21 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I was SO impressed by Melissa Hayden back when she first aired. As awful as the later years of GL were, they did find some incredible young talent: Matt Bomer, Aubrey Dollar, Laura Bell Bundy, Bethany Joy Lenz, Tom Pelphrey (I'm sure I'm missing some) who went on to have very substantial post-soap careers. It's always been a mystery to me why Melissa wasn't among them.

@DeeVee , I absolutely agree with you. Guiding Light had some of the best young talent in the business! I thought Melissa Hayden was fantastic!

Annette

22 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I was SO impressed by Melissa Hayden back when she first aired. As awful as the later years of GL were, they did find some incredible young talent: Matt Bomer, Aubrey Dollar, Laura Bell Bundy, Bethany Joy Lenz, Tom Pelphrey (I'm sure I'm missing some) who went on to have very substantial post-soap careers. It's always been a mystery to me why Melissa wasn't among them.

I'd guess it was down to her not being conventionally attractive. A shame as she had so much talent and presence.

Melissa Hayden was SO good. Anyone know whatever happened to her?

6 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Hogan Sheffer caring about a soap being grounded is like saying Megan McTavish wanted to make sure a soap was lighthearted enough.

Right?

6 hours ago, Khan said:

I tend to blame that on the casting woes. The original Hart, Jeff Phillips, was a dud. His successor, Leonard Stabb, was more promising, but the injuries he sustained in an accident left him unable to continue with his acting career. Sean McDermott, who replaced Stabb, was just a temp recast until they could write the character out; and when they did bring back Hart, they did so with one of the most bland actors GL ever hired (Marshall Hilliard). By the time Grillo and his "goomba" accent and demeanor took over the role, it was clear no one at GL even knew who Hart Jessup was anymore.

ICAM. And I know the arguments, but I'm still not sure that I would've killed Hart off. He was Roger Thorpe's son, FCOL. There always should've been a place for him in Springfield.

I am now into 1993 and watched the Maureen death/mourning episodes and again coming back to add to the Melissa Hayden love. With some of the best actors on the show all onscreen mourning (Maeve/MG/Zas/RH) she was the standout and the one who really drove the emotional fallout. I wanted to give her a hug through my TV from 30 years in the future. No one else really made me cry but I was heartbroken for Bridget.

Watching that whole Ed/Lillian plot line unfold, I hadn't realized just what a slow moving trainwreck that affair was. Ed is just terrible. Lillian is at least lonely and deluded that there's something real there, but Ed just seems to sleep with her because he wants to? (Though writing that letter and just delivering it that way is a monumentally dumb thing to do, and you almost have to believe she wants it discovered by Maureen. But Michelle could've been the one to see it just as easily?).

Conversely, I am also up to the Mindy return with the super dud Mindy recast whose name I am too lazy to look up. It's wild because the entire cast is absolutely bringing it and....she's there. Walking into Nick's place to find him in bed with Eve. I do love the soap thing of people having absolutely zero boundaries and thinking the best way to see an ex months after they left them at the altar is to walk into their home unannounced in the dead of the night. I mean, wouldn't a Lewis be raised to shoot someone who did that? Billy definitely would.

Harley/Mallet are trying to figure out what happened to Buzz after discovering he's not on the Vietnam War memorial wall. (They pan to Harley touching the 1959 wall and I am going to just say it's a random wall she was drawn to and not where she was looking to not completely lose my sanity with the timelines. I mean, in no world would Buzz be 34 at the time of his return.) It's a very odd story right now actually knowing what happens when Frank waxes poetic about how amazing his father was.

