GL now joins some illustrious company in the cancelled soap thread.

Let's share memories and ask questions here.

Also, GREASE: Lujack/Beth

This episode has already been up before in other forms, but if you want to see it again:

 

I’m thinking they could have honored Charita Bauer like the excellent way Young and Restless did with Jeanie Cooper where actors and family reminisced with clips.   They could have then had previous actors come back

On 1/1/2023 at 9:00 PM, kalbir said:

@Paul Raven I'm not really familiar with most of 1980s GL but is it safe to say that they tried a good number of the 1980s trends but got them wrong?

Dallas influence - Lewis family from Oklahoma that owns an oil company

Dynasty influence - jet setter Alexandra Spaulding divorced from wealthy European Baron Von Halkein

Supercouples - Phillip/Beth, Josh/Reva

Action/adventure - not sure what would apply here

I have never seen another soap despise its history and legacy the way 80s GL did.

All these bigger than life changes might be needed in a problematic soap like AW or SFT, but GL was just fine the way it was.  

 

No thanks!

Reuploaded

On 1/3/2023 at 10:30 AM, Sapounopera said:

I have never seen another soap despise its history and legacy the way 80s GL did.

All these bigger than life changes might be needed in a problematic soap like AW or SFT, but GL was just fine the way it was.  

I think GL was due for an update by 1983, and I think the 1st 18 months of Pam Long's 1st tenure was pretty good.  A nice balance of Bauers, Reaedons, Spauldings, and Lewis'.

Fall of 1984 the structure started changing and by the end of 1985, it was a new show.  An interesting show, but not the GL of before.

The 2nd tenure in 1988 to 1990 was much stronger (and even used some of the history to boot).

3 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I think GL was due for an update by 1983, and I think the 1st 18 months of Pam Long's 1st tenure was pretty good.  A nice balance of Bauers, Reaedons, Spauldings, and Lewis'.

Fall of 1984 the structure started changing and by the end of 1985, it was a new show.  An interesting show, but not the GL of before.

The 2nd tenure in 1988 to 1990 was much stronger (and even used some of the history to boot).

I started liking GL again once Robert Calhoun took over in 1989. I don't think that the show needed such a drastic update in 1983. Another World was in much worse shape before Allen Potter, so was Search. GL didn't deserve the trashy Lewis and Shayne families, Jesse, Simon, Jackson, Suzette, Warren, Kurt and all the others. I will never understand how Pamela Long convinced people to let her turn a long running and successful soap into Texas 2.0. 

40 minutes ago, Sapounopera said:

I started liking GL again once Robert Calhoun took over in 1989. 

Robert Calhoun laid all the groundwork for GL's early 1990s golden era but JFP ended up getting all the credit. 

 

By the time the 90's rolled around, you had remnants of the Bauer, Reardon, Lewis, Shayne , Spaulding and Cooper families on the canvas, so it was a wonder that anything cohesive  made it onscreen.

Introducing 4 new families in a decade was not in the best interests of the show.

One of the best things. About watching these two episodes was that Jeva don't feel played out. Like they did in the late 90's and 00's. You really see the chemistry between Zimmer and Newman.  Without it being corrupted by years of bad stories. I forgot that Reva and Dinah were friends. I don't remember them ever interacting later on. Even with Cassie and Dinah being bitter rivals.  Continuity mistake When Dinah mentioned meeting Reva the summer before. When it was two summers before. When everyone in town was working at HB's summer camp. 

Edited January 15, 20232 yr by victoria foxton

 

Spoiler Alert: The sudden death was Maureen Bauer

And while it is sacrilege to defend this plot point, I thought it was interesting to think of it in the context of counter programming.  We've all heard the story about audience research and other characters that may have been axed.  However, I found it intriguing that the death occurred outside of sweeps (1/11/93) and on the same week as the finale of Santa Barbara.  Which led me to suspect that GL was trying to both protect against viewer drift to those curious about watching the end of a soap, and lure SB fans over to CBS by creating an event - just a theory, feel free to disagree, because I already know that someone is going to react that it should have been another character.

Thanks for Facebook group Daytime Soaps No Longer on the Air for the photo