Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[jam6242]

I hated Nolaerobics so much.  I didn't like that she and Quint moved out of the Thornway Road house either.

[Khan]

No, ladies and gentlemen, your eyes and ears are not deceiving you (any more than usual): that WAS Fiona Hutchison as "Tanya," two years before she joined OLTL as notorious Gabrielle Medina, and seven years before she returned to GL as Jenna.

It wasn't one of Pamela K. Long's better ideas.

[Sapounopera]

There is not much to do with Nola once she gets Mister McCord.

Kelly and Nola would have been far more interesting, with real problems. It is like Scotty ending up with Bobbie once his marriage to Laura is over. Would Josh be Morgan's Holden to her Lily? We will never know. 

I find Marland's GL fascinating. Hard to believe how everything was ruined (at least for me) once he left. Pam Long's reboot idea could work on  a dying show like Search during that period, but GL didn't need and deserve it.  

To this day I believe that Phillip and Beth's entire story was a Marland idea he used on Loving for Jack and Lily.

[wonderwoman1951]

in 1996, i looked through marland’s original longterm and can confirm that his original plan was for kelly and nola  to end up together.

i loved the idea and always wondered why the change — thought it might have come from p&g or cbs since nola was not the typical soap ingenue.  

Edited April 3, 2022 by wonderwoman1951

[Mitch64]

interesting..I thought it was the opposite, as the scab writers were going for Nola actually marrying Kelly, but the strike ended and Marland had to throw the quick unraveling of Nola's plans together as the first priority. While we would have been cheated the classic Kelly and Nola scenes in the Bauer patio...it would have been much more interesting to see Nola having to keep up her ruse while married to Kelly (and throwing it in Morgan's face) and for it to unravel from there, and then Thornway Road would be introduced once Kelly tossed Nola out on her ass. As it was, Nola got a great storyline and Kelly and Morgan's ended because..who cared about them?

Interesting...though Nola deserved better than Speedo Boy.  

Speaking of typical soap ingenue..I always thought it was sad that they threw away Bridget during the Rauch era (and actually, during JFP's and Mclaiby also, when the soap ingenue role went to boring and annoying Lucy Cooper.) I fell down a rabbit hole this week watching episodes during the transition from McLaiby into Rauch and up to the Annie falls down the stairs start of E & B and see how dated the show looks compared to during JFP or even Laibson's time. The bright lights, the pastels...there are very funny scenes of Vanessa in the convent and there is constant hymnal music and nuns singing in the background.  Rauch's time really took a turn from a show being about families with several quircky characters involved who looked "real" to a show where even interesting looking people start looking plasticky and everyone is obsessed with "romance"  Poor Nola and Bridget didn't stand a chance with Rauch's obsession with sexy skinny blondes desperately fighting for men. I notice that anyone who isnt in a romantic relationship is tossed off, even Alex. The show really lost that feeling that it was a community with people who had other things going on besides romantic entanglements. The show just got so flat, I don't understand the critics raving about the turnaround. 

 

[victoria foxton]

The late great Lisa Brown. Did her very best to make the Nolaerobics bs work. I just rewatched the Nolaerobics clips last week. One of the things. I did like was that PL wrote the Reardon's better than DM. The scenes of the Reardon's bowling were cute.

Edited April 3, 2022 by victoria foxton

[Mitch64]

I agree..I think Long wrote quite well for the Reardons...they suddenly became Catholic (a no brainer but waspy Marland had them protestant which made no sense) they would be loud and argue but always had each others back...I don't know why she suddenly "turned: on them!

 

[victoria foxton]

From everything I've heard. It was probably Gail Kobe. Who got rid of the Reardon clan. Along with other characters. Pam seemed to get many of the characters she inherited. From the Dobson's and Marland.

Edited April 3, 2022 by victoria foxton

[Mitch64]

I am sure Kobe was the leader of it...(we went from the Reardons and Bauer kitchen scene to EVERYONE flouncing around town with big hair, shoulder pads and sparkly dresses )but when Long returned..previous writers were starting to build the Reardons back...Chelsea (as dumb as that character was) and Lee Lawson was back on recurring, and she stopped that and Bea disappeared and she created the Coopers. I can see creating another down on their luck family, but why not introduce them through the Reardons...(i.e. Bea knows Pops...) It just seemed odd. 

 

[Soaplovers]

Nolaobics.. I'm sure was just a stop gap until Nola/Quint got another story...but Lisa Brown quit the show.  

I do think the scenes of Nola feeling wistful about leaving Springfield to go with Quint always interested me.  On the one hand, she was leaving for a new adventure outside Springfield...but it was just as she was finally being happy in Springfield and trying a new venture.  It was a sign that reality sometimes doesn't match the fantasy.

