary school writing tablets when i was 10. Daisy with James. Daisy born in 1987 and James born in 2000...James who was originally thought be be Jim Lemay's son...Daisy's adopted father. Casting Zack Conrad as James; he's hot and he may be able to act but he's not believable as the son of beth and philip. The remy/christina thing...there isn't anything more painful to watch than Lawrence St. Victor try to say ambulance. And that awful performer who plays Christina. The wide eyed look isn't acting; she looks like someone's jabbing a hot poker up her tushy. Oh....the whole episode was beyond embarrasing. No wonder Nancy Curlee can't watch...it's torture for those of us who remember the great times on the show. Sad..I don't think I can watch this train wreck for the next six months.

[Adam]

I am no avid watcher of GL, but word.....

People need to face facts, this show is dead and trying desperately to continue it on in another medium is just going to make it that much more painful. Let us remember the good years..... for those years the show will always remain a staple of the genre and will never be forgotten.

[CSF]

:lol:

I almost peed a little reading that.

[bellcurve]

LOL. RavenWhitney!

[jfung79]

I have loved this week's episodes, sorry! See my posts in the GL April discussion thread for some of the things I have liked. James and Christina are favorites of mine.

If you don't like the show, don't watch. You don't see me posting in every show's threads that I've stopped watching about why it has to die, and actively urging on their cancelllation. I recognize that other people can still find joy in things I personally might not.

[jfung79]

"We all"do not agree any such thing! And what negative impact? It is not an either/or situation where there can be no huge sendoff if the show continues. If anything, it may only be *if* the show continues that there will be an event out of the last days on CBS, and acknowledgment of what has come before, to entice people to stick with the show. Otherwise, the show may just limp to an end like most cancelled soaps do, especially given CBS's lack of willingness to spend any money.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Yeah, this has not been a stellar couple of weeks, that's for sure. The quality is all over the place and that's what's most frustrating to me. It doesn't just completely outright suck in every way like it did 6-9 months ago because the Natalia/Olivia story has gained a great deal of context and tension since then and Phillip's return has elevated what is very stale material for the Spauldings but, everything else is still painfully bad.

ITA and I just can't get beyond that. Daisy is such a drag on this show not only because she's been braindead, petulant, and unbearable since her return but because they insisted on deSORASing her because they couldn't bear to age Harley by making her daughter her real age. Even with no SORASing, Susan/Daisy should be 22 years old not STILL 18! It's an insane mess. As you point out, Daisy was born in 1987, James in 2000, and Leah in 2004 but they're all 18?! Maureen and Clarissa, born in 1998 and 1999, are both 10?! And Lizzie and Marina, born in 1990 and 1993, respectively, are older than Daisy?!

As for James, it's amazing that they could cast somebody as perfectly suited to be Beth's daughter and Lillian's granddaughter as Marcy Rylan, who also works so well with GA despite never having worked with him before, and yet find a James who shares no characteristics with anyone in his family at all. I'm not sure I'm convinced that he can act yet although I can already tell that he's not a Marty West. But even Brando couldn't make Dennison better. She's a big black hole of suck as will this lame-ass impending Romeo & Juliet rip-off as UnderwearModelJames & DingBatDaisy fall in wub despite the objections of their families: TheSaintlyCooper clan and TheSourceOfAllEvilSpauldings. Wait a minute, didn't they already do this story with Coop & Lizzie? And Marina & Alan-Michael? And Harley & Gus? And Alex & Buzz? And Harley & Phillip? And Lucy & Alan-Michael? And Harley & Alan-Michael? Yawn.

I've read alot of posts by people who really like Remy & Christina and I just can't for the life of me figure out why. They're both boring and pointless and the actors are bland and charisma-free. Mel, Felicia, and Clayton are all far more interesting Boudreaus.

Some days are definitely harder to get through than others but at least you didn't have to watch Reva slobbering all over the kid she just had with her own sister's rapist, who has been canonized as a saint since being paired with her. Be grateful for that.

[Dan]

I'd agree with that. I put more emphasis on the sendoff myself partly because this will be the last time the show will have exposure to the entire viewing audience. There are still people who do not have cable access at home so not everyone will get to see the show continue no matter what. Plus, with the budget constraints that are surely to come should the show continue that a "huge sendoff" would be next to impossible should the show be cancelled after it moves. But I see no problem with letting the show close with a bang and then letting another channel pick up the story where it left off.

[alwild]

sad day for GL fans, well the petition to save the show is still going stronger than ever

[JackPeyton]

'That was insane'

Tracking 7 decades of Chicago's 'Light'

By Colleen Mastony | Tribune reporter

April 9, 2009

Cue the swelling synthesizer music. "Guiding Light"—the Chicago-born soap opera that became the longest running television drama in history—is on its deathbed. Poisoned by falling ratings and pushed off the cliff's edge by television executives, "Guiding Light" is clinging to life, with only a few short months left before it fades into oblivion.

