GL now joins some illustrious company in the cancelled soap thread.

Let's share memories and ask questions here.

23 hours ago, DeeVee said:

They made some really great discoveries of young actors back then. Besides Bomer, Aubrey Dollar, Laura Bell Bundy, Bethany Joy Lenz, and while I hated his character, Tom Pelphrey turned out to be quite a good actor with a solid career. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Nia Long has had an EXCELLENT career. I am so excited whenever she turns up in a tv show or movie.

Regarding Ben Reade...the stupidity of toasting the last link to Kyle Sampson and Bill's cousin (though the show seemed to refuse to acknowledge that was the case) was such a diservice to the character that it still hard to believe this idea not only got greenlit but made it all the way to completion...and they didn't even hire Jay Hammer to come back for a funeral.

8 hours ago, DeeVee said:

The show would have chugged along just fine without her. No Goshen/Alan obsession redux, no San Christohell, no clone, no time travel. She subtracted more than she added to the show, IMO.

This post makes me wish there was a LIKE or HEART option on this message board.

1 hour ago, MLH said:

@alwaysAMC Of course, I can't find that magazine cover.  I can even picture it in my head!  LOL 

Oh no!   I'd love to see it haha. Maybe one day it'll be found!

1 hour ago, Lujack4Ever said:

This post makes me wish there was a LIKE or HEART option on this message board.

Lol..I love to see what the KimmerFraus would say to these posts! Is Kimmer's return another thing to blame on JFP..if she hadn't made the show the Buzz Cooper Dumpster Fire and dropped the ratings would they have forced her to bring on Kimmer (even short term as a ghost...) which then brought back to KimmerFraus back to GL which led McLaibey to give Reva an unfortunate pulse. 

1 hour ago, Lujack4Ever said:

Regarding Ben Reade...the stupidity of toasting the last link to Kyle Sampson and Bill's cousin (though the show seemed to refuse to acknowledge that was the case) was such a diservice to the character that it still hard to believe this idea not only got greenlit but made it all the way to completion...and they didn't even hire Jay Hammer to come back for a funeral.

The actor tells the story that Weston told him, "Well, if you ever want to come back, we will bring you back," and he was like..."I'm a dead serial killer,"...Weston, "Oh we will work around that..." 

At least Hurst or someone in the last week had the heart to have Bill say to Fletcher "I really miss Ben" with Fletcher, "So do I!" 

Don’t Go Away Mad, Just Go Away! Or The Dim Bulbs of Guiding Light   Snark Weighs In column In the latest edition of Soap Opera Weekly, reporter Linda Susman interviews GL’s former head writers, Barbara Esensten and James Harmon Brown. Esensten and Brown, you’ll recall (try as you might to forget), were writing GL for three years, until they were released (READ: fired) recently in favor of Claire Labine and her writing team. Of course, E&B didn’t spring up overnight. In addition to being scriptwriters during GL’s acclaimed run of the early 90’s, they were also Headwriters during such daytime milestones as Dynasty’s final season, the last several months of Loving, and the entire 16 and 1/2 month run of The City.

Don’t laugh. E&B don’t want you to laugh at them. They want you to understand that they too have thoughts and feelings. And that there’s more going on behind the scenes than you know. The following are excerpts of the E&B interview, accompanied of course, by my commentary. (It is MY column, after all.)

In this portion, E&B are discussing the recent leukemia story which proved to be their last major story for the show. In it, Phillip Spaulding is stranded on an island with ex-wife, Beth. Both are trapped after being caught in a blizzard. (Yep. Ablizzard on an island.) Phillip and Beth, thinking they’re about to die, do what anyone would do--sleep together. Phillip is married to Harley; Beth is involved with Jim. Of course, Phillip and Beth are rescued. Of course, Beth becomes pregnant. Of course, their other daughter, Lizzie develops leukemia, necessitating the revelation that Beth and Phillip had a one night fling.

Barbara Esensten: I think those in power are worried and tend to pull the switch more quickly than they did in the past. Jim and I and our writing staff knew the leukemia story was so good.

James Harmon Brown: It's the best story we've done since we've been there. There's no denying the numbers were down, and however strong the fan mail was there would be some discussion on the Internet, the five or six people who would get up and slam you about it. But the bottom line was that as the story was playing in its early stages, the numbers were down. Is that because of the story or other factors related to the show or CBS in general or daytime in particular? We don't know.

There are some real puzzlers in these comments, particularly from JHB. He mentions that fan mail was strong, and continues to trot out the same old tripe about 5 or 6 people slamming the story, but then admits that the numbers were down. Why were the numbers down, Jim? Could it be that the storyline, as well as other storylines going on at the time were not as good as you think. (Despite their attempts to prove otherwise, the leukemia story was not the only one on GL this year.)

BE: The irony is that [P&G] didn't pick us up (as writers), and then the ratings went up.

The ratings went up momentarily. This occurred during the two or so weeks when the plot reached it’s climax, and was actually featured center-stage. The ratings peaked at 3.7, which was less than the all-time high of 4.3 E&B achieved in 1997. Of course, it was better than the 3.2 GL had just hit a few weeks earlier. GLalso hit a 3.2 under E&B’s predecessor, Megan McTavish. Shortly after, McTavish was out of work, and E&B were hired.

JHB: I think what happens is our solutions to things don't resonate anymore with the powers that be. They look for new ideas and new approaches and quick fixes because that's become the mentality not only of this daypart but of network television in general.

It’s amazing how Brown combines new ideas, new approaches, and quick fixes in the same sentence. They are not the same thing at all. The first two are desperately needed in daytime; the last one is what daytime has been trying for a decade. Yet, Brown combines them all and speaks of them negatively.

BE: Instead of following the problem as a team, we tend not to do that in our business right now. The network will meet and then the writers will meet and we don't get to meet with the directors. There are no intensive meetings to see what we can all do to make it better what do we think is going wrong.

JHB: It becomes adversarial. When the good times are rolling, it's "Ain't we great," and when the bad times are rolling, each pocket tends to grow inward and draw a line in the sand. In the old days, before the Internet and cable and salacious daytime talk shows, there was more of an opportunity to ride the rollercoaster and know that if there's a dip in audience interest, you have time to correct it. There isn't that luxury anymore, and what happens is you end up changing the team and bringing in new people.

Amazing. On one hand, E&B preach unity, and on the other, they’re blaming internet fans, their bosses, the lineup, and cable--mercifully Ms. Susman cut the part where they blame a partridge in a pear tree. The first law of E&B land, is that nothing is ever their fault. And while I would normally agree with Brown that soaps have a lot of turnover, the fact remains that he and Estensen were the head writers for three and a half years. It has NEVER been commonplace to allow writers that long to get things right, work out the bugs, etc. Under E&B, ratings peaked in late 1997. They’ve been on a downward spiral ever since. How much time is needed?

Next, B&E admit their mistakes:

BE: Jim and I have had an opportunity to step back and take a deep breath and a look at some of the mistakes we made.

JHB: Like trying to badly what prime time and movies do well- mayhem and explosions- and getting away from what daytime traditionally has been about: family conflict, romance. And that's the core of what it should still be about. When every new set of headwriters comes in, including ourselves, everyone says,"We're going to do romance."

BE: "Character-driven stories."

JHB: "Back to the core family," yada, yada, yada.

BE: And we all try.

JHB: But again, because of the pressures of the numbers, we all tend to go for the figurative edge-of-the-cliff type of incident that isn't really what we do well.

Basically, E&B admit that when they and other writers say that they’re going to get back to basics, they’re lying. Is this supposed to endear them to me? What if (God forbid) they get another writing gig? Am Isupposed to believe another word they say? They certainly can’t fall back on the old yada, yada, yada. But, I should feel sorry for E&B. After all, their bosses are demanding that they keep GL’s ratings above cancellation level on a consistent basis. Petty tyrants.

Next, E&B discuss storyline blunders.

JHB: Josh being zombified by aftershave lotion would be No. 1 with a bullet on my list. And the clone story. Because I've had some time to reflect on this, I think it was the wrong story for Guiding Light to do at the time. I thought we did it as well as it could be done, except for the growth serum. That was always sort of wonky.

BE: The clone story was something the network actually had suggested, and we sort of joined hands and said kumbaya, we're in this together. They never backed off from that. Even when we got lots of criticism, we got a lot of support from Procter & Gamble. We were all trying to do something that would capture more daytime audience; it just wasn't the kind of story for our audience.... It was a valiant effort on all our parts, but it should have been more of a lesson to us that that kind of story really doesn't work.

If Josh being zombified by shaving lotion was a bad story, why did they do it? Did CBS or P&G really say that Josh must be mind-controlled through shaving lotion? Or did Jim, Babs, and the writing staff just know that story was good too? Again, poor E&B were strong-armed by the network into going along with the cloning story. I have no doubt that it was CBS that pushed for this story in order to grab the DAYS audience. (Remember when DAYS was significantly higher rated than GL?) But, compare BE’s comments above with her comments in an April 21,1998 interview with SOW’s Mark McGarry, in a piece ironically entitled “Double Talk.”

Mark McGarry: Have people overreacted?

Barbara Esensten: This is a controversial issue...It’s certainly the first time a clone story has been done, but what we tell our viewers is that Jim and I love Guiding Light. We opted to come back because we love the show, and we would never do anything un-Guiding Light-like.

MM: What more do you want to say to the viewers?