I started this loopback in June 1990 when AM is first released from his kidnapping and is going on and on to Blake about how the baby was the only thing getting him through the torture when we know there never was a baby. Then right before he finds out about Maureen's accident he apologized to Vanessa and showed real remorse for his past actions, talking about nearly dying when he was shot and how all he could think about was Eleni/the baby. He of course deserves what's coming having switched out the birth control, but it's a different viewing experience knowing what's coming. I definitely feel I've gone full circle on this stretch of episodes. (It's pretty crazy how AM never has a kid given how consistently he wanted one-he's referring to the future grandfathers right before he marries Lucy. But maybe the thought of the future grandfathers made Lucy/AM have second thoughts down the line.)

3 minutes ago, GL95 said:

Conversely, I am also up to the Mindy return with the super dud Mindy recast whose name I am too lazy to look up.

Ann Hamilton.

Until retcon Gus, none of Alan or Alex's bio children had kids. It might have been interesting if Alan had become obsessed with bloodlines as he got older and Philip felt deeply hurt because he realized he and his kids weren't seen as good enough.

(then again, the show just kept having Alan produce kids until his last year of life...)

A sterility story with Alan-Michael also could have been interesting.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by DRW50

44 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Ann Hamilton.

Until retcon Gus, none of Alan or Alex's bio children had kids. It might have been interesting if Alan had become obsessed with bloodlines as he got older and Philip felt deeply hurt because he realized he and his kids weren't seen as good enough.

(then again, the show just kept having Alan produce kids until his last year of life...)

A sterility story with Alan-Michael also could have been interesting.

At least AM didn’t have a kid they SORASed and tried to put with one of Phillip’s kids to test the is it incest if you’re not blood related but just grew up thinking you’re family question.

1 minute ago, GL95 said:

At least AM didn’t have a kid they SORASed and tried to put with one of Phillip’s kids to test the is it incest if you’re not blood related but just grew up thinking you’re family question.

I'm glad we avoided that (even if they punished us with Alan-Michael/Marina).

9 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I'm glad we avoided that (even if they punished us with Alan-Michael/Marina).

I mentioned it upthread but I just finished watching the period where Marina was conceived and Eleni had sex with them both in a very short window so I am not sure how they felt so confident in a sonogram but it’s definitely best to feel it was accurate.

For those interested, I'm posting yearly synopses for the show in the general cancelled soap forum. I didn't post them in here because most people seem to be interested just in the last 25-30 years of the soap. For those interested in prior years, however, I thought I'd draw your attention to the threads. Thanks!

2 hours ago, GL95 said:

Watching that whole Ed/Lillian plot line unfold, I hadn't realized just what a slow moving trainwreck that affair was. Ed is just terrible. Lillian is at least lonely and deluded that there's something real there, but Ed just seems to sleep with her because he wants to? (Though writing that letter and just delivering it that way is a monumentally dumb thing to do, and you almost have to believe she wants it discovered by Maureen. But Michelle could've been the one to see it just as easily?).

Conversely, I am also up to the Mindy return with the super dud Mindy recast whose name I am too lazy to look up.

It think it was supposed to be about Ed needing to feel needed. Lillian needed him. Maureen was off working (GASP!) and not there to bolster his ego morning, noon and night. But Ed just comes off as a monumental jerk, who really would simply banish Lillian to Timbuktu if he'd had his way, and grow morose keeping his secret.

On rewatch, I think Hamilton was easing into the role when they switched her out with Crampton. Crampton is completely wrong for the role, and sort of made Mindy screen poison.

I agree Ms. Crampton was wrong in the role of Mindy, but the show made it almost impossible for her to make the role her own with the timing of her debut where she came into story of Eve stalking/gas lighting Mindy and spending the first weeks yelling and being paranoid anytime she interacted with Eve. Granted she had reason to be weary of Eve, but since she hadn't played the majority of the story, it fell flat.

And to add insult to injury, Marj joined as Alex and the show insisted on restarting the Alex/Mindy feud instead of putting it to rest and moving the two characters onto separate orbits.

The last few months of Ms. Crampton as Mindy showed she had a good handle on playing a Mindy that had matured.. but still had a bit of the character as played by Sims in her. And she was the only Mindy that had chemistry with O'leary as Rick.