Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Dan]

I was going to link that exact scene with Nadine and David. This is one of my favorites. I know 1993 was not as good as the two years before it in general, but the scripts were truly brilliant stuff. 

 

Another favorite is the conversation between Ross and Ed from fall of 92.

 

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Edited May 26, 2019 by Dan

[Emma1420]

 

I  think Annie is a great example of how far the show had fallen in the writing department from the early 90's to the mid-to-late 90's.  Annie ended up becoming a cartoon.  She was entertaining after Reva showed up alive, but, she was entertaining because CW made crap out of gold, not because she was a well written character (which I think bodes well for her as Nina on GH, given that GH is terribly written), especially after her intervention.

 

[DAMfan]

Lucky Gold is writing GH now once wrote for GL.

[vetsoapfan]

 

GH needs to be put out of its misery.

 

 

Exactly. Sometimes great acting can salvage poorly-written storylines, but unfortunately, we don't see enough of that. Most actors cannot overcome days, weeks, months, years of atrocious scripts and plots. There are those who adored Kim Zimmer as Reva (I am not one of them), but even she could not make silk out a sow's ear with the putrid stories TGL gave her in its last few decades. Reva the Ghost! Reva the Amish Amnesiac! Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen! Reva the Blind! Reva the Illegal-Alien Savoir! Reva the Clone! Reva the Time Traveller! VOMIT! RETCH! BARF!

[Khan]

You forgot Reva the Psychic!

[SamandWillowFan]

Wow, I knew about the clone of Reva. I can't believe they wrote all of those wacky storylines. It makes it sound like GL became Passions.

[Khan]

 

Which is probably what PGP/Televest wanted.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I was being kind and kept the list short, LOL.

 

UGH. Sooooooooooo many putrid Reva stories. 

 

And a harping on campy (i.e. STOOPID) stories ended up getting Passions axed too.

[BetterForgotten]

30 years ago today Roger Thorpe was unmasked and revealed to be alive to the citizens of Springfield! Holly (Maureen Garrett) lets out a bone-chilling scream I won't ever forget!

 

I probably consider this the unofficial start of 'my era' of GL.

 

Thank you, Michael Zaslow for sharing your talent with us in the limited time you had on earth. You and Roger Thorpe brought so much joy and entertainment to my young soap-viewing life. Truly unforgettable. Gone, but never forgotten. 

 

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Edited May 30, 2019 by BetterForgotten

[DramatistDreamer]

P&G soaps definitely had a fascination with bringing back their most roguish characters back from the 'dead' in the 1980s!

 

I'm always fascinated by the careers of bit players on soaps, especially when soaps were at the height of their popularity, so it has been interesting to see actresses like Bai Ling and Sharon Washington (who played Karen Kennedy, a secretary at Spaulding) have careers that are flourishing.  I had no idea that Bai Ling had appeared on GL until binge-watching some 1993 episodes.

[Emma1420]

 

Reva got it the worst of any of the characters.   I suspect mostly because the writers were doing anything possible to keep her on the frontburner, even if they didn't have any decent ideas for her at the time.  Although I also think that during the late 90's and early 00's that actors demanding to be kept on the frontburner seemed more of a thing.

 

I rewatched a few of the episodes from the second half of 1994, and I had forgotten how stupid some of those storylines were.   Alan-Michael spending a couple months crawling around on the beach.   Alan doing a horrible Japanese accent.   Etc.

[kalbir]

 

Wow, has it been 30 years already? I started watching GL around this time (spring 1989) as well. I didn't watch GL for very long (spring 1989-summer 1992) but I'm grateful to have experienced those amazing years as much as I could live and later online.

 

 

[SamandWillowFan]

How did Alan get involved with Annie? It seems like he really cared for her, a hell of a lot more than Josh did.

Edited May 31, 2019 by SamandWillowFan

[vetsoapfan]

 

TPTB must have erroneously believed that endlessly ramming Kim Zimmer down the audience's throats was the key to ratings' success...but actually, the last time TGL was respected and GOOD was when she was NOT part of the cast. 

 

Daytime's insane and baffling determination to showcase science-fiction crap year after year boggles the mind. It has crippled many once-fine shows. After the "reality bubble" is broken, thanks to clones, devil possession, time travelling, going to heaven on space ships, brain implants, mad scientists freezing the world, etc., the mature, adult audience members never again immerse themselves completely into the shows, and are more likely to drift away. Kids do tend to be attracted to the Saturday-morning-cartoonish material, but they are not a reliable audience; if they are only watching for the latest outrageous gimmick, they too will drift away from the soaps when the writers cannot continue providing them with over-the-top stories to their liking. When has a "gimmick" soap EVER been a verifiable success?

 

As for the folly of allowing overbearing actors any input in their storylines, THAT is a recipe for disaster. Exhibit A: Tony Geary.

 

Those of you who discovered TGL in 1989 and watched it for the next three years were quite fortunate to stumble across the show at that time. It was the soap's last, great hurrah. TGL had been quite dreadful for several years before that, and it fell apart again shortly afterwards, but....ahhh, that brief period was memorable!

[j swift]

Alan got sick (heart attack?) and hired Annie as his personal nurse.  She had already been disgraced so they became kindred spirits.