Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

Next week is the Endiversary of GUIDING LIGHT. I have just completed, finished editing the last 3 episodes of the show.

https://rumble.com/v5eie79-gl-9-16-2009.html

https://rumble.com/v5eibkd-gl-9-17-2009.html

https://rumble.com/v5eiftp-gl-final-episode-9-18-2009.html

[Mitch64]

I like the storyline, except for the fact that I would not one a murderer to be in one of the core families and it makes Van look stupid...(besides the way she says MAAAATTTT which annoyed the crap out of me...) and pathetic. I always thought there needed to be a male Nola in the Reardon's someone who wanted better in life and would use anyone to get it.. I thought they were going that way with him but...no..(instead of Rusty Nail Shayne..I wish they had brought in a male Reardon who would go after Mindy for her money..and break her up with dull as dirt (though sexy as hell) Kurt. Bea would support him more than she did Nola (cause you know Irish mamas and their boys) etc. Such a lost opportunity to bring back Bea yet another kid to expand the dynamic.

I loved Poser but can understand why people could not accept her as Amanda...(I personally thought original Amanda dull as watching paint dry...) so I would have made her an adopted daughter of Alan..(he adopted her while in exile and molded her into a weapon to use against Alex) who was also a grifter who used older men, and she and Matt were lovers who pulled scams in California. When she comes back she has all the goods on him, etc. The male ho thing was definitely not something Van could accept..(plus, what male has are exclusive to women...I wish they had explored THAT angle...)

[P.J.]

EEhhhh..ok... something less than deliberately plotting Vanessa's murder---but something where they couldn't have chickened out and had Matt really fall in love with her. I supposed Amanda (like any other true Spaulding) could've been looking to take over the company and oust all the "old guard", Alan, Alex and Vanessa. And teamed up with Matt somehow to accomplish it.

I know people love Kathleen Cullen---but she was always just so fragile.  While I didn't like Poser, that's mostly because her Amanda rarely even acted human. The personality transplant and the de-aging (she was an adult when Chrissie was a child) didn't endear her to me either. It would've made much more sense for Amanda and Vanessa to go at each other due to their history, than the Amanda/Blake rivalry.

I do kind of laugh at the idea that giving Vanessa a blue collar lover was edgy. She was chasing Tony back in the '80's. I not sure Fletch was even white collar.  Vanessa hadn't been a snob for years.

[DRW50]

I put this in the They Almost Became thread, but hell, why not, I'll put it here too.

Rick Hearst reveals that Cynthia Watros auditioned for Lucy on Guiding Light (the role went to Sonia Satra). Lucy was such a thankless part, but then Annie was too for a while. I wonder what Cynthia would have made of it.

https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/exclusive-ghs-rick-hearst-ric-on-his-close-soap-call-with-cynthia-watros-nina/

[Mitch64]

Ha..I thought Cullen acted like the lady down the street who never wore makeup and wanted to tell you about her Dahlia's and remind you to recycle. The age thing didnt bother me that much as it was just a weird soap aging thing that viewers accept...(I would have loved a line from Alex, "Amanda, California must have been good to you, you look even younger, who is your surgeon?")  While I loved Poser for her camp..I agree, they never gave her any motivation so she never got to act "real" ..which Poser had the chops to balance vixen and human. First she comes on and is after Ross (why..not because they were involved before, but to be a plot point) then we find out she was the Malibu Madame (this from someone who was "frigid," ) The writers could have explained it all as a persona that Amanda created to guard herself against men and the world, but deep down inside she was still the girl an old lady kept locked in the attic (which could have been explained as her animosity to Alex...) kinda of like Lucinda on ATWT was really Mary Ellen Waters underneath but hidden away. If they played those beats Amanda could have been more then a plot point and someone who did terrible things but the audience knew why (like Roger.) And yes, Amanda should have been secretly plotting to topple the old guard of Alan, Alex, Vanessa and I would include Roger..(one thing that annoyed me is that she became a pawn for Roger, in love with him...more fun would have been two amoral people happily using each other for sex and power and trying to one up the other. I would have just had her steer clear of Ross as the "younger" bad girl after him was done before and better...so just having him as a friend and legal advisor but making Blake jealous (with Amanda happily dropping hints that there is more) would be enough for her to self destruct and do something dumb.

Though she never would admit it..Kimmer should thank her lucky stars Watros was cast as Annie..it gave Reva and Josh material when they were basically over and done with. What besides Annie and the Clone does anyone remember from Reva 2.0?

 

[prefab1]

I loved Poser's campy take on Amanda, although I admit I was unfamiliar with Dobson and Marland-era GL when I was watching her. Now having seen Cullen, I can admit Poser seemed to be playing a completely different character, but I also don't feel too bothered by that (although I do wish the show had done a better job of directly addressing the character's 180-degree turn).

But it makes me wonder: are there any conditions under which it is acceptable to totally reinvent a character? Amanda had been off the show for 12 years when Poser came on, and although she was a fairly long-running character, I'm not sure if she'd really been a beloved one. Part of me wonders if GL should have just used this tactic more often--bringing back very old characters who were written off because they were the "boring one" in a core family, but recasting them with more vivacious actors. All I'm saying is if, in the Rauch era, they'd wanted to bring on a recast Trish Lewis played by Tonja Walker, I'd have tuned in for that. 

[Mitch64]

I'm good with that...(I was all for recasting Rick with a more energetic actor)as long as they kept their history and relationships in line.  With Amanda they at least did mention the past (the attic, Ross, Josh, LTA, giving up Spaulding) they just dropped the ball on WHY Amanda was so different, and the rest of the characters never mentioned it...(when Harley came back for the 70th Ball she commneted on how much Dinah changed...) And I do think Tonja should have played Hope!

 

[prefab1]

Oh, Tonja as Hope could have been great! And she would have filled the vixen gap that happened in 1998 when both Annie and Amanda left in quick succession. I can just imagine her sparking in a love/hate relationship with Ron Raines' Alan. 

[Sapounopera]

I loved Cullen, the frigid Amanda. The actress was quite unique. In my GL I would bring her back for a few episodes as someone who runs an orphanage in a war zone and almost lives like a nun. Think Bette Davis in the Old Maid. The madame situation would be mentioned and in one sentence I would blame everything on Morgan and poor Amanda would have taken the blame in order to protect her sister and her young child... who would end up being Josh's and the mirror image of young Amanda Wexler.

[MichaelGL]

Missed opportunity, how seemingly Amanda and Josh didn't interact when Tobey Poser was in the role. I think throwing Amanda (and even Morgan if they ever brought her back too) would've opened up some story possibilities. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

I'm a soap opera traditionalist.  But even I can tolerate a little de-aging of a returning character, as long as it is not completely unreasonable. But de-aging really needs to be within half a generation at most.  For example, I could not accept the recast of Patti Tate Whiting on SFT in the mid-1980s, because she was de-aged an entire generation.  Ridiculous, in my opinion.  Just cast Patti's daughter, if you need a character that young!!  But I did enjoy Justin Deas as Tom Hughes, probably because the character was de-aged only a few years.  

And although I think recasting with a more vivacious actor is often a good idea (Justin Deas as Tom again), complete reinventions of any character is a big mistake in my opinion.   If a soap writer feels the need to "reinvent" a character, then he/she should probably just invent a completely new character to carry the plot the writer has in mind. I believe that would be more acceptable to the long-term fans -- the fans who really stick with a soap through thick and thin.   

Edited September 12, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[P.J.]

LOL...as much as I loved MZ, yeah, seeing him play every woman like a fiddle got old.

And I agree---Annie was the best thing that happened to Josh/Reva. They had long past the time of life where stupidity and lies were the biggest hurdles to their love.

I think you can reboot a character, as long as you make it make sense. Dinah's initial run in town was fairly short and unremarkable. So bringing her back as a scheming wild child could be explained by both her childhood and remind us that her parents had been hell on wheels at that point in their lives.

OGAmanda had some bite to her. It's not like she couldn't have mixed it up around town. It seemed like the only point to her being a "madam" was to give Matt a sordid yet somehow sympathetic past. They could've easily made Amanda one of Matt's clients, and have her want to reignite their affair. That would've made more sense with her established intimacy issues.

Edited September 13, 2024 by P.J.

[Contessa Donatella]

SOAP OPERA DIGEST 11-19-1985
Collector's Edition, 10th Anniversary Issue,
pg. 110 THE MARITAL RAPE OF HOLLY
GUIDING LIGHT's Roger Thorpe (Michael Zaslow) raped two women -- his ex-lover Rita (Lenore Kasdorf) and his wife Holly (Maureen Garrett). But, while Rita withheld this fact out of selfish reasons, Holly had the courage -- and the unconditional support of her mother Barbara (Barbara Berjer) -- to charge her husband with rape. This sequence -- and an event involving Holly's torment in a women's prison -- produced some of Bridget & Jerome Dobson's finest writing to date.

[Mitch64]

When Nola came back I thought they should have brought recast Chele with her, which would explain her change in character..kinda...(lets admit it RM played Chele as a bit downbeat ..and for good reason...but saying she was staying with Nola and meeting her Reardon cousins around the country would have explained the new energy...though RB's airhead Chele chasing after everything in pants would not have been my idea of how to renew the character...) and then mention that Dinah had spent time with her and Quint when she was offcanvas...Nola introducing her to a more "fun" part of the world and encouraging her outrageousness (in part to spite Van) would have made sense.

I don't remember OGAmanda for anything but dressing like a kid and having dolls as babies, then constantly talking about her "frigidity" though she had hottieBen in her bed (and maybe the explanation was more that Ben was hiding his own sexuality then it all on her..) and then simpering after Mark.

I would have avoided the manho aspect all together (cause face it, Matt was too boring to even be a gigilio..) and just have Amanda partnered with an older Silicon Valley CE0) this was back in the day when tech was just starting to be big business and would have been a nice contrast to the staid corporation of Spaulding..which did....whatever it did..) and he is the one not putting out so she has an affair with Matt..in typical Amanda fashion she picks a bad apple for a partner and he is abusive and one day he is found dead..and both Matt and Amanda think the other did it (but of course, it would be his  exwife he dumped for Amanda..) that would give them a reason to keep their past a secret while suspecting the other.

[P.J.]

LOL...well, we could've avoided Matt all together...iykwim.

Question I've been dying to ask---could they have recast Rita...and with whom?

The best I could come up with is Jess Walton, before she started Y&R and fell into some bad habits.