Guiding Light discussion thread

[Speed Racer]

Absolutely!!  What would you propose for the Reardons here?

[Spoon]

I would've brought on more siblings for Bridget and Matt.  One time they showed Bridget and Matt visiting home with a bunch of nameless kid siblings.

Also, I would've tied more new characters into established families.  Dr. Noah or even Michael the clone doc could've been Reardons- since we know that clan is big there would've been opportunities.

I thought "Marian" also resembled Ellen Parker/Maureen a little bit too.

I hated those "Inside the Light" episodes that Wheeler introduced.  That's prob when I started distancing myself from the show.  They disrupted the flow of the week, and if it focused on characters I don't care about- then forget it.  Y&R likes those special character episodes-  ugh.

Edited Thursday at 05:24 PM by Spoon

[Mitch64]

We never saw Tony and Annabelles kids, or even  knew how many there were...there must have been a lot as Bea just moved there and never came back. I would also have recast Sean Reardon with a more uh, conventionally attractive guy..(maybe that guy who played John on AW) and made his less of a sleaze and a cheap knock off of Buzz. I also think Michael the Clone doc could have easily been Jim Reardon, well known medical experimenter.

I would have brought back the missing Reardon sibling, which some people call Lana for some reason..(maybe that was said on screen?) They could have had Lana be the mother of Abby (non Amish) who is hiding out from her abusive exhusband. So she buys a farm in Indiana and puts them both up as a fortress kind of thing, but since she is a Reardon, she takes in all of the worlds lost strays, especially women fleeing domestic abuse. Along comes amnesia Reva (I would totally have written a different back story of her missing years then the crappy schlock fairy kingdom) who she finds wandering around covered in blood ( she was hitchhiking with her radar back to Josh's peen, but is attacked and she fights her way out and Lana finds her dazed...) which she takes in. "Lana" would have the heart of Mo, but be tougher and more savy and maybe an ex-alcholic herself, which is why she has not communicated to her family since Mo's funeral. She would eventually get with Ed, but it would be a long road to that, as she would cut him if he cheated!

 

 

[Spoon]

All good ideas, I had similar fan fiction ideas at the time.  So many missed opportunities.   It was so frustrating being a GL fan as TPTB didn't appreciate it's longtime viewers.  There was no reason not to recast Ed, after Peter Simon left again in 2004.  An aged Peter Reardon should've come to town in the final years.

[Contessa Donatella]

Anything that added scenes & drama for Matt, good & Bridget, GREAT!!!! 

I saw the resemblance to JFP but I do not see it to Mo. 

I liked the concept & some of the specific episodes, just according.  Probably liked more than not. 

And, you were just saying that Ed should've been recast. As has been noted recently Wheeler made a huge mistake waiting & trying EVERYTHING to get Peter Simon back for the Sebastian story. 

[chrisml]

Did something go down between Fiona Hutchison and Paul Rauch? Liz Keifer seems to indicate something did but then doesn't elaborate.  I am stunned how often Paul Rauch was hired considering his history of treatment of women behind the scenes. It really goes to show that women were not protected, and perpetrators were just ignored or promoted/hired. For as neutral as Locher tends to be, you really do get a lot of gossip from his interviews as long as he doesn't interrupt. 

I think I forgot to post Curlee's promotion of the blizzard of 93. They really used Curlee as a saleswoman. There's a small mention of Leonard Stabb.

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[Contessa Donatella]

 

Yet, he was KZ's favorite EP, wasn't he? And, all the way back to AW losing Maeve, then him at OLTL & then the paranoia of the GL set under him, overly & wrongly lit, what clothes & what colors were allowed & not etc. Him & MADD together as a power couple & the pair of them WRT Zaslow, ... am I beating a long dead horse?? 

[Spoon]

I never saw a side-by-side comparison, as I've only seen pics of JFP a couple of times.  I wonder if there is an actual resemblance between the two or everyone just hated JFP so much that they WANTED to see a connection.  I know how brash soap fans can be against people and decisions they disagree with.

[Contessa Donatella]

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[DRW50]

I never saw the resemblance, mainly because JFP's very famous hairstyle is not similar.

Thanks. I don't remember this blizzard, admittedly I was barely watching for large parts of 93 due to most of my favorite cast members leaving.

I may be wrong, but I believe there was a rumor that P&G fired Fiona because she had an issue with how Michael Zaslow was treated. It may have been something else though.

Edited Thursday at 11:06 PM by DRW50

[Franko]

There might have been more personal stuff, but Rauch was still producing OLTL when Fiona left or was forced to leave. If I recall correctly, they lowballed her and she walked.

[Mitch64]

I never saw the resemblance either. I was actually surprised during the Locher show that JFP looked very attractive and seemed very pleasant...(and I realize she was b.s. through half of it.) 

 

Yes, that was the main cause..Fiona vocally supported Zaz and went to the events for him including the OLTL events. Also, she got bored when they turned her into a soccer mom by once again sacrificing a good female character on the altar of Buzz Cooper. Now which came first, who knows, did Rauch retaliate by putting her in the back of scenes "Blowing up balloons for the Bauer BBQ" as Fiona put it. I have no idea why they just did not write both Buzz and her out then, other then to get that weird soap writer producer thrill of taking out what you think of the actor on the character...(okay, well I admit I would give Buzz an hilariously long death so that Deas could chew his last pieces of scenery..."gahhh, ha..." are waving, spit flying..."Im going...going..Im not gone yet..bahh, gahhh!" and then he would float to heaven and Nadine and Jenna would be there look at him and say..."Uh, not so much.") 

[DeeVee]

I have also mulled the possibilities of bringing back this unseen sibling. I've also heard that her name is Lana. (First thing I would do, though, is change that name. Like Chelsea, it doesn't seem like a Reardon family name, since the rest of the kids have either Irish or saint's names. Naming soap characters poorly is a pet peeve of mine.)

I read somewhere that she worked on cruise ships, so she would have been out of the country for a long time. She also had a couple of sons, which would have beefed up the Reardons if they had brought her into the story.

My idea for NotLana is having her be an old flame of Alan's. A lot of people (including me) complain that after Hope, Alan never had a real romance. (Reva doesn't count, IMO, that was always ridiculous). There's a big gap in his backstory where she could neatly fit in. Marland bent over backwards to portray his brief encounter with Jane Marie/Jennifer as transformative. That he did a bad thing (seduced and impregnated a minor) but felt responsible for her and wanted to do right by her, even to the point where he told Hope about it before he ever laid eyes on Jennifer.

The next thing we know about him after that is he married Elizabeth and started cheating on her during their honeymoon. (In my scenario, the Maryanne Carruthers story never happens.)

It would make sense that something happened in between to change him from a sensitive young man to a womanizer who regularly humiliates his wife.

I would date their love affair at the time Alan was in Chicago being mentored by Henry. Of course, Brandon, and maybe even Henry, wouldn't approve. The fact that she's Tom Reardon's kid connects her to the secret from the Fishing Trip Mystery storyline, which would bother both of them, plus Brandon is just a snot-headed snob who busted up Alex's love affair because Eric wasn't good enough for the Spauldings. Maybe Brandon insisted Alan marry Elizabeth, threatening to disown him like he did with Alex. Which would give him a pretty strong reason to be resentful of Elizabeth (he owes her everything but hates that it cost him NotLana). And giving NotLana a strong reason to have a lingering resentment of Alan, for chosing wealth and power over her.

NotLana could come back to town many years later with her sons. She'd be "the one that got away," maybe with the secret that one of her kids is Alan's. It would be ironic if he had a male heir out there around the same time he was busy switching someone else's kid with his dead one.

I think that would have been much better than making Gus his kid with a woman who had no ties to anything or anyone on the canvas (especially since they ended up killing him off).

When she comes back, she could become close to Ed and Michelle for the sake of her dead sister. Maybe Ed falls in love with her. Or a returned Mike. Add perhaps a returned Hope into the mix. There would be lots of ways to weave her into the lives of both the Bauers and the Spauldings.

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm having the world's worst case of deja vu. I feel like I've read this specific post before.

It is the most uncomfortable feeling. I'm sure you can imagine. Really awful.

 

[Spoon]

Names can always be changed.   

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  Remember when Michelle's original name was Berta, named after grandma Bert.  Danny Santos was named Denny during his first few weeks.  Zack Spaulding was originally named after Alan, this was after Alan had a heart attack.  Nola's daughter Anastasia was originally named Kelly when se was trying to pass her off as Kelly Nelson's daughter.