9 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Well, Alex despised Harley because she was a schemer who married Alan Michael so they could access his trust fund. She lightened up on Harley when she realized she really did love AM. Of course by then, he was having an affair with Blake, but I digress.

The thing that never made sense was Alan despising Beth. Anyone could tell she was a lovely girl and not a gold digger. If they had been consistent--with Alan hating ALL of Phillip's women--then it would have made sense. He would have seen them as threats to his relationship with Phillip. He liked Mindy, he just didn't want Phillip to marry her solely because she was pregnant. He liked Chelsea, who was from even a humbler background than Beth. He liked India, too, but they weren't married by then. Of course he hated Blake, but he had good reason to hate her.

He liked Harley when she was with AM, but that was because he thought he could get his hands on AM's trust fund. And, let's face it, AM was basically a non-entity to him compared to Phillip. I don't remember if he liked Harley marrying Phillip, I kind of blank Raines out for the most part.

6 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

So I've been watching more episode this morning because I wanted to see how they honored Jenna... is it her spirit getting closure with everyone? Because I'm really enjoying those moments. Some are very sweet and some are very emotional and sad. I really liked what they did here, just to give her the ability to say goodbye to everyone special to her.

YEP! I cried when Van asked her to give Henry a kiss, and she replied she already had. I never bought into the Van/Jen "friendship", but if there was anything that could soften Van, it was that Henry loved Jenna.

@alwaysAMC Since you are watching December 1998, was there any mention of MZ passing away before the rebroadcast of his Emmy winning episode?

Re: Fiona Hutchison, I can believe she was fired for speaking out about how MZ was treated by CBS/P&G. In case you haven't seen it she appears on The Locher Room MZ tribute episode. Reposting the link to save digging in the thread: Michael Zaslow - Tribute - YouTube

11 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

The thing that never made sense was Alan despising Beth. Anyone could tell she was a lovely girl and not a gold digger. If they had been consistent--with Alan hating ALL of Phillip's women--then it would have made sense. He would have seen them as threats to his relationship with Phillip. He liked Mindy, he just didn't want Phillip to marry her solely because she was pregnant. He liked Chelsea, who was from even a humbler background than Beth. He liked India, too, but they weren't married by then. Of course he hated Blake, but he had good reason to hate her.

He liked Harley when she was with AM, but that was because he thought he could get his hands on AM's trust fund. And, let's face it, AM was basically a non-entity to him compared to Phillip. I don't remember if he liked Harley marrying Phillip, I kind of blank Raines out for the most part.

I don't recall Alan liking Mindy. But I do think he clearly feared the effect Beth had on Phillip. Mindy was someone marginally more socially acceptable for his son than a poor nurse's daughter, who he probably thought he could control.

By the time Chelsea rolled into Phillip's life, Alan could at least appreciate that she tried to get him to reconcile with his father (which I presume, I don't revisit a lot of Chelsea related story). The Reardons may have had humbler roots, but he knows them (after all Tom was connected to Brandon, et al through the Fishing Picture mystery), and they are connected (in a roundabout way) through Ed's marriage to Maureen and Henry's being Nola's father in law.

I don't recall Alan's reaction to Phillip and Harley's marriage either, but by the end, he hated all the Coopers. It would've been interesting if they had brought Zach back at the end, because he kind of forgot he had a Cooper grandchild. (Which I'm just now realizing meant that Zach's half-sister was dating his half-brother at the end of the series.)_

“Today the part of Julie Cameletti will be played by Mira Sorvino” were not words I expected to hear in this January 1992 episode.

Edited Sunday at 09:35 PM2 days by GL95

32 minutes ago, P.J. said:

YEP! I cried when Van asked her to give Henry a kiss, and she replied she already had. I never bought into the Van/Jen "friendship", but if there was anything that could soften Van, it was that Henry loved Jenna.

