GL: September Discussion

[UKBoi]

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Discuss the end of Guiding Light here...

[UKBoi]

I cant figure out why this promo wont embed...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZR58OJKWqg

[YRBB]

Last ever GUIDING LIGHT thread.... it feels so weird.

[MichaelGL]

Ah UKboi you beat me to the punch.

Can I just say how much I loved anything Billy and Vanessa today. It's soap heaven. I seriously never thought these two would ever reunite.

[DRW50]

I never thought they'd get back together either, at one time I never even thought Jordan Clarke would be back on the show. I know they deserved more airtime but as someone who has loved this couple for ages I'm glad they will be together again when the curtain falls.

I keep thinking about so many people on this show who felt like family to me. Bridget and Maureen and Alex and Roger and Holly and Ed and Ross and Blake and Nadine and Harley and Gilly, and so many others. And I keep thinking about when I watched GL at my grandmother's house, and the various strangers I slowly pieced together in their relationships. Remember the days when there was no soap website which would tell you everything about everyone, and you would be shocked to suddenly learn so and so had once been married, or had an affair?

[UKBoi]

Finally got the promo to embed It's so sad...

I cant believe the oldest soap on the air will bow out in two weeks. It just doesn't feel real.

[Dan]

God, today's episode was draining. Seriously, I'm exhausted. I started crying when I saw Billy and Vanessa and I don't think I stopped until 11. Great family scenes with the Lewises and Reva. I even liked the added nugget that reminded viewers that Reva was initially brought to town by Alan to break up Vanessa and Billy, even though the dialogue was rather heavy-handed IMO. And the scene with Billy and Alan at FauxTowers.

But ever since I've watched the episode, a rant has been brewing in me. This is what the show should have been about. Why did it take cancellation for someone upstairs to think "Ya know, maybe we should actually give the fans what they want to see?" I would have loved to have seen a longterm storyline showing Vanessa seperate from Matt (logically) and grow closer to Billy, dealing with her hurt from all those years before when Billy descended into alchoholism again and shot Roger, leaving her alone during a brutal custody battle. And we should have seen Billy charm the pants off of her, but genuinely remorseful and trying to get his life back on track for her. Who would NOT have wanted that? Instead we got force fed couples and stories that an amateur could have written. I have YET to see a fan of Mallet and Marina. Never mind Cassie and Josh, Reva and Jeffrey.

I just saw a great spoiler for Bridget's return and I wonder, why couldn't that have been worked into a new storyline YEARS ago? Why couldn't they have recasted Peter, a child with ties to multiple families!? Instead we get Tom Pelphrey and his Zimmer-esque hammy acting and the Tammy/Jonathan pairing that ate the show whole. We get Rafe and Dim Bulb Daisy and Ashlee and Remy's idiot wife who is so forgetable I have yet to remember her name. It's absolutely incredible. That is why the show is so difficult to watch right now because even the great moments with family and long-wanted reunions just underscore how many missed opportunities there have been during the Wheeler and Conboy regimes.

There. Rant over.

One bad thing about today is that I will never get used to seeing prim and glamorous Alexandra eating a hot dog (!) from a Quickie Mart (!!). The show has become such a poor-man's GL that it is really hard to watch sometimes.

[P.J.]

I agree---I've finally gotten a little of the "community feeling" of Guiding Light back, when it's clearly too late. I FLOVE that Billy and Vanessa are reuniting, even if the story seems to be more focused on Reva's heartbreak than them.

I seriously think I have a block on it because her name's Christina and as far as I'm concerned, the only Christina worth watching on this show is Blake.

[DRW50]

I like Christina, I think she's a good throwback to some of the random supporting characters who used to populate soaps but who can fit into most stories. Every soap needs tiers of characters. I think I'd hate her if she took up too much airtime, like Marina, but she doesn't.

Dan, great post about today's show.

Alex eating a hot dog doesn't bother me as much as it should, because Alex has always had something of the common touch (she lived in a hovel in Paris when she chose her true love over her family, after all). I was really annoyed when they had Alan standing around in the Quickie Mart, because Alan has always relished his blue blood. And he only seemed to be there to get into a p!ssing contest with Shayne. Has he had any interaction with Shane until then? I guess no one else was onset for that scene with Shayne.

[DAMfan]

Can not believe GL will be replaced with Clam people who want $20 - we want our characters we love and we want to watch romance not a 50 year old game show.

[UCLAN]

today's episode was excellent. I had tears in my eyes for the entire show.

[Vee]

Unfortunately, the show still looks like [!@#$%^&*]. This production model is no model at all; Frank is in full makeup, says he's going to leave Company, and they immediately cut to some random street with no point of reference, as Frank, now with Beaver Cleaver moptop head, trundles up to Olivia in his "I'm a big boy" untucked shirt and frumpy slacks ensemble, and proceeds to give a big speech about how the world's gone mad and she should come to Natalia's sonogram appointment. Except we can barely hear his big speech because there's no proper sound equipment, and Frank is all but drowned out by a) ambient noise and the omnipresent shitty folk rock music. Later, Olivia gets the bad news from Phillip, but I can't hear a [!@#$%^&*] word they're saying thanks to that goddamn river. Then the other 65% of the episode is taken up by montage, sound and mute image all but smothering storyline, plot conveyed in heavy music video beats as opposed to dialogue or character; everyone becomes a rough thumbnail sketch of themselves as they pout and sigh around the sets or non-sets. Instead of talking about her issues, Olivia stands looking at the side of a house in the middle of nowhere. Image conveys what the show is too cheap and incompetent to begin to do. There's a lot to be said for montage technique as great art, in terms of how it can convey emotion and meaning, story and ideas. But when your show is nothing but bad montage, and the production values are nil, and the scripts are all but improv'ed, there is no core to uphold.

Everything is transitory, tissue-thin, slapdash; Maureen Garrett will appear for not one, but two episodes to do nothing (wow, two whole episodes?? Let's not get crazy!), while Ed delivers medical facts and stands around, and the long-missing Bridget Reardon is slated to play little more than an extra. And how about poor dying Phillip Spaulding? It's a good thing he was able to get most of his children to show up for his Viking funeral; we wouldn't want to overdo it by having, say, Zach show up when his father decides to tell his loved ones of his fate. And what about the Coopers (almost) going broke? Thank goodness the show didn't waste time by making, oh, say, Harley reappear when her family is in danger. I guess the hot dudes in Greece (and the pending criminal case against her) were too important for her or her son to return home to see to Buzz and Daisy. And don't ask Beth to have anything to do with the subplot about the publishing of Coop's last work; she can't hear you over the music!

I'm not surprised to hear about the rumored

That's typical Ellen Wheeler. She broke everything, she ruined it all, and now she wants to sneak out the fire exit after sort of half-assedly trying to "put everything back the way it was."

[Dan]

And yet Vee, despite all that, sometimes we STILL get a great performance from truly some of the best actors in daytime. It's not nearly as often as before March 2008, but the fact that they can still eke out a great performance is admirable. I've decided that anything good is a direct result of the actors and not the writing or the production. I refuse to credit Wheeler for anything.

As for today's show:

*F-U-C-K Otalia because the best same-sex romance on this show has and always will be Rick and Phillip, lol. They have as many ups and downs as Reva and Josh under their belt.

*I still hate the whole "Cyrus is Jenna's son" twist but it's at least a little better than the unknown relatives in England that Buzz schlepped Coop and Rocky to all those years ago. Despite the fact that Jenna's lack of family was one of the factors that caused Jenna to resort to crime That and a fiance that lost his money.

*I can't buy everyone's "Poor James" act. He's been nothing but a fuckup for the last several months. Oh boo hoo. He needs to grow a pair and grow up.

[Contessa]

Did I miss MG's second episode? I haven't watched this week. I hope I didn't miss seeeing her one last time. Love MG/Holly.

[Contessa]

LOL I agree.