Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[cassadine1991]

I wonder if Maureen would've approved of Danny and all the other choices Michelle made

[GMac]

I would have loved to have Rita back on GL. She was the reason I got hooked on this show! I always wondered why/how they never could get Lenore back for the role. She did other soaps after leaving GL.

With the passage of time, I'm on the fence with Maureen's death. I always looked at her as more of a Cooper than a Bauer, and thought that Holly should have been the matriarch of the Bauer clan. Or better yet, a recast Leslie with Mike. They could have recovered from her death more easily had one of those two things happened IMO.

[Mitch]

GASP!!! Cooper???? Surely you meant Reardon..Mo was in no way related to that scenery chewing waste of space Buzz and his historically revised "good core family," of self righteous twits!

Yea, I thought they were on a roll with Rick and Abbey being a nice core couple but then they never wrote for them and the actress left and O'leary started mugging non stop for the attention and well..it all went to hell.

[GMac]

ROFL! Yes, Reardon lol. What am I thinking?!?!?

[zanereed]

I wouldn't have wanted Mo with Fletcher. For some reason, I just didn't like Mo and Fletcher together at that point. I suppose I'm with Mitch on this one, but Fletcher started to wear on me as a character - I never could figure out why they ever paired Holly with Fletcher! But back to Mo - I really wish Mike Bauer had been in Springfield as a source of comfort for Mo. Ed was always the weaker of the two brothers, and I could see Mo being drawn towards Mike and vice versa.

Yep, they had another shot with Rick and Abby as the core couple (and Bauers, too), but they blew it.

Edited January 13, 2015 by zanereed

[vetsoapfan]

I had such a long history with The Guiding Light, and loved its storylines and core characters from 1950 to about 1983, and then watched in agony as incompetent, clueless powers that be started dismantling the core and turning the show into a low-brow campfest.

I kept hanging on, but nail by nail, they cemented that coffin shut.

I loathed:

--The 1983/4 cast massacre

--The start of the campy, stupid stories: The Dreaming Death, The Ghost in the Attic, Jonathan Brooks' Talking Computer

--The Grating Reva Show of the 1980s

--The Killing of Maureen Bauer

--The Firing of Michael Zaslow

--History Denied: Brandon Spaulding is Alive! Amanda Wexler is Alan's Sister! Springfield Patriarchs Went Fishing Together!

--The Replacement Beth Raines and her Ill-Defined Characterization

--Cartoon Harley

--The Santos Boobs...er, Mob

--San Cristocrap

--Meva and Crassie, the Shayme Sisters

--Goopy Richard Winslow

--Reva the Ghost

--Reva the Amish Amnesiac

--Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen

--Reva the Clone

--Reva the Illegal-Immigrant Savior

--Reva the Blind

--Reva the Time Traveller

--Reva the Saggy & Bedraggled Object of Every Man's Desire

--Releasing ESSENTIAL Vets like ver Dorn and Garrett

--Peapack

((Sigh))

[DRW50]

I'd say 1997 was one of the last good years they had.

To me the show stuck a pin in itself during JFP's ego trips years (93-94). The show was increasingly about nothing but a vanity project for JFP's pets, with interchangeable, chemistry-free pairings, no heart or foundation, and aimless storylines. I could barely sit through the show in 1993, and in 1994 I held on solely for two storylines - Julie scheming to get Frank, and the Bridget/Vanessa custody battle over Peter. She even managed to make a boring muddle of Holly/Roger, the most dynamic and complex relationship GL ever had.

[DRW50]

Ed wasn't a patriarch and never would be. They should have brought Mike back for that role.

I think Ed and Maureen should have divorced and then we would have seen Michelle struggle with the reality of being a child of divorce. It would have produced more drama than her death, which was mostly over after a month or two of scenes.

[NothinButAttitude]

Seeing as you were a longtime viewer, did you view Ed as weak, hence why he couldn't be viewed as a patriarch, Carl? Because I know a lot of old-school fans feel that way. Well with Peter Simon's Ed. Do you think that Mart Hulswit's Ed could've been a patriarch? Robert Gentry's? Richard Van Vleet's?

[DRW50]

He was weak, yes. Simon more than Hulswit, but Hulswit also seemed to play Ed as somewhat of a pushover. Gentry, I can't judge. Van der Vleet - no.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it's just how some characters are. Mike was never really a patriarch either, as the family wasn't structured that way, but I think Don Stewart had the strength or heft to play that type of role if they had let Mike become the head of the family. Mike was more of a noble, long-suffering man. Ed wasn't. Ed let it all hang out (in some cases literally). Ed was more like his father.

[slick jones]

Ed...when I watched, I never saw Ed as a patriarch. He was troubled, angry, betrayed, philandering, ashamed. He never had what Ver Dorn had, that fatherly character that people looked up to. Sure a few did, but Ed always disappointed them. His alcoholism caused him to let Michelle and Rick down, and he would always leave when they needed him. He chose to help others rather than his family.

I haven't seen much of Hulswit, but Simon always seemed to have one foot out the door.When Gentry returned, I had hoped he would stay. Van Vleet was simply Chuck Tyler on a different show. I wish there had been a strong Bauer presence, but after they destroyed Rick/Abby, O'Leary struggled to have a strong story. Dropping him to recurring was the final nail in the coffin.

[NothinButAttitude]

Oh OK. See Simon was my Ed [along with the short return stint of Gentry in '97] and while he was weak, I did somewhat look to him as a patriarchal one. A weak one but one nonetheless. From watching clips and episode with Mike, I could see him being the patriarch as he was more stronger and stoic than Ed. But I actually could see Hulswit's Ed being a patriarch. From what I've seen of him, I didn't see him as spineless as Simon's Ed. He actually had backbone. At least with Rita he did. But then again he would become mush with Holly at the quickness.

[KMan101]

I agree with you on 1997.

[Soaplovers]

So citing the cast massacre of 1983/1984 where a majority of characters that helmed the show from the late 70s through that period were written off.. how would you have written for them to survive into the late 80s and beyond?

[~bl~]

I read years later in one of the magazines that Lenore Kasdorf had health problems, which made Rita's return with her in the role not feasible. (We may have discussed this on the board, but I cannot recall.)