Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Bill Bauer]

 

 

LOL. I can just hear Beverlee McKinsey saying "nouveau riche". Only she could say it in a manner that would deliver all the term's implications. 

[DRW50]

GL March 1988: Alex and Alan as Kids - YouTube

 

I'm glad they had this while Chris Bernau was still playing Alan. The moment where Alan asks Alex if she has forgotten their bond as children, and she says she chooses not to remember, is very poignant. Bernau's narration over the flashbacks was not needed and makes me wonder why they even had them in the first place. I didn't realize Vera was already around by this point. I guess the flashback of her was the closest GL would get to having a black character at this point.

[zanereed]

 

I actually could believe that Bill Bauer knew the Lewis, Spaulding, and Chamberlain families, considering Bill's career in Public Relations. I always took the liberty of believing that these three families were some of Bill's top clients, so he and his company would take them on an annual fishing trip. Bill happened to be acquainted with Tom Reardon because of that.

 

The storyline, itself, was fine. It helped in intertwine the main Springfield families. What I was never happy with (and still not happy with) was that they used this storyline to kill off Bill Bauer, a character who had been on the show in some form or another since at least 1949. Bill's death was pretty much used as a plot device for the story, and there were no long-term effects on the Bauer family at all. If Bill's death had brought Simone Kinkaid (Bill's ex and Hillary's mother) back to town to spark a new storyline, that might have made the death serve a greater purpose. As it was, it didn't do much at all.

Edited January 4, 2021 by zanereed

[Mitch]

Agreed..and it did tie all the families together in a way which worked..if they had continued on with it being those 5 families being the main families going forward. Hate that they killed Bill, he needed to be around in the background and coming in on various events occassions...(imagine him at Bert's funeral.)

[Khan]

 

 

Agree on both counts.

[Vee]

That Carrie Nye story was a blatant ripoff of Peter Straub's Ghost Story both times, so I can't take it seriously tbh.

[Mitch]

Actually, the Eli Simms one was the ripoff of Ghost Story. (town patriarchs are attacked by a mysterious foe...a girl comes to town looking like someone they harmed in the past..)..but hey..if you have to "borrow" from someone, it should be interesting. What soaps after 1993 would ever borrow anything from a book..it was other shows or movies.

[zanereed]

 

Definitely - especially if Bill showed up drunk for Bert's funeral because of the guilt he still felt for how he was as a husband to her during their marriage and during the time he let her believe he was dead...

[SFK]

 

Thanks for sharing this, and I agree with you about the narration.

 

I like their kitschy retro kitchen. What surprises me is seeing Alex portrayed as the younger sibling. Was that long established? It certainly never felt that way to me, nor was it based on the various actors' ages.

[DRW50]

 

For some reason I thought Marj's Alex used to call Ron's Alan "big brother," but I may be making that up...

 

(Marj was about 13 years older than Ron, but she aged well so it wasn't very noticeable)

 

Or did she say "brother dear"?

 

Totally blanking now.

Edited January 8, 2021 by DRW50

[Mitch]

Originally Alex was the older sibling, and strangely enough I remember watching this scene originally and thinking they they reveresed the order and it didn't ring true (which shows you even the good writers can make mistakes and retro write) The thing about Alex and Alan, even with Marj, was that as much as they fought, they would protect each other, and that no matter what Alan would do, Alex would protect him, even against his own children.  Marj's Alex was more of an annoying buttinsky sister in his love life (as she was potrayed for most of her run in various way) but still would protect him.

[DRW50]

 

Thanks.

 

The flashbacks really don't work as much as the simple connection between Beverlee and Chris. I think that level of depth and shared pain was lost with all the recasts.

[DramatistDreamer]

I wonder whether McKinsey would have stayed a few more years had Bernau lived, or was she just tired of the business?

That reminds me, I have to take some time to finally listen to that McKinsey-themed reunion discussion.

[titan1978]

The story and the schedule did more to driver her out that anything else.  Just a handful of years later (2 to 3), and the schedule issues were gone because the actors with families started to get somewhere with their complaints and their union, (such as working turnarounds where they were there until the late hours of the night or after midnight and still called back to work the next morning at their normal call times), and paying all that overtime to everybody else (crews especially).

 

The story wasn’t going to change- the show wanted it to be her vs Mindy and an overall obsession with Nick.  She thought it should have wound up already, and instead was becoming the defining trait of the character.

 

She could do the bad schedule, or a bad story, but not both at the same time for years.

[Mitch]

I wish Bev would have stayed until the end of the Jenna/Roger/Spaulding Trial...there was still good material there as even Marj was good in it (the parts of not schrieking at Roger or Mindy.) After the trial and Spaulding was restored would have been a natural time for Bev and Alex to leave after she and Nick came to an understanding.  Everything that came after was either repeating Alex vs. Roger/Alex obsessing over Alan's love life/Alex the town shrew.