YES! I was so happy to see/hear that, especially the "I already have" reply. Although I'm guessing you may not have loved her saying Matt is right :P

Here is what I wrote in my notes about that scene:

Matt leaves and Jenna’s spirit shows up for Vanessa, telling her she agrees that she’s spending more time with work over family. She needs to always put family first over anything. Jenna makes her promise not to let Matt slip away and to cherish the gift she’s been given, and Vanessa promises. Vanessa asks Jenna to kiss Henry for her (her father), and Jenna says she already has and he looks marvelous. They have a tearful goodbye and it was so sweet.

I also saw that she visited Holly. THIS should have been the moment that made Holly snap out of it and turn her life around, but I know it won't be since she hasn't kidnapped any of the kids yet :/

32 minutes ago, kalbir said:

@alwaysAMC Since you are watching December 1998, was there any mention of MZ passing away before the rebroadcast of his Emmy winning episode?

Re: Fiona Hutchison, I can believe she was fired for speaking out about how MZ was treated by CBS/P&G. In case you haven't seen it she appears on The Locher Room MZ tribute episode. Reposting the link to save digging in the thread: Michael Zaslow - Tribute - YouTube

Thank you for posting this! I'll have to watch it later today. Zaslow died on Dec 6th, 1998, which was the Sunday before Jenna passed away on-screen which is interesting (the 12/04 Friday cliffhanger was Jenna crashing and then Monday 12/07 she died). Unfortunately I haven't seen or heard any acknowledgment about MZ's death on the show, but I guess in real life, his passing would have happened while they were taping likely Feb/Mar 1999 episodes? They aired a classic episode of GL the day after New Year's 1999, I wonder if that would have been MZ-centric?

3 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

YES! I was so happy to see/hear that, especially the "I already have" reply. Although I'm guessing you may not have loved her saying Matt is right :P

Here is what I wrote in my notes about that scene:

Matt leaves and Jenna’s spirit shows up for Vanessa, telling her she agrees that she’s spending more time with work over family. She needs to always put family first over anything. Jenna makes her promise not to let Matt slip away and to cherish the gift she’s been given, and Vanessa promises. Vanessa asks Jenna to kiss Henry for her (her father), and Jenna says she already has and he looks marvelous. They have a tearful goodbye and it was so sweet.

I also saw that she visited Holly. THIS should have been the moment that made Holly snap out of it and turn her life around, but I know it won't be since she hasn't kidnapped any of the kids yet :/

Thank you for posting this! I'll have to watch it later today. Zaslow died on Dec 6th, 1998, which was the Sunday before Jenna passed away on-screen which is interesting (the 12/04 Friday cliffhanger was Jenna crashing and then Monday 12/07 she died). Unfortunately I haven't seen or heard any acknowledgment about MZ's death on the show, but I guess in real life, his passing would have happened while they were taping likely Feb/Mar 1999 episodes? They aired a classic episode of GL the day after New Year's 1999, I wonder if that would have been MZ-centric?

Now, y'know I pretty much ignore anything **** related. And most of what Jenna says period. Her taste in men was awful. LOL.

I don't think Guiding Light acknowledged Zas's death. They treated him shamefully. But, I also can't recall them acknowledging any other former performer's death. They acknowledged Chris Bernau's, and while he hadn't been on the show for about a year, his character was still on screen. I also thought they kept his condition quiet and didn't discourage speculation that he might return in the press.

They did on screen acknowledgements of both William Roerick and Larry Gates, but I don't think they did for Vince Williams, who played Hamp Speakes, and died in '97.

5 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Now, y'know I pretty much ignore anything **** related. And most of what Jenna says period. Her taste in men was awful. LOL.

I don't think Guiding Light acknowledged Zas's death. They treated him shamefully. But, I also can't recall them acknowledging any other former performer's death. They acknowledged Chris Bernau's, and while he hadn't been on the show for about a year, his character was still on screen. I also thought they kept his condition quiet and didn't discourage speculation that he might return in the press.

They did on screen acknowledgements of both William Roerick and Larry Gates, but I don't think they did for Vince Williams, who played Hamp Speakes, and died in '97.

There's the P.J. I know and love! LOL :)

You're right about William and Larry... and about Vince Williams. I was always so sad they never acknowledged him. He just disappeared. There was real potential with Hamp and Marcus, given they both played the sax. He could have been a mentor to him. But I guess Vince perhaps wasn't able to work much during that time and then we just got Griffin instead and Marcus stopped playing the sax after a while.

@alwaysAMC To get a sense in how popular Beth and Lujack were at their peak, GL beat GH in the timeslot a couple of times around August 1984. GH got Luke and Laura to return for a story arc in the fall of '84 as a counter-move: an adventure story in Mexico.

"Almost Paradise" was their love theme, and their classic "supercouple" love sequence was them riding horses on the beach.

GL 1984, Almost Paradise

1 minute ago, P.J. said:

They acknowledged Chris Bernau's, and while he hadn't been on the show for about a year, his character was still on screen. I also thought they kept his condition quiet and didn't discourage speculation that he might return in the press.

That's exactly right. They kept up the fiction that he was coming back for a VERY long time.

I've said it before--the stigma around AIDs was SO strong at the time. Partly maybe they wanted to respect his privacy (though after how they treated Zaslow, I kind of doubt it). I SORT of understand why KZ was keeping up the ruse even as late as 2012 in her memoir, because actresses who played intimate scenes with actors who had AIDs got a lot of crap because of it, like they were diseased, too. But mostly, I think the show just didn't want the negative publicity.

Now knowing some of the BTS stories, where they had to have been planning a permanent replacement for him as early as Fall of 1988 (when they would have approached Zaslow about replacing him, and he suggested returning as Roger instead) it's obvious they knew perfectly well he was not coming back.

@alwaysAMC I don't think Billy ever mentioned Hamp again either (when Jordan returned) which is sad. But I guess I'd rather have not have him just randomly killed off-screen either.

2 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

That's exactly right. They kept up the fiction that he was coming back for a VERY long time.

I've said it before--the stigma around AIDs was SO strong at the time. Partly maybe they wanted to respect his privacy (though after how they treated Zaslow, I kind of doubt it). I SORT of understand why KZ was keeping up the ruse even as late as 2012 in her memoir, because actresses who played intimate scenes with actors who had AIDs got a lot of crap because of it, like they were diseased, too. But mostly, I think the show just didn't want the negative publicity.

Now knowing some of the BTS stories, where they had to have been planning a permanent replacement for him as early as Fall of 1988 (when they would have approached Zaslow about replacing him, and he suggested returning as Roger instead) it's obvious they knew perfectly well he was not coming back.

Yep, and I definitely remember all the crap over Rock Hudson/Linda Evans/Dynasty around the same time. I certainly wouldn't have wanted either Kim or Maeve to deal with anything even remotely approaching that.

P&G certainly wasn't any more evolved just a few years later when they dumped Joe Breen from ATWT when his status was revealed.

Wanted to add that GH was not only getting competition with a strong GL, but they had newcomer Santa Barbara to contend with in Fall of 84- hence the stunting with Luke and Laura.

5 minutes ago, Spoon said:

Wanted to add that GH was not only getting competition with a strong GL, but they had newcomer Santa Barbara to contend with in Fall of 84- hence the stunting with Luke and Laura.

God, how I hated critical darling Santa Barbara. Never watched a moment of it, but it sucked up attention like a Kardashian.

20 minutes ago, Spoon said:

@alwaysAMC To get a sense in how popular Beth and Lujack were at their peak, GL beat GH in the timeslot a couple of times around August 1984. GH got Luke and Laura to return for a story arc in the fall of '84 as a counter-move: an adventure story in Mexico.

"Almost Paradise" was their love theme, and their classic "supercouple" love sequence was them riding horses on the beach.

GL 1984, Almost Paradise

I LOVE that song, so I'm already hooked :) That's great to know though about the ratings, good for them! I had no idea how popular they were until today, thank you all!

7 minutes ago, P.J. said:

P&G certainly wasn't any more evolved just a few years later when they dumped Joe Breen from ATWT when his status was revealed.

They got away with what happened with Bernau because back then AIDs was a death sentence. In Breen's case, he was HIV+, it happened when there were a lot more hopeful treatments coming out. Indeed, as far as I know, Breen is still alive.