From what I recall, Long said that she had to write off the Reardon's because the performers left the show when their contract ended.

I think Kobe was the big issue at that point...imho

[Khan]

In retrospect, the critical acclaim for the early Rauch/Brown & Esensten era seems unwarranted.  You have to keep in mind, though, that GL was in serious trouble before their arrivals.  Everything that had made the show a success throughout the early '90's had disintegrated.  Paul Rauch's GL might not have felt like classic GL, but at least the show appeared to have some direction and life again.

Agree.  As much as folks tend to place the blame on Pam Long (and Jeff Ryder) -- and I can't say that I blame them for placing the blame on them -- from everything I have heard and read over the years, the majority of those decisions to write off characters that they had inherited from previous regimes did not originate from them.  To put it another way, Long and her team truly enjoyed writing for the characters who were there before them and would have gone on writing for them, too, if not for Gail Kobe, P&G and CBS mandating that the show move away from all that and basically remake itself into a clone of DALLAS and DYNASTY, two shows which were HUGE during that era.

[Khan]

It's been suggested here and elsewhere that Pam Long and Doug Marland might have made a good co-HW'ing team, and I would have to agree (knowing, of course, that Marland was a man who had difficulty collaborating with anyone, lol).  From Marland, you would have had the innate understanding of characters and well-made plots with all kinds of suspense; but from Long, you would have had the heart-tugging emotions and romance to keep it all from becoming too cerebral.  (IOW, it would have been a lot like watching Nancy Curlee's work, just done by two people, rather than one.)

I think Long and Marland's distinct styles would have complemented each other quite well - and I think he would have gotten along better with her, too, than he did with Agnes Nixon, whose style and alpha-dog approach to HW'ing was too much like his for their collaboration on LOVING to have been successful in the long run.

Apparently, many actors at GL hated Gail Kobe - even though she was the EP who had brought the show out of the doldrums - and were glad to see her gone.

To me, Nola was like Julie on DAYS.  Viewers loved her, even though it was clear she had no real aptitude for work, lol.  I mean, at least ATWT's Lisa could run a bookstore or nightclub; and even Julie could run a dress shop, antique store or casino/coffee house/nightclub/restaurant/diner (or whatever the heck Julie's Place is supposed to be).  But could you really see Nola running a business like those?  I know they had her and Bridget running Company for awhile, but that just felt like a step down to me.

Given her love of old, romantic movies, I *might* have had Nola try her hand at writing Harlequin-type romantic novels, or those big sagas like "The Thorn Birds" or "Lace," which were popular back then.  It might have been fun to see Nola evolve into an authoress along the likes of Danielle Steel or AW's Felicia Gallant.

Similarly, if anyone in SF was equipped to run her own exercise or dance studio, it was Reva.  And KZ's scene rehearsing with the Sugarbaker girls on "Designing Women" proves my point, lol.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Khan

[Mitch64]

Ha..I am suprised Wheeler didn't rent out the Peapack Anytime Fitness...but it might have been a tad too expensive for the GL budget. But I COULD see Reva in her later years embracing positive body imaging and running a health studio. "Come on girls, just because we aren't skinny anymore does not mean we can't be healthy! I know Joshua still likes to climb up on this every chance he gets so get agoing!"

 

Well after all these years of Company being run by..whomever...I think that it kind of ran itself. I would have kept Bridget at Company (I would have kept Bridget around as the GL version of GH's Jessie Brewer, except instead of a nurse's desk it would be a bar she would sit behind and be a talk to..) and had Nola run the Tower's redone as a 1930's 40s Art Deco mold and have her be in everyone's business like Lisa.  Anything would have been better then Buzz at Company and the Coopers stinking up the Boardinghouse! But I do like the idea of Nola writing romance adventure novels where the hero always was just another version of Quint.

 

I would have loved that..Marland brings his story structure (sometimes Long's stories just ran off the rails) love of history, and Pam brings her sense of humor, family, sex and community to a show. I saw an interview on YouTube where they were both up for Emmy's and they seemed to really enjoy and respect one another. What is Long doing now?

[Vee]

They had people changing in the backs of cars and sharing a single bathroom in the one (IIRC) full IRL house they had to use for the shoot. Half the exteriors of people's homes looked like condemned territory in the Balkans. They had no adequate sound mixing, both a convenience store and a church 'created' back at the EP's office, and Spaulding 'press conferences' with some folding chairs in an open field. Most things were beyond their budget.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Vee

[MichaelGL]

 

Re: Doug Marland's plans for Kelly and Nola

I could see Nola being torn between Quint and Kelly, and taking in consideration the chemistry between Tylo and Brown, Nola eventually choosing Quint in the end. The show seemed to also be setting something up with Josh and Morgan, so it was obvious they probably would have ended up together.