Jump to content

Guiding Light Discussion Thread


Paul Raven

Recommended Posts

By 1994 the high quality of the writing dropped. GL would never get that back. Even through the  Brent Lawrence/Marion Crane saga was over the top, dark and sensationalist. The story some how worked. Other tales like Blake being pregnant with twins fathered by both Rick and Ross didn't. The worst of these sensationalist tales penned by Megan Mctavish was Gilly and Griffin  falling in love. Unaware they were father & daughter. Out of the Amish nonsense that reintroduced a resurrected Reva we got sweet yet strong Abigail. But we would also get Reva and Buzz chewing the scenery. Cynthia Watros as Annie would add a spark to Josh/Reva/Annie triangle. With her layered and multifaceted performances. A de aged Amanda was reintroduced  her personality and backstory changed. Beth's personality would also be alter for the worse. Ed who never completely recovered from Mo's senseless death would come and go over the years.  The strong and sarcastic  Holly would be damaged by the Nursery Rhyme Stalker story.  GL during the mid 90's & late 90's was ok. It wasn't firing on all cylinders like it was in the late 80's & early 90's. Then came the cheesy country of San Cristobal, cartoonish mobsters and an overexposed Reva being clone. One of the few hightlights of this era was Danny Santos and Michelle Bauer's romance. Carmen's attempts to kill Michelle were reminiscent of Wile E Coyote trying to kill the Road Runner. The last decade of GL is a blur to me. As GL quality eroded even further. Until we got the Peapack era of GL.  

Edited by victoria foxton
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 17.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

Sorry, but I have to disagree about the Danny/Michelle story. As much as I side-eyed Rebecca Budig, the Michelle who actually fell in love with the violent criminal who forced her to marry him was a complete stranger to me and so I didn't care about her or her criminal husband.

 

And I so very much resented the attempts to make the gangster Santoses look better by making Ed an absentee father who just didn't give a damn.

 

For that reason alone, I refuse to accept anything Santos.

Edited by katie_9918
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Blake had to be adjusted...just seeing Liz's first days as Blake and how she delivered her lines...they had to adjust the character.  SS had a very dry and sarcastic way she delivered her lines...made Blake cool and calm...with a biting wit.  Liz's reading of those lines was more like a spoiled rich girl hence the adjustment to the character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Please register in order to view this content

 

Was it @Mitch who said he couldn't stand the Chelsea/Johnny duets? If so you may want to avoid this one...

 

 

 

I remember KDP saying that they brought Blake in and gave her everything of Chelsea's - job, love interest, storylines, etc. 

Edited by DRW50
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Regarding Chelsea and Johnny Fake Bauer....Good God..where was Ray Rooney when you needed her!!! What was up with Weber...why was he doing a bit part and why was he acting like it was a bad skit??

 

That promo ....Raines acting...what...the....hell....and again, I love Marj..but it was not fair to her to have to try and match Bev. They should have written Alex off and brought in Marj as an ex "show girl"(soaps love them)  who married H.B. (I would have killed him off before this...) and through him got a TON of Spaulding stock and was a perpetual thorn in the side of EVERYONE particularly Alan and Reva.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

I noticed that too. I think this wasn't long before he hit it big. I'd forgotten he was on GL.

 

Was this Blake's first episode? I remember an interview after the writers' strike where Pam Long said that the interim people I think had no idea what Blake's secret was supposed to be, so they just stalled things out with Blake for months until Long returned and did the reveal. I'm not even sure if Liz Denehy knew.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

JFP had her in to talk about taking over the role. Strasser had agreed to talk with OLTL first if she ever considered another soap, so she went to see Gottlieb or MADD or whoever, and decided to return as Dorian. Supposedly JFP was upset with this and that's why she treated Strasser so poorly at OLTL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

JFP brought in a good number of Santa Barbara alums to GL during her run: Vincent Irizarry, Justin Deas, Marj Dusay, Marcy Walker. Am I missing anyone?

 

I know JFP was around when Alan was recast but surprisingly that role went to a virtual unknown instead of a known soap actor.

 

I believe JFP was already gone when Amanda was recast and that role also went to a virtual unknown. I've read some big soap names were considered when Amanda was recast in 1995; among them were Kimberlin Brown, Crystal Chappell, Nancy Lee Grahn, Lauren Koslow, Lisa Peluso. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

For some reason I thought that ED's Blake would turn out to be Beth.

 

JFP's recasts were horrible. Alan, Alex, Blake, Alan-Michael Mindy. With the right actor in the part, the show might not have needed Reva back. 

 

Marj could have played Rita Stapleton.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   1 member




  • Recent Posts

    • Thanks for honoring Ruth Buzzi. She was a treasure. I'm glad DAYS let her have some fun. I remember Imogene Coca complaining about ATWT just giving her a drab guest part.
    • It's such a delicious set of circumstances that I'm actually a little surprised that I can't think of ones that exactly match. I've just got a couple of close but no cigars (the reveal wasn't public, like when Alexis told Dominique at her and Garrett's engagement party that Garrett lied about being married; or the revealer didn't come up with the idea of the party). Maybe I need to think some more about it.
    • Not too shabby, making her mark in only six episodes. There's a project for the soap historians -- characters with the least episodes/most impact.
    • Which could make sense , except that we have seen Mariah function for years w/o any real residue pain from her upbringing. Josh decides to randomly make it a thing, when a good writer might foreshadow that for months. It's not like he's just arrived at the show. He's been there for years . Everything seems to be thought out only a few weeks ahead. It's like Phyllis all freaky from being kidnapped when she has done a million other things that didn't seem to bother her at all.
    • Unrelated, sort of, but he looks absolutely nothing like Amanda Setton or Dominic Zamprogna so it's kind of hilarious they decided to make Gio their kid.  It's very clear this was not the original origin story for Gio when they cast him. He is a very handsome guy though. 
    • I tend to agree, although going back to OLTL, Frank has so often cast guys who are meant to be attractive yet come across as cold and dead, I'm surprised he managed to get one who has a bit of a pulse.
    • For all I care, the boy can parade around in a g-string.  It won't make this show suck any less.
    • AMC was about a decade later so things may have changed by then, although maybe they never approached her anyway. She joined Santa Barbara in 1985, when they didn't seem interested in bringing back Hope. SB ended in late 1992, so JFP could have asked her back, but I doubt she did. For as much as JFP clearly had some use for Rick Hearst given that she hired him on GH and kept him around as often as she could, I don't think she ever used Alan-Michael well. I can't see Elvera as Delia, but she could have worked well as Faith - she had a glimpse of a strong personality alongside warmth, which only one Faith ever managed (Catherine Hicks).
    • IIRC, FC reruns aired for awhile on Lifetime, way before the network became the Women in Peril Channel, lol.
    • PAM!! YES!!! You have jogged my memory. She worked at Cedars. She's mentioned in a write-up of Tim's history in the show. It says she was a nurse, but I seem to remember she was a secretary at Cedars, working for either Ed or Sarah. (It's almost 50 years ago, so I definitely could be wrong). I'm certain she was an unwed mother. I recall reading an interview with the actress, Maureen Silliman (I looked it up, that's her correct name, LOL). She started on the show just before the Dobsons started writing it. She was shocked to get a script that said her character had been pregnant since she hit town. I remember a scene where she told Tim she was going to leave SF for a better job for her daughter's sake (really, I think she was upset he was serious about Rita). I don't remember them getting married and leaving town, but according to "Who's Who in Springfield" that's how the characters were written out. Mattson did All My Children for several years, so she might have been persuadable. Here's an interesting factoid I recently learned on these message boards: Elvera Roussel was in the running to play Delia on RH when the show first hit the air. How wild is it that Mattson played Delia for a while? (Though from what I saw of her performance, she was miscast). It's hard to know if Roussel would have been a good Delia. You'd think she would have been better suited to playing Faith Coleridge, but who knows? She didn't get to show a whole lot of range as Hope.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy