Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[alwaysAMC]

I’m up to July 8, 1996.

Aww, we just lost Ed Bauer in late June. He left to go on assignment in Africa. I don’t know if this was the actor’s decision or the show’s, but it’s sad to see a long-time vet go like this. Granted, he hasn’t really had a storyline in a year, since Eve died, but sad nonetheless that he won’t be floating around the hospital or reprimanding Michelle for dressing too provocatively. At least they held a nice going away party for him, with most of the cast there in attendance. It was a nice sendoff. Oh they also had the HIV/AIDS program coordinator from the hospital, who got to dance with Lucy. That was a nice homage and followup to the story from last year.

There were some strong scenes between Rick and Michelle during the 4th of July, reminiscing about their past Bauer BBQs they had and how sad it is without Ed this year. Also with Michelle and Abby, where she told her about her grandma and their wonderful traditions. I do love Abby, she’s very sweet and way easier to watch outside of her Amish storyline. Rick is very kind to her and it really makes me like him.

Ugh, what a sad day. Rick Hearst has left, unceremoniously. His last scene was at Ed’s going away party, and had nothing to do with him, sadly. Also, a new J just showed up. A much more handsome guy and a little more grown up, it feels. We’ll see how I like him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double voice-over in a row like this, where one scene ends with nuA-M showing up and making a statement, then voice over man says the “The role of A-M…” and then immediately a new scene with J starts and he back to back says “And the role of J…”. Wild! We’re losing so many actors and characters this year, again.

Vivian has got to be the worst character right now for me. She is so weak. We’ve had so many repetitive scenes with Vivian and Holly, where Holly tells her to just tell the damn truth so everything can end, and she just whines about how she can’t do it. Meanwhile, she’s cheating on her husband, pissing off her daughter, and now she just told Charles that Griffin is hitting on her. Also, they just brought her into the Alan Spaulding and his Advantage Systems storyline, to bring down the 5th Street restoration, and it’s because the Grants made some bad investments so they wanted to make money. The writers are really driving this family into the ground, but especially Vivian. Prior to this, I rarely saw her, but when she popped in a few times, she always seemed like a fun, stylish yet snooty character who struggled over supporting David and his life decisions, but wow has she really been turned into a horribly weak person.

Dahlia is now dressing up like a prostitute, while a high schooler (what??), and almost got raped (blah). Marcus saved her, but yeah, I’m not feeling this story anymore. And now they’re testing J with Dahlia and having them flirt a lot on the beach, which isn’t making Marcus happy.

I can’t believe A-M announced on TV to all of Springfield the news about Amanda being the Malibu Madame. I know this was probably more of a scandal in the 90s, but today it seems sort of minor in the grand scheme of things haha. I was way more invested in this story in the beginning, when Matt was involved, but it finalized as a big dud.

The “Save our Streets” 5th Street storyline is really, really boring after all these months. At this point, I don’t care who wins - Alan/Amanda or the town of Springfield. All the chanting is laughable and Alan screaming at Buzz/Reva every episode is tiring.  5th Street has been under construction and trying to be ‘saved’ for 18 months now, let’s move on.

Vanessa has now passed out twice, curious to see what’s wrong with her and where this goes (finally something to showcase her!).  Also, this is where Zachary finally makes an appearance, to help an alone Vanessa come to. She doesn’t know him, but he knows her name and knows to call Matt. Someone else mentioned this, but I too feel like this was meant to be someone else at first - perhaps Marian (or my wishful thinking haha)? For a month or so, they never show his face, just a hand with a gold (very unisex, at least) bracelet. But then, not showing his face again, has an encounter with Phillip where his voice is very deep, and then again with Ed at Ed’s going away party. Based on their very short conversation, it almost seems like Ed sold him the lighthouse (we’ll see). But now he’s made an appearance in Lucy’s dream where we finally see his face, and then again now with Vanessa. He also showed face to Marah/Shayne and they recognized him, so curious to see who this person finally is and how people know of him or how he seems to know everyone. But, it was odd in the beginning - either he was supposed to be Marian, or they just didn’t have an actor cast yet. Oh and now the recent cliffhanger, Lucy is walking the beach alone, post-fight with A-M, and he’s there to say hello to her. He feels like a God-like being haha. He’s a very pretty, young man, maybe a little too young looking. I haven’t been spoiled at all on who this is and where his story goes, so it’s interesting and one of the few things keeping me going right now.

Finally, the Hart/Dinah/Roger story is so draining and ridiculous. They think we’re going to root for Dinah and Hart, as they carry out this plan to make Roger go insane and become a couple in the process, but they’re really an unlikeable duo now. I used to really ‘love to hate’ Dinah, but now she’s just malicious and unlikeable. There was a really weird campy scene where Roger sees a shirtless man wearing this weird mask after he chugged the vial of Lanatrat. Now Roger is in the hospital and they keep allowing Hart to evade all cops and hospital staff, showing up to haunt Roger at every corner. Now they got Blake, Matt and Vanessa to go along with their plan in making him think he’s crazy. It’s just too much, but I will say Zaslow is giving a great performance with this ridiculous story.

Oh, Quint did return home on an excavating assignment, post-breakup with his 20-something girlfriend. But they stuck him in this stupid story with Roger/Hart/Dinah, and the Native American grounds that he plans to dig up just happened to be exactly where Hart was “buried” LOL - so dumb.

Annie is finally starting to take more pills and make things more interesting, which Phillip is catching onto. They keep having these two run into each other and are building a nice rapport.

The only things keeping me going are the promise of Annie’s pill popping/downward spiral (since I know she’s not Josh’s endgame), Ross/Blake/Rick and the babies, Rick/Abby’s budding relationship, mystery Zachary, and maybe Michelle/J. Everything else is pretty bad and I’m looking forward to getting to the ends of their storylines.

[prefab1]

Wow, you have the patience of a saint watching through this period. I think the show does get better but it takes a while. 

I won't give any spoilers about Zachary, but I will drop a slight hint: GL was probably trying to get a ratings boost by doing a story inspired by one of CBS's few primetime hits in the mid-1990s. And no, Zachary does not turn out to be a Texas ranger. 

[Mitch64]

spoiler alert AMC...

 

Ha..this is one of those storylines, much like the Salem Stalker...and whatever Alex was supposed to be holding over Alan's head that Henry knew about...what was the original intention of the through line..who is Mary Bauer and why does Meta know Zach (I know what Zach is supposed to be but was he human before...is Chele a reincarnation of Mary? )Eventually was he supposed to become human? Why is he so dull if he who is supposed to be...but it does make sense on why he is so sexless. 

Of course, what the hell was the burial ground storyline of Qualo..it was like they were trying to reenact the 80s with that  temple storyline Marland gave them...would have been more interesting to have Stacy come back with "return from the dead" Silas Crocker in disguise as an older lover. 

McTavish is at loose threads here and you can tell she just does not give a damn anymore. 

A great idea is hidden in the whole Roger/Dinah/Hart mess....Roger having a midlife crisis and breakdown would have been good...being confronted with all of his misdeeds, the two rapes, and also his murders (the show always likes to forget that he pushed a woman down the stairs and had to have killed people in the CIA.) Maybe something he does accidentally causes Holly to miscarry, and then he does something again accidnetly to hurt Hart so he thinks he killed him. 

[P.J.]

As much as I love Zaslow, did Roger ever really have a conscience? 

I know the Dinah/Hart plot grew distasteful, but Roger had run rampant in Springfield since his return. I was ok with him finally getting a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.

[chrisml]

 Reva and Zimmer needed strong adversaries/scene partners. It would dampen the negatives associated with the character and Zimmer's self-admitted excesses. I think that's why she was a bust on SB. I don't know how she did on her return to OLTL because I was not watching at that point. The problem for me with Reva is the same situation with Erica Kane. It ended up being variations of the same storyline year after year. I think if the show had truly broken up Reva and Josh and put them in other viable relationships it would have freed up the characters to have better storylines and character growth. Instead, it's as if the characters were stuck for decades.

[DRW50]

There are details through the thread, but yes, as mentioned, she hated Ellen Wheeler, and lambasted her for crying a lot, for her decisions with firing and Peapack, etc. Back in the day she also hated Pam Long, who created Reva and gave Reva all of her best material. The producers or writers she liked most seemed to be those who saw Reva in the most generic of molds, although she likely doesn't see it that way.

She was OK on OLTL; I think @Vee could probably give a better summary. She was earthy and added her usual hard work to some trash material. There was nothing special going on, as yet again with patron saint Carlivati it was all plot, no character, and he cared more about writing for a cutesy child character. 

You're right about what they could have done with Reva. Reva, Erica, and any women who are in story long enough face this problem. The biggest difference is Reva was allowed to age (even with the post-menopausal baby), which Erica was not.

[DRW50]

Roger mostly just had a conscience if it affected him, although there were a few bits here and there. Didn't he look out for Tangie out of loyalty to her parents? 

Even at the time I don't know if I could have argued that Roger had been ruined, given that he had raped two women, but there was a complexity in the writing for Roger for most of his return until Laibson/McTavish. He just became a one-note heel. Even worse, I just found Dinah completely unwatchable as Wendy Moniz was incapable of playing a heroine (I know even the best could not have made that material work).

[Kane]

It wasn't that altruistic. He made Tangie a substitute for Blake and was apparently so creepy about it that Tangie spent the years in between getting away from him and running into him in Springfield believing that he had purchased her to be his child bride. It was only when she got to know Blake that she realized that she realized his feelings for her were paternal and suddenly she and Roger became friends.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I barely remember any of the backstory there, just his ties to her parents. It was all so convoluted, everything with Tangie.

[P.J.]

I know Curlee/Demorest tried to give Roger a conscience in regard to raping Holly, and Zas is magnificent in those scenes with Alex. But he kinda ends up blaming Adam and the fact he (well, really the writers) ignores raping Rita and being responsible for her and Ed's child's death make it less than convincing. 

I do think during 89-93 they were careful to not whitewash his past with Holly, but his occasional bouts of conscience always seemed to be overridden by his obsession/lust for her.

The only purely good thing I can ever recall him doing is helping Maureen during the blackout, and even then, had she lived, he would've found a way to call that favor in.

I've kinda resisted saying it, but it's kind of clear to me Long was determined to have her own version of Erica Kane, and God help us all, it ended up as Reva Shayne. Although at least Kim could act. (Sorry LaLucci fans)

Honestly, I'm not even sure CBS soaps ever a character as larger than life as Reva. 

[chrisml]

@alwaysAMCKim Zimmer is also not very reliable when it comes to dates and facts about the show. If you go in what that in mind, it'll be ok. She get things wrong. She was so angry at Ellen Wheeler that the anger comes off the page. She blamed Wheeler for decisions that John Conboy had made. She also thinks Paul Rauch was the show's best producer.

As @P.J.points out, Zimmer's acting range far surpasses Lucci's, but it still felt that the writers just kept Reva the same mental age for the rest of the series. Long loved the whole damaged Southern belle routine.  Zimmer was still doing the red dress thing although to her credit she was not doing a whole storyline about joining a showgirls troupe the way Lucci did in her late fifties/early sixties (I'm too lazy to do the googling and the math). 

I believe Zimmer is immensely talented but Reva was never a character that I rewatch much if at all. When I go back and watch GL clips, it's rarely any clips related to Reva. I will rewatch Michelle Forbes's storylines and work for example, but if Zimmer is in some of it, I almost always FF.  I just don't care about Reva during these storylines. I'm on Sonni's side even though I know how it turns out. While GL was on, I found the repetitive nature of Reva's storylines annoying even when I didn't watch the show and just read summaries. I think Zimmer deserved better material; I think of her tapes when she won her third Emmy. Stellar work but then it was right back to Josh/Reva. I think of her work on Designing Women, and how she could hit different notes and was so effective. 

[DRW50]

That's an interesting point. I generally think of Long as taking inspiration from Tennesse Williams and other Southern writers. 

The only one that comes close for CBS soaps may be Lucinda Walsh or Sally Spectra, and maybe those grotesque later years of Stephanie Forrester where she kept beating people up and attacking them with canes.

 

[chrisml]

I know this is probably heresy and this isn't the B&B thread, but I think Susan Flannery and Stephanie were highly overrated and that KKL was extremely underrated during the same period.

[DeeVee]

It's been quite some time since I've seen those scenes between Holly and Roger where he "apologizes" for the rape, but IIRC, he also implies he was in love with Holly and part of it was jealousy over Ed. 

He was NEVER in love with Holly. It was always HOLLY who was in love with Roger. She was obsessed with him since she was a teenager. By the time they married, she no longer loved him. She married him because she knew she wasn't going to get back with Ed and thought it would be best for Christina.

He hated Ed, yes, and hated that Holly and Rita loved Ed, and that was part of his motivation for raping both of them. (He raped Rita the night of Ed and Rita's engagement party). But not because he was in love with either of them. He mostly hated Ed because to the world Ed was Christina's father and also he blamed him for Peggy leaving him.

By the time Zaslow returned, it had been a good decade since the rape story and a lot of people who had been involved in it were no longer working on the show. So it's not surprising that history was rewritten. Considering how many shows not only rehabilitated rapists, they turned some of them into heroes, this was not the worst way the story could have gone. And the actors did everything they could to make it credible.

I always thought Mindy had the potential to be the show's Erica. The spoiled girl who did bad things but was still likable.

Clearly, you are too young to remember the early days of Katherine Chancellor. 

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[j swift]

 

SOD's reporting on the Holly/Roger scene, from the last time we discussed it.  It is worse than what you both recall, and Robert Calhoun's response to Maureen Garrett's displeasure is gross.

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Edited yesterday at 03:40 AM by j swift