BE: We may be making a mistake. We don’t think we are. It is a Guiding Light story. It really is.

Finally, JHB finds one more source of blame, after he and Babs have made some favorable comments on Soapnet.

JHB: We think these shows need to be promoted differently. There are kids out there who have grown into teen-agers, young females who are our audience of the future and who have grown up without knowing we exist. They didn't grow up with mom and grandma sitting by the tv watching our shows? How do you get to these people? We need to be as creative in promoting the shows and marketing them as we are in telling the stories.

God forbid. The marketing people are far more creative in promoting the stories, than those creating them. This interview was titled State of the Art, but it would be better titled Portrait of Two Hacks. Here we have two (and I use the term loosely) writers who will pass the buck to anyone and everyone. They will say whatever is necessary to suit their goals, chief of which is staying employed. They are among a growing number of hacks who are willing to do whatever their bosses tell them to do, and smile while doing it. Do I think everything that’s gone wrong with GL over the past 3 and a half years is their fault? No. Do I have any sympathy for them? No. They’ve been around long enough to know the game. And given a chance, they’ll play it again.

Don’t give them that chance.

I think if Reva wasn't there they we would've had many of the same plots, but with Harley instead.  OTT plots to get attention.

@Paul Raven That post is why I think it was meant to be that Michael Zaslow going back to OLTL .  There is no way that GL could do it right. 

I cannot believe that stupid storyline for Phillip and Beth!  

I still can't find that cover, but found this funny picture of Roger Thorpe in a casket, very much alive https://pin.it/6J3rvyqk4

 

Edited August 12Aug 12 by MLH

@Paul RavenThanks for posting this interview. 

It confirms what I have long suspected...that most of the wacky storylines, like the clone, were brought to the writers from the network or P&G in an effort to compete shows like GH and DOOL.

Are the writers here useless hacks totally responsible for GL doing poorly? I think that's a tad unfair. Claire Labine, who I don't think was a hack, came in after them, and wasn't her tenure on GL also very unsuccessful? 

Sometimes writers write bad stuff they think will be great. (Labine defended the gorilla story on Ryan's Hope the rest of her life). And sometimes they want to keep their jobs and do what their bosses tell them to do.

At any rate, it's really interesting to hear their side of it.

 

CBS/P&G were shaken by 1978-1982 ABC big three huge rise and dominance, thus the changes to the shows, and were shaken again by Reilly Days huge rise in the aftermath of OJ.

Edited August 12Aug 12 by kalbir

So E&B are who I should be blaming for the awful pairing of Vanessa and the himbo? Where she ends up having the exact same fights she had with Billy and Ross about working (or working at Spaulding...) Where the moron who's never raised a child (and ghosted his own family) lectures her on family values? And these are the morons who gave her some brain-eating incurable disease and had her fake her death approximately six months after Henry died? (Because apparently, simply divorcing ****'s ass after finding out he'd been a speedo wearing himbo and lied about it wasn't dramatic enough.)

I know I'm drifting...but I really needed to get a mini**** rant out.

And are these the people who brought that loudmouth Laura Wright to this show? Another thing I could thank them for. NOT.

Oh, and re: Phillip and Beth and that secret assignation---Phillip's flippin' leg was also broke. I know that would really put me in the mood to bang my bordering on psycho ex. Sorry, not sorry---I LOVED Phillip/Harley.

1 hour ago, Spoon said:

I think if Reva wasn't there they we would've had many of the same plots, but with Harley instead.  OTT plots to get attention.

There is no question Harley was being set up as the new Reva. She was good with Josh but Robert leaving killed that real good having Josh run off to look for Reva. At the very least years later when Harley came back she did say "Why aren't you with Reva?!" and that was the last nod that Josh and Harley were ever a thing.

21 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

While I'm impressed GL got an ad---what a bad Harlequin romance novel cover. Who put that look on Kimmy's kisser? Reva never would've looked as nauseously forlorn as that EVER. That should've been reversed. Or simply focused on Alan and the mayhem he'd cause.

Edited August 12Aug 12 by P.J.

@Paul Raven  i didn’t come across ‘snark weighs in’ until the mid-aughts. loved it — he cited my posts several times. then, one day the website just disappeared. any idea what happened?

5 minutes ago, kalbir said:

CBS/P&G were shaken by 1978-1982 ABC big three huge rise and dominance, thus the changes to the shows, and were shaken again by Reilly Days huge rise in the aftermath of OJ.

The Bells were the only ones who were powerful enough to resist this kind of pressure. And, surprise, surprise, they weathered the storm and survived while most other soaps sunk.

7 minutes ago, P.J. said:

So E&B are who I should be blaming for the awful pairing of Vanessa and the himbo?

I'd say there was plenty of blame to go around. The writers, the network, the sponsor, even some of the fans. A perfect sh!t storm.