Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Eric83]

Wow. A year without GL, and now ATWT is gone too. CBS Daytime will just never be the same.

[soapfan770]

So I have two questions...

#1: I noticed the average rating of GL for the '88-'89 year was a 6.2 but the average rating for '89-'90 was a 5.4, nearly a drop in a million viewers. I know 1989 was a banner year for GL especially the first half up to Josh and Reva's Cross Creek wedding, but we don't hear much about the second half. Did weak storylines like Blake and Gary Swanson, Dana Jones' murder, and exits of characters like Alan, Sonni/Solita, Will and later Reva cause viewers to drop GL over time?

#2: Did Billy and Roger ever interact after Billy was released from jail? Or was Zaslow gone by this point so they didn't even bother for a scene with Parlanto's Roger?

[DRW50]

Billy and MZ's Roger were both on the show at the time of Vanessa's funeral. I can't remember if Roger was there. That was when Billy was first put in a halfway house. Roger might have been in Italy with Vanessa, I can't remember.

I think Roger and Billy were both at the 60th anniversary ball, but they probably didn't interact -- I think Roger mainly was with the Holly/Fletcher story and Billy was mainly there as Reva's date.

Zaslow was gone not long after this and Billy wasn't seen much until the time of Vanessa's homecoming and HB's funeral. I don't think Parlato was involved in those stories.

It's too bad they wasted Parlato in that impossible situation. I would have enjoyed seeing him as someone like Ben Warren (although Hunt Block was good), or perhaps as Brandon Spaulding's illegitimate son.

Edited September 27, 2010 by CarlD2

[EastMA2]

I hear ya. I know she was a very hard worker and passionate about GL. I do struggle though because while I know that the switch to that god awful Peapack format bought the show an extra year and a half, and I'm happy all of those people were employed that much longer, it was still a lame brained idea. I struggle with wondering if GL would have been better going off the air a few years earlier while it still had some shred of dignity. The last year and a half was very painful to see.

[soapfan770]

Thanks for the info, I remember Roger seeing Vanessa off wherever she was hiding and the funeral but didn't recall Roger's reaction to seeing Billy.

I think a Roger recast could have worked with a stronger actor but once the truth came out about Zaslow's exit even Parlato himself said he felt sickened by being deceived. I actually remember Joan Collins herself hinting a Roger recast was in the works for her as a love interest but of course that never happened. At the time I imagined someone lile David Bailey, Quinn Redeker or even Randolph Mantooth(by appearance alone) in the role of Roger. Never understood those who wanted Charles Keating or Anthony Herrera to play Roger in the early 00s before Roger died. Both are great actors and I could see the temptation with Keating but both actors had played their respective villains in their own way fit.

[shadow]

I do not remever any Billy/Roger scenes after he came out the Halfway house.

Roger went from Holly to Jenna, to Dinah and that horrible triangle with Hart and then Amanda which is when Parlato came aboard and quickly left when Roger left town with Amanda.

[DAMfan]

What is the point of being sick - if you can't watch your soaps??

[DRW50]

From an early '95 Update.

Edited October 18, 2010 by CarlD2

[SFK]

That picture of the Spauldings pretty much says it all.

[DRW50]

It's a nice photo. They all look very dapper (Rick would look even better with a bit less hair).

I had forgotten Wendy Kaplan filled in as Eleni. I don't remember that. I often forget exactly when Melina K left.

[soapfan770]

Discovered this gem covering the early Kriezman/Wheeler period for GL, a time when I still held out a little hope for the show. It's a lengthy read, goes in depth about subjects we've discussed much already but still none the less great for its time period. Smith didn't wonder long either--in his 2005 Best and Worst column he named GL as worst show.

Edited October 12, 2010 by soapfan770

[DRW50]

I like that idea -- when a soap seems to improve it's "crying wolf." I'd never thought of it that way before.

They make a lot of good points. GL's ratings did go up some on 2005 and 2006 didn't they? Or is it just that others went down?

I never really thought Phillip's breakdown made a ton of sense though.

[soapfan770]

GL's ratings actually did go up, not a lot but they did recover from its losses under Conboy/Weston in 2005. I know as Reva's cancer story reached its climax in the fall of '06 GL managed to score big surpassing both AMC and OLTL in the ratings for a few weeks there.

Phillip's breakdown didn't make much sense to me either. I could understand an angry Phillip coming back to town with a plan of revenge for Olivia and Alan but instead in those final months and weeks leading up to the shooting we got a way OOC Phillip who was trying to be a psychotic Alan Jr. Thank god they finally managed to save the character by show's end.

[DRW50]

I always wanted to see some kind of balance between the sanctimonious a$$ Phillip was for years and the psycho he became in his last months before the 2004 departure. The 2009 version was probably the closest we could get, although I also thought that the stuff in 1987 when he destroyed Alan was also pretty good.

[soapfan770]

Although that scenario sounds great it would have been as likely as Alan-Michael reconnecting to his Bauer roots. I didn't like the way though Phillip was written from 2001-2004 though. I know Phillip one of the good guys but sheesh he did become too self-righteous. Even though Rick&Harley sucked royally, I didn't understand why Phillip was so angry or why he accused Rick of getting back at him for Meredith. Nor did I understand why Phillip suddenly became so dismissive of Olivia so far as to refusing to believe her about anything like Emma being his or Lizzie staging her accidents. His return at least restored to Phillip something I could recognize from what I saw in the late 90s.