Last week, the CBS announcement that the show will air its final episode Sept. 18 sent viewers reaching for their hankies. For many, the shuttering of "Guiding Light" seems akin to the death of an old, eccentric family member who—though she sometimes seemed a bit daft at the dinner table—never failed to entertain.

Over an amazing 72 years, the daytime soap opera captivated millions with emotionally fraught, frequently far-fetched, always suspenseful story lines. Kidnappings, emergency organ transplants, interrupted weddings, even human cloning. In fictional Springfield, anything was possible.

"We've had many, many people return from the dead. That happens on a regular basis," said Jill Lorie Hurst, a writer on the show. "We had actresses and actors who have been washed away by floods and experienced natural disasters and gone over a cliff in their cars."

Sometimes, that was all in one episode.

But now, the slow decline of the soap opera genre has claimed another victim. (Other recent soaps to fall by the wayside include "Port Charles," which closed in 2003, and "Passions," which ended in 2008.)

"It's the end of a cultural tradition," said Douglas Gomery, resident scholar at the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting. "These shows have been a tie among generations. Women watched the same soap opera that their grandmothers watched. The shows would go on and on, with Tolstoy kind of lengths, over decades. We don't have that anymore. We don't know if most shows will be on tomorrow."

Created in Chicago by the legendary Irna Phillips, "Guiding Light" was first broadcast in 1937. Born into a Jewish immigrant family, Phillips grew up in Chicago, studied drama and, while working as a writer at WGN in the 1930s, created "Painted Dreams"—believed to be the first daytime serial and the forerunner of the modern soap.

After "Painted Dreams" became a hit, Phillips began dashing off other serials. One of those was "Guiding Light," which debuted on NBC radio as a 15-minute "sins-and-sermons" show. Originally, the program focused on the fictional Chicago suburb of Five Points, a bustling community of immigrants where a kindly minister named Rev. John Ruthledge kept an old lantern—a "guiding light"—in his window, giving the story its name.

The show pioneered what would soon become standard soap opera fare: cliffhanger endings, hospital scenes, organ music, ambiguous paternity, murder trials and bouts of amnesia. Phillips launched more shows ("Another World," "As the World Turns" and "Days of Our Lives") and ran her empire from her apartment on North Astor Street, where a small marker remains today and cites her as "the mother of the soap opera." Though she died in 1973, Phillips' legacy lives on in the potboilers of daytime drama.

Through the years, "Guiding Light" wasn't all heavy breathing. The show tackled serious social issues, including teen pregnancy, sexual harassment and postpartum depression. After Hurricane Katrina, the cast and crew filmed a documentary in Biloxi, Miss., where actors—playing themselves—helped rebuild homes.

"We did the first cancer story ever back in the 1950s, the first mammogram story, the first cochlear implant story," said Hurst, the writer. "We were at our best when we were simple, romantic and family driven."

But even the more bizarre tales could resonate deeply.

"We did a cloning story in the 1990s, and I was very resistant. I did not want to tell that story," said Hurst, referring to a controversial narrative in which character Josh Lewis creates a clone of his on-again-off-again wife and lover Reva O'Neill. "But, by the end, I loved that darn clone. I cried when she died."

Robert Newman, who plays Josh Lewis, admitted feeling conflicted about some of the more outlandish twists. "I cloned my dead wife!" he declared, still seeming startled by the idea. "I mean, that was an insane story line. It was just crazy as hell."

But even if events seemed unbelievable, other actors said they enjoyed the chance to stretch their dramatic skills.

"My character has been swept away by a flash flood and she's been locked in a castle and had to escape by climbing out the window and going down a rope. For a while, when I first came on the show, I was aphasic—unable to speak—and I couldn't remember my history," said Beth Chamberlin, who plays Beth Raines, a character who has multiple-personality disorder, has gone blind and, after she regained her sight, watched her 7-year-old daughter kill a man.

Yet all of that was pure fun for Chamberlin, who said: "It's been an incredible gift to have the opportunity to play all of these things. As an actress you can not ask for more."

The ensemble filmed a show a day, covering roughly 350 pages of material a week and producing 250 shows a year. The cast and crew would accomplish in one day what a nighttime program would normally take a week to produce.

"The scenes came fast and furious. It was like doing a one-act play, every day," Newman said. Through the years, production accelerated so that now, "there's virtually no rehearsal."

In an effort to boost ratings, the show launched a major overhaul last year, adopting hand-held cameras, more realistic four-wall sets and an increasingly mobile approach to shooting, with locations in Peapack, N.J., and recently in Orlando. But the changes failed to prop up the show. It remains ranked last among nine daytime dramas, with an average 2.2 million weekly viewers, down from 7 million in the 1988-89 season. Last week, executives announced that the program had been canceled by CBS.

Though the last episodes have yet to be finalized, insiders say there will be no outlandish events—no time travel, no truth serums, no characters returning from the dead.

"We have a number of relationships that will come to a very satisfying place," said Hurst, the writer. "We want our audience to get what they want, to see people find their way back to each other, to see some families heal after a rough year. We may not have the numbers that anyone wants these days. But we have an extraordinarily loyal audience, and we want to honor them."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lif...9,0,76124.story