Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[P.J.]

@Mona Kane Croft  Tom was their fishing guide. Why anyone would need a fishing guide in the wilds of Illinois, I'm not certain. I've never quite understood if that was Tom's profession or just a side hustle he did to support his large family.

While long time viewers might have remembered that the Bauers were in Selby Flats in the 50's, younger viewers wouldn't have. I didn't know about Selby Flats until long after the story aired.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

The very awful Marianne Carruthers story is a great example of historical inaccuracies also being insulting especially to character integrity. But, it's also a great example where we do not just look at one egregiously wrong output from a given creative. No, we add to that the sock puppet, the red herring that Sandy was Reva's son, the total travesty of Ben Reade, the young adult group adventuring in the old tunnel system until they somehow fell through the ceiling of Manny's apartment, the baseball diamond when previously Shayne had played a different sport & wasn't Eden a sex madam?

[Contessa Donatella]

You chose not to answer questions I asked about your next to last post, which is of course entirely fine as it is everyone's prerogative to choose what they will reply to. But, we do know from your own words that you did not watch much during Wheeler's tenure. I am choosing to reply to this post. 

Time Travel via painting: I have been hugely critical of this & have seen many others criticize it also. It has not gotten a pass. To me it only had one saving factor - costumes. Typically I do enjoy costumes on soaps. 

Mae, the cigarette girl: I have been strongly critical, as have others. However, I don't think she fits here. She's just a poorly crafted character who was much disliked, not a whole storyline.

San Cristob*l & Zaslow: No one could spend much time here without being aware of the universal condemnation of these two.

Amish Reva & Tangie Hill: Maybe not as much attention is paid to them but I'm pretty sure if they do come up, it is criticism. Speaking for myself, that's a definite. As a matter of fact, Alan just happening upon Amish Reva is to me one of the most preposterous of transitions!

Hope this adds perspective.

 

[prefab1]

For that matter, the '66 episodes online seem smart and youthful in a way that the '73 episodes do not. Even in the February 73 episode, which is considerably better than the July and August ones, the characters are extremely dour, with long pauses in their speech as though they were so depressed they could barely get the words out. Okay, Papa Bauer just died, so they have an excuse. But they have the same depressive affect in the Summer 73 episodes, only there the writing is much worse, and suddenly everyone is narrating their inner thoughts in voiceover. (By then, Soderberg and Sommer had left, and our old pal James Lipton had taken over as co-head writer, along with James Gentile and Robert Cenedella). 

We often talk about GL's lows in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, but these Summer 73 episodes show that the 1970s shouldn't get a free pass. Even a story that sounds good on paper, like Kit Vested's descent into madness, turns out to be dramatically inert on screen, mainly due to poor dialogue writing, directing, and acting choices. The idea that three women at once would be (literally) crazy for Anthony Call's Dr. Joe Werner, who has all the sexual charisma of a block of wood onscreen, is at least as ludicrous as Reva time-traveling through paintings. 

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I think it's the general consensus that the 70s was not a strong decade for GL. In particular, the early and mid part of the decade. 

[chrisml]

I'm  not sure what you're referring to. You could always ask the question again. Some of these conversations go in so many different directions and if I don't know what's going on, I just move on. If it's about my mean-spirited/tawdry comments about Ellen Wheeler's tenure, I think the whole Jonathan storyline was just icky and mean-spirited and the show wanted us to side with him in many ways. He was written as an anti-hero. It's one of the reasons I did not watch much during her tenure. There was the Sebastian mess. From my limited perspective, Wheeler's GL felt more like a collection of stunts rather than a soap opera. I remember something about a certain day of the week being a special kind of episode of the show (comic book episode? themed episode? Am I misremembering?). That's the problem with pretty much giving up on a show.

[Contessa Donatella]

There was a GL/Marvel Comics crossover where Harley was temporarily a superhero, with a special costume & her superpower having something to do with "light". And, Shawn Reeves, then GL Costume Designer created some other costumes, too, that other Marvel characters & comics, used. I have no idea when this happened so I don't know if it was Wheeler, or not. 

Wheeler did the outreach into communities & building houses, etc. She also did special Wednesdays for a while. She also did one character episodes for awhile, some of which were Wednesdays. And, finally she did these "Inside the Light" special episodes. Some of these special episodes are on YT. Besides what was mandated by the network she tried to innovate on her own, also. For her part, the intent was always to try to make GL better. And the attitude was one of caring, not ego or arrogance. In her own way she was trying to reinvent rather than watch it die without trying things. I do see how someone could look at that & know about some EPs stuff & see 'new stunt of this week'. I also get how people could look & say that she was throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick. It raises the question what do you do if the sky is falling?! Between the mandated new production model & these things she came up with, it's why they had SO many set visitors!

[P.J.]

Yes, Wednesdays became "Inside the Light" episodes, which were supposed to be more "in depth" looks at the characters/stories. I think they continued until almost the end of the show. The first of which was Harley-as-a-comic-book hero, one centered on Alan Michael after he returned,  etc. I believe one Valentine's day had characters exposed to some kind of aphrodisiac and having sex with people they randomly crossed paths with, and there was one where Reva imagined what her life would've been like had she stayed married to Billy. (LOL, Billy was cheating on her with Vanessa, Josh had remained married to Sonni until her recent death, and Billy and Josh had been estranged for years)

[prefab1]

The Inside the Light episodes are, I think, a great example of both the strengths and weaknesses of Wheeler's experimental approach. I loved a lot of those episodes, and I wasn't the only one, since reels from those episodes helped Guiding Light win a lot of Emmys in the early years of Wheeler's tenure. But they also often wreaked havoc on the show's day-to-day plotting, as character-based story arcs that might normally play out over weeks (and might keep viewers tuning in tomorrow) instead got compressed into a single episode. 

[DRW50]

Oh wow - I had no idea Sonni was mentioned that late in GL's run.

I liked the idea of those episodes but I was not really watching by that point...I think I tried one about Blake because I read Holly was in it.

[chrisml]

Thank you everyone for the explanation. As someone who had given up GL pretty much by this point, the "Inside the Light" episodes did not interest me in the slightest. They felt gimmicky and annoying. There would be no way I would return to GL to see Harley as a comic book figure. Why would a soap viewer be interested in something like that? It would seem to get in the way of what makes soaps special. The "Inside the Light" eps.  seem designed for non-GL viewers or for Emmy voters. And that's not going to be good for long-term stability. I understand Wheeler tried to connect GL with some charity work and that's admirable, but again, how was that going to get me back as a viewer? Answer in bother the standalone episodes and the outreach cases: they didn't get me back as a viewer.

Edited February 14 by chrisml

[DRW50]

As someone who read comics and watched soaps for many years, I think the idea of a one-off episode being tied into a comic isn't a bad idea. GL wasted years on stories involving mind control, magic mirrors, clones. An episode that gets some free publicity and a few new viewers I can see the appeal of. But the long term I agree it doesn't lead up to much.

I will say I am one of the lapsed fans who did come back to watch that episode. (just not much else)

I wonder if the Inside the Light episodes may have also been for some kind of budget reason. 

I know they would also use those to for some reason wrap up certain stories - didn't the Blake episode cover like a year of storyline for her?

 

Edited February 14 by DRW50

[prefab1]

I don't know if they actually raised viewership (although the Emmy wins might have kept the show on the air a couple years longer). But I can see how the Inside the Light eps would be a great entry point for a non-viewer or even a reentry point for a lapsed viewer. They usually concentrated on one focal character, rather than jumping back and forth between storylines. So viewers would have fewer of the "What's going on? Why does this matter? Who are all these people?" questions I have when tuning into new soaps (or old ones I haven't watched for a few years). 

[AMCOLTLLover]

The Eli simms storyline was my introduction to this show and I have to admit as newbie to the show and very much younger that I didn’t cared if some didn’t made sense how they all got together and stuff. The mystery and Tony having a big story (who I found very likeable) getting to the bottom of it and ALL families being involved was so intriguing. Like seriously. I watched a lot of other soaps before GL and the others didn’t had that much involvement between all families of that show. That really hooked me. The biggest shock to me was Bill’s murder ! That’s when I started to look up his character and was surprised he was such a big one back in the day before that. As a newbie u would’ve never known.

[robbwolff]

I can't recall if this was discussed here, but does anyone know what Wheeler's plans were for reinventing the show as The New Guiding Light? Zimmer's memoir briefly discusses that scenario.