Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

It's also a very strong scene to grab your attention. It also tells me that Elvera Roussell could have played a tougher Hope if they'd given her the chance.

[zanereed]

Carl,

I agree with you 100% - Roussell could have molded Hope into a much tougher person (because of her marriage to Alan). They could have kept the Bauer/Spaulding feud going on for several years if Mike and Hope had stayed on.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Don't really like this song, but I'm glad this clip included Holly's monologue at the beginning defending Roger to Fletcher and Nick, I hadn't seen that scene in a long time.

1994 was such a chaotic and messy year for the show, but I did enjoy parts of the "Who Shot Roger?" story.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tuY80_UmODE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[katie_9918]

And just think if Alan and Hope had actually stayed married, with a tougher Hope both loving and thwarting Alan at times. That would've made for some great Spaulding family dynamics, especially if Hope was still around when Alexandra showed up.

[Soaplovers]

I've seen a few 1983 episodes that featured Hope... and she seemed much less wish washy then she was during the Marland years. I really liked how she was written during the Dobson years (based on what I've seen).. and really hated how Marland made her so wimpy. It's a shame that Pam Long wrote her off months into her tenure because it would have been interesting to have Alexandra/Hope interact especially since it looked like they were putting Alexandra with her father Mike. Would have been interested to see Hope's reaction as well as Alan's reaction to his sworn enemy Mike dating his sister.

It is a shame that the Bauer/Spaulding feud was cut short especially given the build-up started by the Dobsons.

[RogerNewcomb]

It's too bad GL didn't value the character of Hope enough to bring her back.

I put up Part 1 of my Cindy Pickett interview:

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2012/11/cindy-pickett-interview.html

She was a real joy to talk with and remembers GL very fondly.

[zanereed]

Once again, thank you for this interview, Roger! I'm very glad that Cindy remembers this role so much and appreciated it. I certainly appreciated her work as Jackie!

Now I really want you to get an interview with Mart Hulswit!

[KMan101]

She looks AMAZING.

Damn. Good for her. Wow.

[DeliaIrisFan]

I also love this scene (so glad this episode is online 20 years later) but I have to say, I don't know that SS could have played this scene or Blake's transition as effectively as Liz Keifer did. I saw little of SS's time on GL and never watched ER or any of her other projects, but I tend to think of her Blake as being cold and kind of two-dimensional - which is not to say she wasn't entertaining or compelling. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think LK was the definitive Blake.

On that note, I forgot that Blake spent this Thanksgiving with Frank. As dopey as the non-story that brought them together in the show's final episode (literally) was, seeing some of these early scenes between them only reinforces that the fact that they did end up together was one of the things in the finale that I actually liked. I mean, after Ross had been killed off and JvD was under contract on another network, it made the most sense for Blake and made me happy. Not that SS's Blake didn't have material with Frank back then, and arguably the most memorable material - it was a backburner character dynamic that stayed consistent and endearing through both actresses.

Edited November 13, 2012 by DeliaIrisFan

[DRW50]

Sherry played a great deal of vulnerability in Blake, especially at the end. She managed to show Blake genuinely falling for Ross, not just using him. I remember being blown away by her work at the time, which is why, when she was suddenly gone (I didn't follow soap magazines at the time), I was gutted.

I liked the Frank/Blake friendship too. I remember when they had comfort sex in the diner, and for once, it was touching, instead of just flat and forced. I'm glad they got together at the end.

[DRW50]

Thanks for the interview. I saw her on Ghost Whisperer 4-5 years ago and her face looked very odd, but she looks a little better here. I'm glad to hear so many memories, especially about her casting, that we never would have heard anywhere else. I'm glad people still remember her. I sure wish her entire run was available, but I'm very grateful for what we have seen. She was wonderful as Jackie, and so complex, in a way soap characters aren't now. What I like best about the writing of that period is you can see so many emotions on the faces of the characters, in just one scene, one glimpse.

[DeliaIrisFan]

'

Oh yeah, she and Ross had a great dynamic, but with Holly, I never saw SS's Blake as anything but a petulant child having a tantrum. Again, I only saw bits and pieces. I just feel like LK had great comedic timing and could pull off the bitchy Blake, but she also brought a vulnerability with Holly and Roger.

[DRW50]

I think part of that was down to the writing for Holly and Blake at that point, which was mostly Holly the protective, if flawed, mother, and Blake screwing up. The material which took Holly to a darker place was Keifer's.

One of the only real flaws with GL at that time was when they used vital characters as plot devices (that's all Alan-Michael was for years and years). I think Blake suffered from that during much of Sherry's run. But her work with JvD was just incredible. I think some of it is fantasy on my part, because we never saw her in a daily relationship with him, as we did see Keifer, but they had such explosive chemistry. I missed it for a long time, even though Keifer and JvD were also great, and probably better suited in the long run.

[DeliaIrisFan]

True. Still, I don't know if I could have bought SS's Blake playing the victim to Holly at her maternal worst, though, after all that Blake put Holly through. I give LK a lot of credit for stepping in at such a pivotal point in the story and staying true to what had actually transpired between the characters, but showing a slightly different perspective. In hindsight, I would have thought that, compared to the revolving door of underwhelming Mindy recasts and the year-long search for a new Alexandra, more notice would have been given to LK for pulling off a successful recast of a popular actress who just picked up right where her predecessor left off. (I think they gave viewers a good six months to forget Kimberly Simms's Mindy. But maybe part of what helped was that Blake was part of a vital story, but Mindy wasn't really needed?) The show would have been really hard to watch at that time with a disastrous Blake recast, on top of all the other cast shake-ups that left voids that were not filled as successfully (including Maureen).

[DRW50]

I think there was a certain spark which was lost between the recasts, although with both Sherry and Keifer, I think Blake was always sort of a supporting character, and moved the stories of other people. While she still did so, the fact that she was allowed to be happy with Ross, and marry him, probably does show that Keifer was seen as a success by GL. Most of the other new actresses brought in at that time were given revolving door pairings, sometimes to a shocking degree (Tangie).

I think Mindy was needed, but not for the reasons GL thought she was. Mindy was an important part of the Lewis family, and a vibrant young heroine, sometimes anti-heroine. GL instead assumed she was just Nick's girlfriend. Their female lineup in that age range was a big weak spot because they struggled to write women outside of these pairings.

Edited November 13, 2012 by CarlD2