Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[tanyia2]

Nope, and that was due to the bad writing for Mel.

Edited October 14, 2009 by tanyia2

[MichaelGL]

I never understood why the show was so blind when it came to reuniting Rick and Mindy. They would either come close to reuniting, or go their separate ways; I think the show missed a gold mine of opportunity there, esp. with Mindy's difficult pregnancy with Roger and all, and Rick wanting to be a family man.

I never knew why the show never really made MOL the lead of the show, I guess it was just the way the writers saw things. Besides, Rick was a Bauer, an adult Bauer at that.

I always thought that the show missed the boat with not making Felicia Boudreau an actual three-dimensional character rather than just someone who showed up for the holidays and what not. Despite the plethora of strong willed and independent women this show has had since its inception, they could have really built Felicia up as a well respected shrink in the community, in addition harboring some flaws herself.

The only time I was truly interested in the Boudreaux family was under Gold, lol...who were the regime that created them, which in some way was the last time the family as a whole felt real to me.

[soapfan770]

The best pairing I thought Rick had was with Abby. Maybe it was because it was different and so sweet. Ok sometimes a little too sweet in the beginning but I always thought Amy Ecklund really came into the role especially when Abby broke off her engagement to Rick and later throughout the entire mess with Roy and subsequent fallout. Their break-up was so stupidly written with Rick cheating on her with Claire Ramsey. I wish they had paired Rick with Beth or Mindy much sooner because Rick had zero chemistry with Harley and Mel.

[Michael]

Rick/Abby always intrigued me. I think I got into soaps around the time Abby shot Roy, so they were always this thing that was going on as I was getting to know the GL landscape. They tanked them for Rick to sleep with Claire? That's idiotic. I just re-read Abby's history, and it really seems like they had built to a big love story for them. Does anyone know why they wrote her out? She was never mentioned again, huh?

I never got why they did that Rick/Harley hookup. Harley already had 500 kids, and it made them both look like idiots. I liked that they brought in Mel for him, but they didn't really create a story there, just a character to pair Rick with. As was said above, the Boudreaux family had some promise initially, but for years, it was just Mel hanging around. All the Clayton and Felicia recasts made them feel like random dayplayers when they were actually shown.

[DRW50]

Rick and Abby were a great love story. They were built up for several years. Abby was probably one of the few real successes of Laibson/McTavish. There was a haunting episode early in her run where she first arrived in town, deaf and in the hospital, wandering the hospital, and she was terrified because she saw all this commotion and had no idea what was going on. Jugglers (for a hospital carnival), patients being rushed through the ER, Hawk Shayne screaming at her.

She had no real storyline after the one where she was in prison for killing her attempted rapist. There was a brief story where she got a cochlear implant, but otherwise that was it. I believe there was some tension because Rick wanted children but she wasn't sure.

I do have to defend the exit story, as I thought that was very strongly written. Rick didn't cheat with Claire. They had had an affair in the past and she blackmailed him by lying to him that she'd taken his medical exams for him while he was hooked on pills. There was a lot of tension because Abby resented her interfering in Michelle's life. To pay Abby back, Claire climbed into bed with a drunk Rick and Abby saw them.

What I liked about the exit scenes was that Abby told Rick she KNEW Rick had not been with Claire. She told him she was leaving him for reasons that had nothing to do with Claire. There was too much else for her to take being with him anymore.

The moment where she left, and Rick crumpled up onto the floor, was superb. That was the last real story Michael O'Leary ever had.

I don't know why they did that with Rick and Harley. It seemed to me like they originally wanted her to have Phillip's child again then changed plans at the last minute.

I never liked the Rick/Beth story.

[DAMfan]

Both CBS/SOD want me - CBS has sent me news letters to watch LMAD and SOD just sent me a offer of $90 off offer to order SOD - wonder if these things have anything with me call and writing CBS that I was GL 3rd gen that watched GL on CBS all my life and since 9/21 have not watched CBS daytime at all and I emailed SOD when they did not put the end of GL on the cover that week and told them I would never buy SOD again - unless GL was on the cover - so what do you think my answer will be to CBS that is begging me to watch LMAD and buying SOD??

[soapfan770]

Thanks Carl for the correction. I remember Abby finding Rick in bed with Claire but I hadn't remembered Claire setting it up probably because it was one of those times where I would end up FFing through an entire show. Funny thing about that is, after Rick found out Kevin wasn't his I remember Abby comforting Rick and told him she was ready for children anytime and they could start their own family. Rick said he didn't want rush into having a replacement child. Guess he should have taken the opportunity when he had a chance.

While I'm experiencing a bout of nostalgia from the mixed B&E era did anyone else like the characters of Jesse, Drew, and Max?

If you thought Rick and Abby were a great love story cut short then look at what happened with Jesse and Michelle. All that wasted build-up for Michelle to end up involved with Danny Santos for the rest of her life. Sure the kid who played Jesse was pretty bad(he was even worse on B&B!) but the angelic persona and attractive body seemed so bad he was good. Drew was a funny stereotypical NYC gal who also was Ross' niece while Max was a troubled kid played by Jesse Soffer. I don't know what it is about them that I liked. Three people trying be a family while overcoming their shady pasts or the fact they were the ones who felt like a traditional GL story as the show got sucked into telling mob and San Cristobel stories.

[DRW50]

I never liked Jesse/Michelle. That was yet another instance of Rebecca Budig not having chemistry with her leading man, and the story was too contrived for me.

I did like Jesse with Drew. I liked Drew a lot. Tammy Blanchard was such an emotional, instinctual actress. Guttural. When she started out on the show she was awful but she really improved after a while, apparently thanks to the coaching from Lisa Brown. She could play the vulnerability and the tears so well. I liked seeing the "bad girl" slowly become good, but never saccharine, and I liked seeing her get the good guy, and find a family.

Jesse Soffer was great as Max. I remember a scene in the graveyard with the gravestone of his mother. I was really disappointed when he left for school and they recast him with that bland guy who went on to be on Wolf Lake. He looked too old for the role of Max.

I also loved the relationship between Drew and Selena. I wish we'd gotten to see more between Drew and her father Ben (the only role I've really liked Hunt Block in), and Drew and Ross.

I know a lot of people didn't like Selena but I thought she was a breath of fresh air. I hated her exit. For a long time GL really screwed up so many exits.

[DRW50]

Speaking of Rick, are there any clips online of Rick and Ed pulling the plug on Eve, and then Rick confessing the truth to Mindy, who leaves town so she can't be called to testify? I remember these scenes really getting to me at the time, it was the first time I was affected by GL after a very down period with me with the show during 1993-1994. At the time I thought O'Leary played it like Rick was falling for Eve.

The late ClassicGL had some clips of Eve sick, but I don't remember the rest being on there.

[Michael]

Thanks for the clarification re: Rick/Abby and the Claire situation. Rick's relationship with Abby seems like yet another case where they just didn't bother to really build story for one of his relationships. Weird.

I always forget that the Jesse/Michelle period ran right into the Santos thing. It's too bad the mob hadn't eaten GL (and/or if San Cristobal hadn't been going on at the exact same time), because Michelle and Danny were a great beginning for a love story. It just devolved really quickly into "Carmen bad!" and so much repetitive garbage. Recasting Michelle with NSA was such a mess, too. Did they ever try her Michelle with Cosgrove's Bill? I have this vague memory of them going there, maybe 2003-04. It always seemed like Michelle and Bill should wind up involved, if not together-together. That could've been a strong triangle. I remember that horrible story where they tested Michelle with the recast Tony Santos. I think they walked around an island filthy for 3 weeks, fell in some ravines, and then that was that.

I feel like I'm rambling, but it's fun to do this free-association wandering down Memory Lane. I totally agree about the family unit of Jesse/Drew/Max -- that felt very GL to me and was surprisingly lovely. I wasn't a huge fan of Drew winding up as Selena and Ben's kid, only because that was the sort of thing that soaps became overly dependent upon starting in the late 90s (and became an absolute parody when Days played parental roulette with Rex and Cassie). GL did an even worse version of it with Ava, Olivia, and Jeffrey in '06 or '07. But there were a lot of nice things about that little story.

[DRW50]

They did build some foundation for Abby/Rick for about a year or so. Abby was very sheltered. Rick protected her when she moved to Springfield. She was in love with him but he was too busy pining for Annie Dutton. Then she got a makeover, and Rick fell for her and they became a couple. Not long after that was when Rick told everyone he was the father of one of Blake's children. They broke up and got back together and then the Roy story happened. Then after that they sort of stopped. Still, it was more than any of his other relationships afterwards.

I had a lot of issues with the NSA Nancy. I thought she was very cold and played Michelle as older than her years, and I never felt any chemistry between her and the leading men she had. I always wanted Danny to have a better love interest. They tried Bill/Michelle briefly in late 2002 and early 2003. That was dropped when Conboy and Weston arrived. They decided to stay friends. I didn't really buy that relationship (I did buy Danny/Cassie, which also never happened).

I'm still bitter about what they did to Ben Reade. I assume that whoever wrote that line in the finale (Bill: I miss Ben Fletcher: So do I.) was too.

Edited October 15, 2009 by CarlD2

[soapfan770]

I'm of two minds on NSA. On one hand I didn't much care for her as an actress, on the other I felt it important for her continue as Michelle. I personally thought she and Cosgove clicked as did Danny and Cassie. And yes I despise what happened to Ben. One thing I never got out of the Weston/Conboy era is if they loved Teresa Wright as Eden sooo much, why did they abruptly recast her?

Glad to know I wasn't the only Jesse&Drew&Max fan. I too liked Hunt Block as Ben Warren, mainly because he's so good at playing sleazy smarmy bastard type which was exactly what Ben was although Block gave Ben that sense of humor.

By the way was it ever really explained why Annie switched up paternity results? I know Blake was blackmailed into helping Annie make it look like Annie and Reva were sisters over the paternity of Kevin, but wasn't just a ploy by Annie to get back at Rick for divorcing/dumping her?

[DRW50]

I wanted Michelle to continue, but not in that way. She was so cold, especially during the custody fight for Robbie, that I was rooting for Danny 100%. I was rooting for a mobster over a legacy character, the daughter of the show's core family. It was very sad. I loathed her at that time and could not watch her with anyone, including Bill. There were also scenes that made me hate her, even if her actions were justified, where she told Holly not to be around Robbie, and this helped break Ed/Holly up and send Holly back to the freezer. Then I tried to tolerate her again, which I did for a while, but that amnesia story was horrible. Worst amnesia story ever, ever! I could not watch most of that.

Block was very good at playing the smarmy, sleazy Ben Warren. I also thought he managed to add layers of vulnerability to Ben which I never saw him do at ATWT. I actually thought Ben had dimension, whereas Craig was just a smug jerk. I really liked Ben with Blake (even if Bloss came first), and he was OK with Carmen, but the best relationship he had was with Beth. That was one of the only relationships I ever bought BC in.

I don't remember why Annie changed the rest results. That was a bad rewrite which they used to cut off the custody battle between Rick and the Marlers, which would have given such great drama. Out of nowhere, Annie just told Ben she'd changed the results.

[Michael]

OMG, I totally blocked out that amnesia story. That was awful. NSA, at least in this role, did not have the chops to carry a storyline. That recast just never made sense to me. It was as if they forgot that Michelle was supposed to be younger than Danny and wasn't some long-suffering mob wife. They just took all the fire out of the character, both by casting older/more matronly and by casting someone as bland as NSA.

It is such a shame what happened to the Ben Reade character. On principle, I shouldn't hate it, because when they do those killer storylines, I hate when it's a copout and turns out to be some dayplayer as the culprit. But this was just so asinine and thoroughly wrecked not only Ben, but Fletcher as a parent. Horrible. I'm really glad that he at least merited a mention in the finale.

[DAMfan]

Dear CBS it is now 4 weeks since I have not got to see GL, cause CBS took off my GL and it is 4 weeks since I have not watched CBS daytime - I miss GL so much - however I don't miss CBS and I will not watch that stupid game show LMAD no matter how much CBS begs me.