Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DeeVee]

I have to root through the 1985 episodes on YT now because I must see this for myself.

I'm pretty sure she was blind on their wedding day.

No, Bill was sacrificed to the Fishing Trip Mystery. Hillary was sacrificed to the Barbados Mystery.

Yeah, unbelievable. I wasn't that wild about the Hillary/Jim pairing, but by blowing her up they left him without anything to do (except fall for his sister-in-law, ew). So both the Bauers and Reardons were diminished.

It's something that happened a LOT during this time period: pairings that were built up and then died. If it's not working, sure, they have to cut their losses. But there were so many. Rick and Mindy, Rick and Meredith, Mindy and Kurt and Frank and Rusty and Will, Philip and Chelsea, Johnny and Roxie, Johnny and Chelsea, Philip and Blake, Alan Michael and Dinah, Alan Michael and Harley, Dinah and Cameron, Trish and Ross, Claire and Kelly, Claire and Fletcher, Maeve and Fletcher...it goes on and on.

Other than Reva and Josh, they had almost no pairings with staying power. (They would have with Philip and Beth if Evans hadn't left or they had done a decent recast right away).

[Mitch64]

Yes..everyone had a weird reaction to a character being brutally murdered...and so young. But it was Kobe's f you to the actress, who had time off scheduled for pilot season but Kobe wanted her to film the Dreaming Death thing were she meets Fletcher in Santo Whatever the Hell it was, Clarke insisted on taking it, so they had to come in the studio on weekends to film to cover the time she was off.

I never liked the actress, but have her blown up and just be in a coma and sent to the Soap Opera Rehab Center for People with Mysterious Diseases They Need To Write Out and then come back months later with a recast.

I wanted Michael the Clone Doctor to be Jim Reardon, who would have gone to the same doc that Amanda Spaulding did who froze time.

[DeeVee]

That's the problem with bringing a core family member in for a short-term storyline. What do you do with them afterwards? They should have had a plan. Being the kind of doctor he was limited what he could do on the canvas.

This reminds me of a funny story Joel Carruthers told at a soap event back when he was on EON. He had previously been on Somerset (paired with Tina Sloane, btw).

Anyway, his character was a pianist. The show decided that was too limiting for his character. So they injured his hands or something. They had a scene where someone asks him what he would do with the rest of his life.

"Luckily, I have a journalism degree!" He cries as he reaches into the piano bench to pull out his diploma.

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By the way, I always thought Jim and Amanda could have been a good pairing. Though I don't know about the freezing time thing. (I remember the clone and the time travel painting, but not that).

[Soaplovers]

It always fascinates me seeing a soap that's firing on all cylinders like GL was  in the summer of 1984 (where they ranked #2 or 3 consistently during that summer) shoot themselves in the foot so quickly as they did during the fall of 1984.

Killing Hilary off in September, Writing off Mike in September, Bert ending up being off canvas due to Charita's quickly declining health starting in late 1984, sidelining Nola/Quint with that Jonathan story, Jim making eyes at his sister in law Annabelle, Reva/Billy/Josh/HB eating up airtime, etc

It was a miracle that the show maintained a #3 or #4 ranking all the way through the summer of 1985 before ratings started a slight decline to #5 during the fall/winter of 1985 (only hitting #4 at the climax of the Largo story) before settling at # 5 through the start of 1986.  Once Long left the writing staff and Ryder was sole head writer, the ratings really took a nosedive.

Edited 12 hours ago by Soaplovers

[chrisml]

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[Contessa Donatella]

@chrismlDid the Emmy Segment with Clarence tell you what GL submitted?

[robbwolff]

I wasn't watching Guiding Light regularly when Locke Walls was on, but I think the woman in the song "Aubrey" had been inspired by Alexandra. I came across a blog post from 2013 that referenced the story and included YouTube clips, which are no longer available. According to the blog post, Locke died in Alex's arms.

[chrisml]

Thank you Contessa for the Emmy clips. 

It's amazing how much of a bust Crampton was as Mindy. I also wonder what convinced Peter Simon to submit the following year. 

