Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[koos]

 

I only caught the tail end of HBS, but it was enough of an imprint for me to always prefer her. I was too young to see Margaret Colin and Justin Deas, but my Mom talks about how she loved them in the roles.

[vetsoapfan]

 

With other actors in the roles, both Tom and Margo were engaging, appealing characters. But as the writing got increasingly worse, both Holmes and Dolan seemed to settle into giving harsh, or at least cold, interpretations to T&M. Maybe they were bored or frustrated with the wretched material, but the actors' lack of warmth greatly diminished my interest in the characters..

Edited September 3, 2018 by vetsoapfan

[robbwolff]

She said no such thing. During her Emmy acceptance speech, she said that fans come up to her on the street calling her "Maureen, Maureen," and that she responds, "I'm dead, I'm dead." She then went on to say she missed her friends at Guiding Light and thanked fans for their support.

 

I remember the discussions on the bulletin boards when Maureen was killed off (pre-Internet, pre-social media). Viewers -- myself included -- were upset that they lost Maureen, not that Ellen Parker had been fired. We had lost an iconic, warm, loving maternal figure. In so many ways, it was akin to losing Bert Bauer again.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2018 by robbwolff

[vetsoapfan]

 

Right. No one could help the show losing Bert Bauer, but killing off Maureen, Bert's successor as the show's matriarch and light was a foolish  and conscious decision made by TIIC, which was done for no valid reason (I do not consider freeing up cash to pay for Justin Deas a valid reason, if that rumor is true). It pissed off the fans AND damaged the core of TGL, a lose-lose situation.

Edited September 3, 2018 by vetsoapfan

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Well at any rate, it was one character I wanted gone and was glad Phelps had the guts to swing the axe. I'm sure Phelps used the focus groups to justify it, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was probably something she wanted to do when she first arrived and waited for the right moment to do it. Phelps actually used the viewers (the ones in the focus group) to help her fire this actress which I thought was very clever. So she was carrying out what the viewers supposedly wanted. The character had been quite dull and repetitive for the last year or two she was on the air. She was definitely not up in the ranks of the Revas, Rogers, Harleys, Vanessas, Hollys and Nadines. She was basically a supporting character that was assigned "B" and sometimes "C" plots. Ed's affair with Lillian was a B+ plot that was more Lillian's story than it was Maureen's story, until the end when it was used as the excuse to kill Maureen off.

 

As for Maureen being the show's light, she wasn't on the canvas long enough to be that. Plus there were other lights.

 

The real problem with assigning Maureen the status of a "light" is that she was designed not to be this. If you look at the history of the Bauers, all the Bauer men had multiple failed marriages. This includes Mike, Ed and Rick. It started with Bill's failed marriage to Bert. That was the pattern for this family. None of them ever kept their wives. So any woman Ed married could not be a light, his light, or his family's light, because the very parameters of the drama meant she had to leave at some point, either by divorce or death.

 

The only way Maureen could have had any real longevity, regardless of who played her, would have been if the Bauers had been totally phased out and Ed had been assimilated into the Reardons with Maureen taking over her mother Bea's role. Maureen was not meant to take over Bert's role. Bert was irreplaceable.

[robbwolff]

Despite your distaste for the actress, Maureen did become the light and heart of the the show for many fans. She filled the void left by Charita Bauer's passing. Of course, she wasn't in the ranks of Reva, Roger, etc. Maureen was a totally different character -- a supporting character, driven by family, not a career, just like Bert was. 

 

 

 

 

 

[slick jones]

First of all, JFP is the dismantler of shows.  I can't get behind any defense of her years in soaps as I watched her gut one show after another of their vets. Her opinion that "No one watches for 'old people' " is her opinion,not the fans. One can bring up focus groups, but if she hand-picked those involved, of course her decisions reflected theirs. She only got worse as she progressed to AW. Her "kill a vet every time we have sweeps" tenure at GH was especially egregious. Under her Tony Jones, Georgie, Emily, Justus,  and Alan Quartermaine were all lost forever.  

