1 hour ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I found a 2005 Guiding Light playlist last night and this show really did love Harley. She's in almost every episode. I generally liked Harley but jeez. The character's overexposure also extended to those pitiful last months where Harley was sleeping with her niece's boyfriend and Gus' death. Gush should've been endgame but GL had to ruin almost all their couples.

Ricky also bolted to AMC, I guess seeing the writing on the wall.

I didn't recognize Harley in that last decade. I think it's more down to what became of Beth Ehlers.

2 hours ago, Spoon said:

@Mitch64 you really think Lucy was more dull than Frank, Coop or Marina? I liked Lucy, they should've brought her back after Harley left again.

LOL..okay the only Cooper I liked in the last 20 years was Aubrey Dollar's Marina..after that they made the character a sweet little Mary Sue but the whole family became a Mary Sue. But yea, I did not like Lucy and her quacking voice! Frank was boring but he was a familiar boring! Except when they tried and Frankie D tried his hardest to make Frank a tough smart authority figure cope. Frank was a big dumb sweet guy who should have been tending the diner.

3 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Ha...Lucy and **** were perfect for each other, as they are both the dullest part of their families! Alex is off camera so Van is back at Spaulding while all this is going on and Matt and Lucy whine about their successful driven spouses. Oh, and Ross is working at Spaulding too so Van and Ross....plus, too nutty fan bases (LAM did have one) being incensed would make me so happy!

Siblings fighting for what they think is best would be interesting without anyone being the "big bad" AM is pushing for technology and Phillip wants to absorb Lewis or something. AM is ALWAYS going to feel like the lesser to Phillip, and Phillip may resent that AM has a lot of Alan's traits... We have to agree to disagree about Amanda..I found KM dull as dishwater and loved Poser..I know the Madame backstory was all wrong, and she was too young, but with good writing it could overcome that.

**** is clearly the most boring Reardon...but geez, Lucy's more interesting than Frank at least. Coop...arguably a push, and it depends on which Marina we're talking about. Dollar? Nope, but Bruno? Yep.

I just can't with Poser. Cullen at least had some kind of Spaulding connection to work with. She'd worked with GA, and if not so much with either A-M, at least she could remind us she was friends with Hope, and that gave her an additional incentive to consider A-M's side.

3 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

Agree. Unless it was opposite Tom Pelphrey's Jonathan. I'm happy to be corrected but the Reva/Jonathan dynamic had undertones to it that went beyond mother/son. It wasn't overt but KZ seemed to show up more in her scenes that centered Jonathan. Her other kids felt like afterthoughts.

Not that Reva didn't love her kids, or to suggest Kim didn't vibe with the actors playing them, but I always had a sense that Reva couldn't really connect with Marah or Shayne after her return. They were Josh's kids by more than just biology. Even with Reva as a mother, they'd had too normal a life. She didn't have a lot of time with Dylan, and he became too centered before she returned.

Even though she didn't raise Jon, she connected to the rage he felt. And God knows Kim understood scenery chewing actors.

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Ricky also bolted to AMC, I guess seeing the writing on the wall.

I didn't recognize Harley in that last decade. I think it's more down to what became of Beth Ehlers.

I don't blame any actor who bolted. Ricky found a second life on AMC, and Beth, well.... But GL was arguably very Harley-centric while she was there. I remember there was a big deal made when she returned in 1997. I think that was the year, and she seemed to be the center of gravity. I liked her and Phillip and then GUSH before I tapped out.

Overall, 2005 is a decent viewing year so far. A bit too much of Harley but I don't have any major complaints. I'm at March 2005. But the Danny/Marina and Michelle/Tony pairings are so WTF. I never liked Manny 2.0 but why is everyone OK with Michelle dating her husband's cousin? I'm an unapologetic Jammy fan but Springfield was too incestuous. Everyone's hooking up with someone's brother/father/mother/sister. Cassie/Josh is still gross to me. Maybe if Laura Wright's Cassie had a ONS with Josh but that's it. And then there's Beth and Alan. Although, Rick and Beth was even stranger since that was Phillip's best friend. It was all just too much.

25 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Not that Reva didn't love her kids, or to suggest Kim didn't vibe with the actors playing them, but I always had a sense that Reva couldn't really connect with Marah or Shayne after her return. They were Josh's kids by more than just biology. Even with Reva as a mother, they'd had too normal a life. She didn't have a lot of time with Dylan, and he became too centered before she returned.

Even though she didn't raise Jon, she connected to the rage he felt. And God knows Kim understood scenery chewing actors.

That's a spot on assessment about Reva and her interactions with her kids. She was gone for Shayne and Marah's young lives, and outside of Jonathan, they're all normal (for a soap opera at least). I don't think Reva could or wants to relate. But she felt Jonathan's rage.

And 😂at the bolded. It's hard to argue that point.

38 minutes ago, CrazySexyQ said:

That's a spot on assessment about Reva and her interactions with her kids. She was gone for Shayne and Marah's young lives, and outside of Jonathan, they're all normal (for a soap opera at least). I don't think Reva could or wants to relate. But she felt Jonathan's rage.

And 😂at the bolded. It's hard to argue that point.

They even touched at Reva's disconnect from Shayne specifically at the very end of the show after Jon comes back to Springfield.

49 minutes ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I'm an unapologetic Jammy fan but Springfield was too incestuous. Everyone's hooking up with someone's brother/father/mother/sister.

That was part of the problem with characters who'd been in town forever. Rick at least had a long history of having the feels for Beth, going back to high school. But it definitely got weird when Bill Lewis hooked up with two mom/daughter combos, briefly adopted Phillip's daughter Emma, and later married Lizzie. Or how Dinah hooked up with two of Reva's sons, but it never sparked a discussion (at least that I saw) between Reva and Vanessa.

Josh and Cassie hooking up was more about plot contrivance than anything else. But gross---definitely, and yet, BORING.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

**** is clearly the most boring Reardon...but geez, Lucy's more interesting than Frank at least. Coop...arguably a push, and it depends on which Marina we're talking about. Dollar? Nope, but Bruno? Yep.

I just can't with Poser. Cullen at least had some kind of Spaulding connection to work with. She'd worked with GA, and if not so much with either A-M, at least she could remind us she was friends with Hope, and that gave her an additional incentive to consider A-M's side.

Not that Reva didn't love her kids, or to suggest Kim didn't vibe with the actors playing them, but I always had a sense that Reva couldn't really connect with Marah or Shayne after her return. They were Josh's kids by more than just biology. Even with Reva as a mother, they'd had too normal a life. She didn't have a lot of time with Dylan, and he became too centered before she returned.

Even though she didn't raise Jon, she connected to the rage he felt. And God knows Kim understood scenery chewing actors.

Admittedly I got into the slow when I was in high school largely because of AM/Lucy-I had zero history or context and came in basically right when AM became president of Spaulding. SS and Rick Hearst had great chemistry IMO. (He generally had good chemistry with almost everyone though.)

Having seen Lucy’s intro I think it’s very obvious SS was a novice actress and I feel like a lot of her higher pitched voice early was the terrible accent/trying too hard to seem 20 when SS was 25. I think she seemed much more comfortable once they let her act more mature/she became a competent professional. (Basically anyone having the job they have requires suspension of disbelief.)

I personally like her well enough even beyond nostalgia because she’s the least sanctimonious of the Coopers I feel like. They clearly had no clue what to do with her when she wasn’t with AM though-it’s kind of weird they had her work with Alex/Nick after AM left Spaulding but they didn’t really play any of that natural tension up even as a D plot.

If you were going for something more dramatic though where AM is concerned if she strayed, I feel like Rick is the obvious choice especially if Ed is around. It would really push AM even more away from his Bauer side, and even more gallingly to AM, Phillip would of course basically be more family to Rick than to him.

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by GL95

36 minutes ago, GL95 said:

Admittedly I got into the slow when I was in high school largely because of AM/Lucy-I had zero history or context and came in basically right when AM became president of Spaulding. SS and Rick Hearst had great chemistry IMO. (He generally had good chemistry with almost everyone though.)

It's not apparent, but I remember liking Lucy and A-M. I just haven't rewatched that era to chat it up.

27 minutes ago, P.J. said:

It's not apparent, but I remember liking Lucy and A-M. I just haven't rewatched that era to chat it up.

I’m just always a sucker for the trope of someone pining over someone then the roles reverse and the one pining is suddenly the one being pursued. When AM starts being the one yearning for her (shortly before the rape and he’s still in denial since he’s determined to be all business) is roughly when I came in. There’s a really well shot scene on the yacht where they have dinner that’s full of subtext and long pauses with moments allowed to breathe that I don’t think you’d see on the show by 1997. (This isn’t just a LAM thing-just miss stillness existing in shows in general.)