[DRW50]

Thanks for the article @chrisml . You can see Logan in full stenographer mode there trying to tell us how great it is that an actress was hired without an audition because she went to the SOD Awards and decided she missed soaps. That's a recipe for a failure and no soap of quality would (I hope) have that mindset. I was a fan of Crampton on Y&R, but it was obvious very quickly she was not suited to GL, and obvious that JFP had no interest in finding ways to help her fit in. It's telling that she only improved as JFP's influence was waning.

I can't remember if it was you or someone else who speculated that the reason the ratings did not increase during the period where the show genuinely improved (89-92) was down to viewers who were too burnt out to try again. I had no idea they were still at #5 through such a poor and hollowed out period for the show. I can see why a lot of loyal viewers never went back.

That's hilarious. I wish I could see that scene, even if the reality is never as fun as the retell.

I don't know if I ever heard this before. I probably did and just forgot, but still, thanks. 

We talk at length about JFP or Rauch and spitefulness, but Kobe seems in some ways even more spiteful, to allegedly kill off two characters, both of whom had story left to give, just because the actors wanted to have other opportunities. Even Gloria Monty, when she thought Jack Wagner was pulling a stunt to get more money, did not have Frisco get his head blown off - she just recast him and sent a message of his job not being safe. 

With what happened with Lujack and Hilary, I'm genuinely surprised Mike Bauer left Springfield alive. Maybe it's because Don left so abruptly? Otherwise, Mike probably would have had a plane crash on him, probably piloted by...checks notes...Chandler Hill Harben?

 I wonder if this is the end result of always trying to chase the brief high they got in 83-84. That and ABC and NBC having supercouple success. GL at its core was never a supercouple show, and never should have steered in that direction. 

Watching that Hilary funeral clip, Rick and Mindy have such a natural connection, yet I don't even think they were involved at that time. A waste. 

The talk about Mindy and Kurt reminds me that I never even heard her mention him in later years. I don't even know if she was by the end of Krista's run, when she was with Will Jeffries. A huge wedding remote, her first husband, and it was just a blip.

Mindy was probably the most vibrant of the Four Musketeers yet was the one who seemed to get the least respect from the show (you could say Beth, but at least they did have her around on a regular basis for the show's last 12 years).

[P.J.]

Well...that piece on Crampton sure doesn't age well. For a minute I thought they got Crampton confused with Eileen Davidson. I mean...c'mon. Crampton was okay on Y&R, but "most respected"? 

I knew I hated Peter Barton for a reason. (God, he ruined Lauren...RUINED.)

[chrisml]

I don't see why they bothered with the character of Mindy post-Simms because they never had any real plans for her. All that drama about casting, firing, casting, quitting, and for what?  So much of JFP's tenure just seemed full of desperate moves that never panned out.

[DRW50]

I think the only reason was because JFP wanted to keep playing out the Mindy/Nick/Alexandra "triangle."

[P.J.]

I don't even blame her for trying to continue that story...but you can't just hand the part to an actress without screen testing her with VI. That's unforgivably stupid. How many times have the same co-stars not recreated the chemistry they had on show #1? No matter how well-regarded Crampton was, to my recollection, she'd never had romantic chem with anyone on Y&R.

[DRW50]

I do blame her, because a good producer, an objective producer, would have known the story reached a natural conclusion and couldn't survive the departure of both leading ladies. I think she just banked too much on her own ego, and on Vincent. But you're right - all she really needed to do to make the story better was to take more care in casting Mindy. She didn't. 

I remember enjoying Barbara with Quinn Redeker, but Quinn was a chemistry machine, and the whole core of Leanna was that she could never be with a man as she was a trainwreck. 

Barbara did work well with Michael O'Leary, but that was just as she was heading out the door. 

[P.J.]

I don't understand why they didn't lean into the Nick/Eve story and play that out longer. I understand Hilary Edson isn't the most dynamic actress, but they could've still made her crazy over living in Mindy's (off-screen) shadow. Then bring Alex back, and have her see that Eve is off her spool, but Nick just think that Alex is that jealous and controlling that she no longer likes the woman she purposely brought back into her son's life.