Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

A pregnant Cassie was being held captive by Edmund. Reva helped free her and they were trying to escape. I think Edmund had guards shooting at them (I may be wrong - I loathed this whole story) which led the car to crash. Cassie lost her baby and Reva lost her sight.

Cassie was far along so I am half-surprised they never brought the baby back as alive. If the show had been on a little longer and Laura Wright hadn't left I guess they would have.

[Soaplovers]

I always assumed Princess Beth was actually Lorelei pretending to be Beth.  That's the only thing that I figured was the case back then.. that Beth had a split personality and was covering it very well.

Reva/Noah were a decent pairing.. but at the time, I just assumed that they were a pit stop until Josh and Reva tried yet again to reunite for the millioneth time.

[DRW50]

That makes more sense. I know the show had laid groundwork with Beth and Edmund for a while, but that was not enough to make me find her behavior any less pathetic and damaging.

Josh/Olivia were the same way - in spite of the horrible start with her suicide attempt. At least they did always remain friendly, IIRC, which was another reminder of GL not being like many other soaps.

[Mitch64]

The writers had the perfect way to explain some really inconsistent writing with Beth, by saying she had a few splits. I think her background of abuse by her stepfather, etc would have had been a good way to intro a very cold, bitch that they wrote Beth as sometimes...(and BC actually played well.) Loreli could have been her fun, sexually free side, etc. But they just write her as jumping on Eddie, planning coups, knowing people are in dungeons, and then SHE is the victim...and then they bring Loreli on and no one in town recongnizes her as Beth????/

 

This is why you could not invest in a Reva or Josh pairing outside of Jeva..you know the Jeva fraud would throw a fit if they weren't back together in six months. 

I didn't think Noah was bad..except can't Reva be alone for five minutes (her best time IMO was when Kyle broke up with her to marry that bore, and she had to get a job, friends, etc.  Plus, of course he had to be tied to San Crud, and a super rich doc who of course was actually a super spy (which Dobies could play neither...) I would like a storyline where Noahs "TWU WUVs."comes back and Josh is with Liv, and again Reva (come on, we could all see that..) had to contend with being the Annie cast aside. 

And the whole point was for her sight to come back so she could see Liv stuffing stolen money in a bag...even Zimmer thought that was stupid.

[P.J.]

Not one shred of that sounds familiar. Sudden blindness is one of those soap tropes that was overused to the nth degree. I've just sped through '08, where Bill starts out the year blind, and ends it with amnesia. 

[DRW50]

It felt very hoary long before Reva had it. I forgot Bill got it too.

A shame Michelle wasn't around to share tips on how to cope with temporary blindness.

[P.J.]

True enough. But it just feels too ordinary for Reva to temporarily be blind. ykwim?

[Spoon]

I remember it was reported at the time that the character of Noah was originally planned for Harley but plans changed.

 

Beth should've shared her experience as well.

[DRW50]

Yes. They were very much out of ideas for Reva by this time. A talk show, blindness...the time travel story...

That would have made sense. 

(were they acknowledging the Beth/Bill relationship by this point)

[Speed Racer]

1. Reva should have had a stroke...leaving her permanently MUTE.  Not able to utter a single sound, not even the slightest blubber or gurgle.

[alwaysAMC]

I find it pretty fascinating how polarizing the Reva character is. It seems like most folks on here aren't her biggest fan, but then on YouTube where I watch some of these episodes, the majority of comments/commentary made are on Reva episodes, promoting how wonderful she is and how much Annie sucks. I guess that's a good thing, gets people talking/debating the show.

[Mitch64]

Kimmer had her fans (and she is a very good actress...) but most of them were "fanatics" like Brad Cole fans..she could take a crap in the middle of the Peapack Park Gazebo and Fran from Iowa would be posting how she "Knocked it out of the ballpark this time." It also didn't help that most of the show post Rauch was geered toward giving Kimmer story, no matter how dumb it was, so the rest of the vets sat around.  Its sad..as Kimmer is a good actress and Reva..Real Post Death Reva is a good character, but taken in small doses in an ensemble..and her fans could never stand (nor could Kim)unless she is front and center. Both she and Deas were so much better subtle actors as support (Reva was actually tolerable and rootable again when she was supporting others stories.)

 

LOL..Kimmer would still find a way to chew the scenery..can it be a weird, Dreaming Death type plague that hits Buzz too?

[alwaysAMC]

LOL!  Yeah that makes sense, it seems like many soaps have that one character like this.  I do find it sad the other vets just sit around in the later years.

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I liked (not loved) the character of Reva. I just didn't like how she ate the show. 

[Khan]

I liked Reva, too, but as I've said before, no one at that show besides Pamela K. Long knew how to write for her or for KZ.  You don't plunge a character who is OTT by design into circumstances that are equally (or more) OTT.  The trick with a character like Reva Shayne Lewis is to keep the storylines as down-to-earth as possible and allow her emotions to be bigger.  I've always said that both Reva and KZ were at their finest when they were dealing with relatively mundane things like Josh's paralysis, her marriage to H.B. and her pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage.