Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DeeVee]

I couldn't resist. I had to look it up. VI would have been 26 in 1985, so she wasn't cradle robbing. Phew!

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[bboy875]

The guy at 6:47 is Dylan, Billy and Reva's son, and real life son of the late Cloris Leachman. In the youtube comments, (on this video or a similar one), someone in the comments said the one labeled 1967-1971 is fake, and because no episode has surfaced from this time it might be. Someone on this board who watched in real time should know. And they used the hands opening in 2007, the show's anniversary year. They have people recite the words Reverend Ruthledge would say to open the radio show when he was on it. I don't know what they did opening wise when the Reverend was written off

I never read the issue, so does anyone know the reasons SOD gave for naming GL, the best show of 1985? 

[alwaysAMC]

What?? I didn't realize Reva had another older son. She hasn't mentioned him once since her return from Goshen (1995-1996 so far). What happened to Dylan? If he's still alive, I can't believe they wouldn't address him and how his mother is alive. So, this is also Bill's half-brother and I guess Dinah's what, step-brother of sorts? Haha.

Thanks for letting me know!

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ETA: Ahh, this is the Dylan that was with Bridget and became blind, just before I started my 1995 watch.  I remember she and David went to visit him at his new school for the blind, but they never showed him on camera. 

So that definitely begs the question - wtf, Reva (and writers)?? Why is there no mention of him upon her return. So weird. I know he's an adult, but c'mon.

Edited Wednesday at 06:56 PM by alwaysAMC

[DRW50]

IIRC, there is a line during this time period where Reva says something like Marah is her first-born child, which fans were not thrilled with. 

Dylan makes a few appearances through the rest of the show (and a much later recast that isn't really worth talking about, with a face that is familiar to you). He will make one briefly during 1997, if you get that far.

[P.J.]

Like a lot of soaps, once relatives left, they kinda dropped off the face of the earth and out of conversations. I don't know why writers do that. If they just don't want to confuse viewers, or don't think it matters, or want the liberty kind of revise history to make their stories work. After Josh left in '84, he's barely mentioned. Even when Billy's railing against Kyle and refusing to accept him, it'd be the most natural thing in the world to say "Kyle's NOT by brother, JOSH is!" and I don't think he ever really says that. 

The only writer I can recall who didn't do that is Doug Marland on ATWT. 

[P.J.]

You would think that, wouldn't you? I'd almost think they needed the money to get Robert Newman back, but they also had to know Larkin wasn't going to stick around and play second banana either.

I don't get what the writers thought they were doing with Calla. Long liked using actors from Texas, but other than Alex/Bev McKinsey, the characters she wrote for them seemed blah.

[Mitch64]

Well, VI was leaving, and while Long admits that killing him was stupid...I do agree with letting him go with a big bang...body missing.  They spent a lot of time and money on Infinity, (which I think might have gotten a bit of a better reputation had it not been the harbinger of a total tonal change with the Bauers and Reardon's decimated and its all Reva and the Lewis and the weird people hanging out around Kyle) so they needed it to end dramatically. They could have done so much more with having Alex go after Kyle and Billy, but that ends and she starts moping over weird and boring Simon.

With Kurt..what were you going to do.. cute but boring and perfect and with ties to no one (they had a nice little thing where Bea took him under her wing when everyone left but then she did too..) If they had the balls they would have had Rick and Mindy jump in the sack ( I know, Mindy should have learned birth control by then) I would have had it be Mindy who knows about Rick's drug use and she tries to help him...(not that nobody who came and went) of course, Kurt and Roxie misunderstand..that on top of her bad Sampson Girl thing leaves him to leave her temporarily, and in grand soap tradition, Rick and Mindy console each other (again, I would write it that they always really did, and Mindy rushed into things with Kurt) and she gets knocked up, and loving Rick but also Kurt she chooses to believe it is Kurts (which I could see Princess Mindy doing "My life is perfect and I will it that way, this is Kurts kid")But, she had the dumb model thing, then she burned down the house he was building, she tried to get prefers and he dies (but also Kobe was the one who built him up, then she was gone when he was let go.)

Ross believe it or not is one of the last of the "old guard" characters, beside Ed (who is now FauxEd) and Maureen, and Henry and Van (who is ties to being the Lewis family mope.) JVD has made jokes that they didn't write him out as they simply forgot that he was there!

Reva doesn't even call her mother when she comes back! I never saw the use of Sarah but they could have reunited them and sent her and Hawk out of town together. Hell, I don't like the Shaynes but she should have mentioned Roxie and Rusty.  The weird thing is that Dylan had a ton of story and was very important to the Van/Bridget baby custody story. By the time Reva comes back Dylan had only been gone a year so its not like people wouldn't know him..( I liked him and Bridget together...) So he comes back in 97 and acts like it's no big deal Reva is alive so they must have talked off camera. But Reva was too busy squacking about that annoying toothy Marah and blank Shayne to talk about anything else. 

It's not quite as weird as Van, who obsessed over Peter, comes back to SF and never mentions him...i.e. "I saw Peter this weekend and he so barely remembers me but he is happy with Bridget and Dylan...") 

[alwaysAMC]

Yeah, I would get it if its been years, or they left town normally... but with Dylan, he only left like 3 months before ghost Reva showed up, and then less than a year before Goshen Reva made it back to Springfield. When you add in something as serious as going blind and then amnesia, you'd think there would at least be some throwaway line to acknowledge it like "Oh I need to go visit Dylan at his school, I'll be back tomorrow" haha.  Oh well.

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Oh and yes @DRW50, when I looked up the character of Dylan earlier, I noticed a familiar name in Brian Gaskell and got excited haha.  

[prefab1]

I'm trying to remember the Brian Gaskell-as-Dylan years, and I don't recall him ever playing the character as blind. Am I right? Did Dylan's blindness get cured at some point off-screen? And did the show ever acknowledge this, or did they just hope that the viewers had forgotten about Dylan's life-changing disability (ala DOOL's Phillip, who used to have only one leg back when he was played by Kyle Brandt, but hasn't mentioned that he's an amputee war veteran in years now)? 

[DRW50]

When Dylan returns briefly in 1997, his blindness is gone. I think they did briefly acknowledge this but I have not seen the episodes since they first aired.

[prefab1]

Wow, he must have gone to a really good school for the blind if they taught him how to see again. 

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[DRW50]

It's those Shayne genes, as Reva is also healed from blindness about 5 years later. 

[DRW50]

Speaking of that story, it led me to this scene, which was part of a story I despised (it was one of the reasons I would skip wide swathes of the show at this time), but is another reminder of what a good actress Kim Zimmer was when given the material. I was a fan of Edmund's in spite of the many bad things he did - I think I was mostly just a fan of DAM, but I did often feel sorry for Edmund - but this story is one time where if Reva had put a cap in his ass, I would have been perfectly satisfied. There are so many stories Edmund survived that by many rights he shouldn't have...again, credit to DAM here. Maybe he had his own version of the Bradley Cole stans. Good for them.

I always thought Mark Dobies (RIP) and Kim had some decent chemistry, even if the relationship was one of many discarded for "always."

This for me was Beth's absolute dumbest story, which is saying a hell of a lot. I wonder how Beth Chamberlin felt about it. She always had chemistry with DAM, but chemistry was not enough for her to wander around that cardboard castle for months enabling and being such a smug princess. 

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Edited 17 hours ago by DRW50

[Mitch64]

Well, I am glad someone was!!!! : )

[P.J.]

Wait---not that I care---but Reva was blind? *sigh*