Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

I agree the scene is good. I also think this is a stronger take on Alex than we often got from Marj - there's some Myrna, yes, but Myrna was also very neurotic, the same way Marj often played Alex. Here Marj is trying to just play the colder, barely concealed disgust and contempt. I had forgotten until reading the Soapcentral profile on Alex that there were other scenes around this time like her browbeating poor Vicky that give glimpses into a stronger take on Alex that we did not get for most of her run.

Still, I can't blame Marj for going to AMC, as that was a contract part, and she always seemed more at home as Vanessa, even if she had her moments as Alex.

I do wonder if P&G were the ones keeping Bradley. Conboy had already started downgrading Jerry. Still, they never should have let him go.

Thanks for the article. I didn't know 40% of daytime viewers are black women. Yet still no respect from the genre. Hopefully BtG will change that, as much as it can be changed. I didn't know Michele was from Chicago either. I've said before I like to think Irna is watching over the show...

This is not true:

“The Guiding Light” was the only radio soap to transition to TV. 

 

[Mitch64]

Very interesting! I think a recast was called for when JFP brought O'leary back (in another effort to avoid being fired...) I never thought of Rick being way too "normal" after being raised by Ed at his most turbulent but you are right..(though I do think they can attribute that to Bert really raising him, and it helped the MOL had chemistry with Charita, but she had chemistry with EVERYONE) The problem was...MOL works great in a limited capacity, but its a capacity that was much needed..the normal, nice guy with flaws who supports others. He is not great at romance or drama or despite his efforts, comedy. I thought they hit the good spot with Rick and Abby being the normal nice couple, but soaps arent interested in that anymore, everything has be overwrought drama and MOL sucks at that.

But a Rick more like Mike, who has an uneasy relationship with his dad...(this is where the recast would have come in,) after he comes back and Mo is dead, he finds out what happened, and it makes him angry that Ed once again, ruins another woman, a woman that was the closest to a Mom he ever had.  This would actually have tied into PS' more emotionally distant take in his later run. Rick and Ed would have a new, more tense relationship as this brings up memories of his childhood. Rick would seek a wife and family but also  be worried that he is going to ruin it all like Ed.  They could have done that with MOL (as long as it didnt get too heavy) and they did do a nice scene during Conwest, where Rick and Frank commiserate that they did not have a dad like Ross growing up.

[chrisml]

Re: Dusay and Coleman. It just felt very one-note to me. It was the combination of the predictable writing and what I thought was such a comedown from the original actresses. I like Coleman and Dusay, so I was prepared to enjoy them. I might have felt differently if I had watched it in context, but then I know the storyline did not go over well so who knows? To be fair, it didn't help that I watched this after I viewed a clip about Vanessa blackmailing Alex to go to Nick and Mindy's engagement party. In that, I felt Dusay's performance also did not feel like Alex. I think this must have been closer to her arrival on the show, and I honestly have no idea what she's doing. She plays Alex as more neurotic (DRW50 points this out above).

I have a lot of blind spots in my GL viewing so I have tried to watch some of GL post-January 1993, but I find it difficult. I find the show incredibly lifeless as if all the energy has been removed from every scene. This surprises me because JFP could usually craft good music and pacing for a scene or episode, but so much of what I have seen just falls flat. 

[DRW50]

I haven't gone back to watch Dusay's early run very often, but I do remember her as being smoother early on - less of sounding like a barnyard animal. She initially wears a very chic suit, IIRC, that Alex might have worn if she was a huge Michael Jackson fan. The work looks on Marj and that more laid-back style. It doesn't take long for the histrionics to kick in.

You're not wrong about how dead the show often felt in those years. The actors and some of the dialogue writers, and the appropriate use of music here and there, helps, but only so far. By the time we got to early '94 I was completely numb.

[Contessa Donatella]

The thing is MOL very likely a favorite among the cast & crew. Good friend, very funny guy also gets along. If JvD was the senior statesman, MOL was the court jester. 

Edited April 3 by Contessa Donatella

[DRW50]

This is a very in-depth take on what the Bauers could have been. I like your idea. I think the Bauers, even by the mid '80s, had become too dismantled for the complexity they should have had, as you've shown here. In that more dismantled state, I think O'Leary worked, as he had a spark and good comic timing. I also think he was a very good contrast to Grant Aleksander, and that aspect probably clicked more than him as a Bauer - I can't really remember appreciating any of his scenes with his family. 

I think @Mitch64 is right that they may have been better off recasting when they brought him back - I think he works well enough the first few years, even through the Abby pairing, but after that, they start taking Rick in a lot of directions which weren't the best use of the actor. Then again, I don't know who could have made sense of most of those stories, which were all rushed and tired tropes (the Mel stuff) or incomprehensible (Philip's death and the Beth affair).

I know he used to talk in interviews about the pranks he and some of the other guys in the cast would pull, especially the one about convincing new guys that they were going to go to Italy to play a gay love story with a soccer player. I always wondered if any of the new guys actually believed that.

[Contessa Donatella]

PORTIA FACES LIFE/THE INNER FLAME but that's just one. There are SO many. 

[wonderwoman1951]

saw that, as well.  

there were 3 others: ‘the road of life’; ‘young dr malone’; ‘the brighter day’ — all created by irna. though it’s certainly fair to say that gl was the most successful transition. 

[Mitch64]

That is all fine and good, but don't bring that on screen. I don't care to see your dumb impression of Bill Murray in Caddyshack...I am sure it is HI-larious with your work mates but onscreen..no. I think it could get away with some of that when he is younger and cuter..through Abby past the end MOl was very cute and in his break up scenes with her, shirtless as he no doubt lost weight and was working out, he was a piece of a**, but, when he let the fat kick in he just looked like a tired old fool, that no one could take seriously and that should not be a Bauer.

 

That would NOT have flown nowdays, but he and GA convinced, what must have been Ethan Erickson, to try on some soccer shorts and he is going to be in gay love affair...yea, funny, but filled with a bit of gay panic, "Gay..GROSSSSS!" so I can kind of see JE being warry of those two and Krista throwing it back at them and able to deal with them.

[DRW50]

I assume they meant the only successful transition, which is what I often read with GL - maybe they just missed a world. I am probably nitpicking. 

Brighter Day might come second.

It didn't help that was when they gave up on any logical story for him. Who decided he needed a child with Harley? Was someone a big fan of the Philip/Meredith plotline? 

I couldn't remember who the guy was. Thanks. 

That was the closest Ethan came to having a storyline.

[prefab1]

While I agree that Rick often seemed to be just one of several sad-sack men hovering around the canvas in the show's final years, I also think that MOL could be excellent when given the right material. I actually thought both he and Yvonna Kopasz were riveting in this 2006 Inside the Light episode about the state of Rick and Mel's marriage. The problem is that they should have played these scenes over months, rather than just cramming them into a single Wednesday episode that many viewers probably missed.

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[DRW50]

Thanks. I am surprised at how decent the show still looks by that point (I don't say that to go into more Peapack rehashing). I was also impressed by the work there. I know Michael could do good work, but I don't think Yvonna ever got credit, partly because she was immediately rushed into a marriage and a baby storyline and never felt like a character.

I also appreciate Mel calling out the romanticization of the whole Four Musketeers era, even if the show, like all the soaps, fell back on the same nostalgia too many times (there and with Josh/Reva).

I still can't believe how fast they aged Leah. Irna would have been proud.

Edited April 3 by DRW50

[Contessa Donatella]

Just sounds like it would require someone quite naive.

But, the thing I like that was said both about AW as well as GL is that the vets taught the newbies. Each one, teach one. 

[DRW50]

That's a nice idea - how it should be.

[chrisml]

I always thought Frank Dicopoulos was the kind of actor you need on a show because he is a comfortable touchstone when so much of the cast is a revolving door of faces. I liked him and I wish he had been given more to do. I'm not suggesting he's a Michael Zaslow talent waiting to bust out with Emmy reel after Emmy reel but I think he had charisma.  I have a soft spot for those long-term supporting players who usually get axed when shows want to save money. 

re: JFP and the 1993-95 years. Was her budget cut at GL?  When she was on SB, she made excellent music and directorial choices. I remember seeing some of the clips from the Joe Lando story and thinking it was painful to watch. I suppose some of it could also be the number of recasts/new actors who didn't have the same rhythm as previous actors.