 

I started watching GL in 1983, and I remember Dolan in the role. Her Maureen was very much a Reardon, and you could see it in her interactions with Nola, Tony, Bea and Jim. I remember Fletch and Maureen dying in Israel (only to be alive, after the Claire/Ed ONS). I was really a Dolan  fan and was disappointed when Ellen Parker replaced her.  It took a little time, but Parker won me over.  I'll never forget the quiet scenes with Roger and the friendship they had cultivated. Dolan's Maureen would never have had that relationship.  There was plenty more fallout to be shown from Ed's affair with Lillian, but we'll never know thanks to JFP's interference.  Parker had a motherly rapport with most of the actors and actresses in scenes. Maureen's patience with everyone, while also telling them like it was, made Parker the source of "light" the show just didn't have since Bert had passed.

 

Sad as it is, as long as Tina Sloan's Lillian was around, she never could have filled the role Maureen provided on GL.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Again, you are making assertions (like Phelps was lying in wait to kill off Maureen) that are not supported by any documented fact.

 

Your personal disdain for the character does not mean she  was "definitely" inferior to characters Reva, Harley, Nadine, etc. Bert and Papa Bauer were not flashy romantic leads either. They, like Maureen, came to serve a different purpose on the show, one which could be argued was just as valuable to the canvas. If not more so.

 

You cannot use the argument of what "Maureen was meant to be" to diminish her ultimate place as the TGLs new matriarch. Soap opera characters, like real human beings, are allowed to grow, evolve and change over time. Indeed, with good writing, they should. Originally, Bert Bauer was "not meant to be" the show's guiding light, either.  She was introduced to viewers as a selfish and materialistic young woman who could not make her marriage work. But lo and behold, as the years went on (thanks to good writing and acting by the beloved Charita Bauer), Bert naturally evolved into the show's light. The same thing happened to Maureen. It may not have been the original conception of the character, but as Mo took over as the Bauer matriarch and moral compass, she became an important touchstone character, different than Bert but carrying on her legacy.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I appreciate how others might have been fans of Ellen Parker and who/what Maureen had become at the end of her run. The character was finite and not meant to last to the end of the series the way other legacy characters would. She did reappear as a ghost in the late 90s, visiting Michelle. But her death was never undone the way some soap deaths are undone.

 

[vetsoapfan]

 

And the evidence of this assertion is?

 

Any character, once introduced and embraced by the fans, can become a fundamental and important part of a show's fabric, whom the audience wants onscreen for the duration of the series.

Edited September 3, 2018 by vetsoapfan

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I like this post. I don't think Lillian was ever considered as a replacement. The character actually had more connection to the Spauldings because of Beth than to the Bauers. She and Ed were coworkers who crossed the line. Lillian had enjoyed Mike's company several years earlier. But she was never going to become a Bauer wife.

 

We don't know if JFP didn't design the Ed-Lillian affair with Maureen's demise in mind. Where else could the plot have gone? Even if Maureen had lived, chances are she and Ed would have reconciled until the next crisis drove them apart. And Ed would have gone back to being platonic with Lillian.

[victoria foxton]

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[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I think you can stop using the word assertion. It's clear you don't respect a differing opinion. A message board is not meant to be a place where everyone sees things the same way. And this is not a thread created to necessarily appreciate certain performers or characters. This one didn't work for me and I was glad she didn't last. We can share different opinions on this and we can also stop a discussion where you seem to be cross-examining a person whose opinion you don't like. I won't be replying directly to you anymore. Take care.

Thanks. I love the Esensten-Harmon Brown years. This was all must-see for me.

Edited September 3, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove

[victoria foxton]

Esensten/Harmon-Brown were ok. I always found mid 90's late 90's GL wonky. I was spoiled by far better HW's.

[vetsoapfan]

 

An "assertion" is not the same thing as a personal opinion, so it was the best word for me to use under the circumstances. 

 

And of course, inquiring about the source of an assertion in no way, shape, or form equates to disrespecting a personal opinion.

 

"The character was finite and not meant to last to the end of the series...." is not just a personal opinion, because it suggests what you wrote is an actual, verifiable fact.

 

An opinion would be, "I did not find the character of Maureen interesting and was happy she was killed off."

 

I was trying to clarify why you had made such an assertion, and where the idea of Maureen's only being a "finite" character had come from. I had never see or heard any writer or producer claim that Maureen was created to be temporary. You are the only one to say so, hence my question to you. It should not engender any drama on the board.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2018 by vetsoapfan