Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

This ws so interesting to me to read!!! Thanks for sharing. 

Have you ever seen the Alex dinner party where Alex finally get fed up, stands, and as she's leaving the room, says, :Would someone please pass Beth the damn butter? In it Philip refers to  his family as cannibals. I have this if you've not seen it.

[alwaysAMC]

This is great!  I'm really starting to wish I went back to at least 1993 haha.  I need to go find some clips of Bev McKinsey in the role of Alexandra.  Marj is great and I love the character, and I bet Bev was amazing too.

That is so awesome how she was a nobody in the early 90s in this role.  You can tell she was destined to be a star because she's great in this day role.

[alwaysAMC]

I just heard Roger call her Chrissie...  why did everyone else start calling her Blake?

[Mitch64]

I LURVED Bridget...a more contemporary (for that time) Nola..I loved her fake teenage sarcastic nature (to cover up her insecurities) I love her intro and how she bugs uptight Ed (my fave Ed lines: "Your niece just rolled a trucker and you want her to watch Michelle" and "Go upstairs and put something else on, you look like you dance in a cage" I loved her annoyance at Chelle (and Minor's Chelle is pretty annoying, in a real kid way as opposed to a child actor way as that toothy girl was was Marah) and her eventual softening to her, her friendship with Kat (I love when they break into Gilly's apartment decorated in frills and they turn to each other "HATE IT!" her friendship and loyalty with David, her schemes and her softening and her relationship with Dylan (it actually made sense that this hot sensitive guy would like what other people would consider not conventionally attractive.)

I HATED how McTavish had her revert to a more cartoonish version of her debut self and chase after Hart...at first it made sense he was the father of her kid but then they recast with Jersey Boy Grillo and she used her kid to try to trap him and she looked pathetic (they even had her considering plastic surgery in a scene where you could tell Zaz was playing against the script where he made Roger actually have concern for Bridget even as he was using her) and then she just said she was moving back to live with Dylan, dumped Company and disappeared without a good bye to anyone (no doubt Rauch thought she was, as he called woman "a dog" so who cares...)

These are what I would consider my fave times also. I know people knock her but I felt Long's first run up to Fall of 85 is better then Marland's (though she never got Nola) it was fun and exciting and warm and sexy and funny (Warm, Sexy, and Funny were never Marland's qualities) and the Curlee era was must see TV..the characters (most of them) were funny and smart and complicated.

[alwaysAMC]

March 6, 1995 - we have a new Eleni!  Where did the other actress go - guessing she tried to make it into primetime?

Dinah is messy!!!  It's wild that she dated Alan-Michael in high school, and Blake just mentioned she used to be married to Alan-Michael, yet she's now married to Dinah's dad.  GL either does a lot of SORAS'ing or they just love getting different generations together romantically haha.

[Contessa Donatella]

I love to read your words about Bridget, Kat, Gilly, even Dylan. Frank Grillo, No Comment. You can quote me on that. Yes, to even Roger. But then, stupid exit. And why? Bridget had value that was retained.

Long was in her own way, a keeper. Curlee, all she touched was golden. I still regret that she never came back!

 

[P.J.]

lol...yes, she did. Melina Kanakaredes, she did Providence and then one of the CSI shows. 

GL is very interconnected (aka, incestuous) because they hung on to a lot of characters for long periods of time. Blake and A-M's marriage only lasted a few months. That was after she'd married his (adopted) brother Phillip and slept with their father Alan. Ross, who she's married to now, is Phillip's biological uncle. Phillip and Dinah are cousins. Ross' brother Justin is Phillip's bio-dad.

Yes, I believe it was posted a while back. I love the "Poker Alex" clip.

[Contessa Donatella]

Sorry, all I know is that her childhood name was Christina & nickname Chrissie. Then, her adult name was Blake. 

Someone will come along & they'll know why. 

[P.J.]

Because when she first came back to town, she used her middle name Blake. She didn't want people to know she was Roger's daughter.

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm not familiar with that one. Is it up on YT? Do you happen to know the date?

Wasn't it known that she was Holly's daughter? Why didn't that give her away?

 

[alwaysAMC]

Mind blown - I had to read that a few times before it sunk in hahaha.  Phillip isn't on the show right now in 1995, but he's the guy who played Alec McIntyre on AMC, right - Grant Alexander?  I didn't realize he was an adopted Spaulding.

So Blake really got around with that family huh - slept with the dad, married both sons 

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[Contessa Donatella]

But Blake's soul mate love & father to her kids is Ross Marler who also had a thing with her mother, Holly.  And, at the end of the show she ended up with Frank Cooper. So, yes, Blake got around.

 

[P.J.]

I do it too--focus more on the bad than the good at times. With Marland, it's his overreliance on therapy to redeem/explain characters or move plot, with Long, it's her focus on Reva. There's no denying that Zimmer took the writing and ran with it, but it often felt like Reva never really earned the devotion that characters gave her. Just write a scene where Reva cries about her emotional childhood trauma, and "all is forgiven". RME.

Interestingly, i can't really criticize the Curlee/Demorest/Reilly era. Other than it didn't last nearly long enough. They weren't to blame for killing Maureen, that came from above. It felt like they were good guardians of the established characters they inherited (it would've been so easy to get Holly and Roger wrong after so long off the canvas, and credit must be given to them and Long). And they took a situation that would've tanked a lot of writers (the departures of multiple fan favorites who are literally linchpins of the show Phillip/Beth/Josh/Rick) and made it work.

 

The German episodes date it as 12/8/89, but you can search for "PokerAlex!" and find the clip. It's actually the first poker game Roger throws, which ends up costing Henry his Spaulding shares in '90.

When Elizabeth Dennehy debuted in the role, I don't believe they had a plan for the character of Blake. She ran around town, making off-screen phone calls and manuevering Phillip, her target. I don't think they made the character Holly and Roger's daughter until after the writer's strike ended. Then the explanation was that she hadn't seen the people she knew for years (like Ed and Rick).

[P.J.]

Yes, Phillip is Grant Aleksander. Blake is in that rare club of women who slept through families. See also Reva (Billy, Josh and their father HB, not to mention Billy's half-brother Kyle), and Harley (Alan-Michael, Phillip, and much later Alan's son Gus). 

I forgot---Blake also made her way through the Marler family---Ross, his half-brother Ben and Phillip.

[Soaplovers]

Seeing the Dobson episodes from 1979 really highlighted how dry and boring Marland's episodes were in comparison.  The dialogue alone during the Marland was so unrealistic that it made me want to tune out of the episodes while the Dobson episodes had dialogue that seemed less stagey/cringey.

Long's 1983 and 1984 had some stellar work and equal airtime amongst the newbies (Lewis Clan/Reva) and the veteran mainstays (Bauers/Reardons.. Parker siblings).  Plus, she managed to make Springfield look like a fun town.. which was a welcome relief from the dour and stodgy Springfield that Marland presented. 

Her 1985 was an interesting year that was too focused on the Lewis/Shayne clan though I did like Lujack's music video and had a soft spot for Infinity (Only because it was an umbrella story, the constant use of the black background during the climax of the Infinity story was interesting, and there was fall out with Lujack's death).

Long/Curlee were a good team that balanced one another out, though I have to admit that Long leaving in December 1990 took away a fun energy that could have been an asset during the more literary Curlee/Demoerest era of 1991 to 1993.  Also, I notice that Ed became more dour after Long left the canvas.. no longer did he make wisecracks nor have the couple banter with Maureen that had been there in the 80s up through 1990.