7 hours ago, GL95 said:

I’m just always a sucker for the trope of someone pining over someone then the roles reverse and the one pining is suddenly the one being pursued. When AM starts being the one yearning for her (shortly before the rape and he’s still in denial since he’s determined to be all business) is roughly when I came in. There’s a really well shot scene on the yacht where they have dinner that’s full of subtext and long pauses with moments allowed to breathe that I don’t think you’d see on the show by 1997. (This isn’t just a LAM thing-just miss stillness existing in shows in general.)

You know, GL95, you're one of the very few I've come across anywhere in life (not just GL) who sees the value of the long pause with moments allowed to breathe. I'm a huge fan of this thinking. It allows the viewer/listener to settle in, get absorbed, anticipate what may be coming, and at times, to wig out.

If you have a few minutes, go back and watch the confrontation scene with Lillian and Maureen in the Bauer kitchen. A great scene...not just because is there, but because of what isn't there. There's a decent stretch of time in the mid-section (prior to the explosive part of the scene) where the dialog is slowed down, there's no music, nothing to fill the gaps. There's lots of space in that scene for viewers to feel whatever they're going to feel. It's all very played down (not up) for effect. That "another time might be worse" line from Maureen. Holy crap! What?! Worse than the silent, unacknowledged division in the air at that very moment, just before the explosion? That had me climbing the walls....fantastic!

Allowing time to breathe was one of my favorite things about Guiding Light. During the periods when the show was good, it happened fairly often. Across various types of scenes and settings. Production and execution do matter. Both are very much undiscussed.

I've stated before that as a viewer, I very much enjoy being manipulated. Providing the needed space/context for matters to percolate is a winning strategy.

TV Guide June 3 1995 Michael Logan

Will the Light go out?

Start writing your letters of protest now-despite the recent, rather promising exec switch at Guiding Light (see last week's issue), rumors are rampant that CBS would much rather cancel the trouble-plagued serial, аnd expand The Bold and the Beautiful to an hour, and give the remaining half hour to B&B creator Bill Bell, who has another sudser up his sleeve. We don't blame CBS for being disgusted with the state of GL—but why | didn't these Big Eye execs do some s strong-arming when Jill Farren Phelps, the recently dethroned GL chief, allowed writer after writer after writer to alienate the audience? To be continued...

10 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I don't blame any actor who bolted. Ricky found a second life on AMC, and Beth, well.... But GL was arguably very Harley-centric while she was there. I remember there was a big deal made when she returned in 1997. I think that was the year, and she seemed to be the center of gravity. I liked her and Phillip and then GUSH before I tapped out.

Overall, 2005 is a decent viewing year so far. A bit too much of Harley but I don't have any major complaints. I'm at March 2005. But the Danny/Marina and Michelle/Tony pairings are so WTF. I never liked Manny 2.0 but why is everyone OK with Michelle dating her husband's cousin? I'm an unapologetic Jammy fan but Springfield was too incestuous. Everyone's hooking up with someone's brother/father/mother/sister. Cassie/Josh is still gross to me. Maybe if Laura Wright's Cassie had a ONS with Josh but that's it. And then there's Beth and Alan. Although, Rick and Beth was even stranger since that was Phillip's best friend. It was all just too much.

That's a spot on assessment about Reva and her interactions with her kids. She was gone for Shayne and Marah's young lives, and outside of Jonathan, they're all normal (for a soap opera at least). I don't think Reva could or wants to relate. But she felt Jonathan's rage.

And 😂at the bolded. It's hard to argue that point.

CrazySexyQ - I very much enjoy reading your posts and hope you continue. I cannot comment on the GL of the 2000s as I didn't watch those years.

Now about all the incest - well, yeah. There was an excessive amount of it in Springfield across the decades. You'd think that some Springfield progeny might literally be pinheaded or have a multitude of personality/physical disorders.

I am reminded of the 1932 movie Freaks, the excellent 1992 movie, Brother's Keeper,(highly unusual, yet fascinating), and finally, the 1960 British movie, Village of the Damned, about a hoard of maybe a dozen kids - all blonds whom, as IMDB writes, are "glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers."