Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[P.J.]

The only thing about Roger's return that I wonder about is why there wasn't more focus on the Ed/Roger history. I know there's some. Maybe it's just that it seems far down the list on Roger's conflicts with everyone else around town.

[Mitch64]

I think you hit it there. Long made Springfield seems like a community and a fun place to live..I wanted to hang out at Company, hit the Reardon kitchen, snoop with Nola, go to the Country Club and watch the crap hit the fan. The Three M's graduated high school when I did and I wanted to go to "Springfield U" with them, I wanted Bert Bauer as the cool older lady you talked to, I never wanted to live in Marland's Oakdale..I mean, I don't care that its Lily's birthday, I dont want to hang out in that drab Snyder kitchen with people acting like they were teleported in from a 1930s farm movie...I dont want to go into therapy, and I really dont want to talk about "honesty being the most important thing in a relationship" so really I wouldnt fit in!!!

I think that is why GL in Fall of 85 seems so odd, suddenly SF is not fun anymore..Kyle Sampson is flaring his nostrils and blackmailing Roxie to have sex with him, but he is supposed to be a romantic hero, everyone is running around in fur coats like its Dynasty, Ed morphed over night into Faux Ed, Bert is gone (cant be helped) Bea is gone and the rest of the Reardons to be replaced by Hawk and the Shaynes...Alex is obsessing over a guy with weird blond hair.

I think Ed wasnt BIG enough in drama like Alan etc. However, Ed would be the person besides Holly, to know which buttons to push. I would have had Ed renew his relationship with Blake and for her to consider him her "dad" again or start to, before Roger came back.

[bboy875]

Pam Long created Blake, but the scab writers introduced her during the writers' strike. I don't remember when it was revealed, but it was obvious to me from the beginning that she was secretly working with Alan to get Spaulding back from Philip and Alex. Long wanted her to have a secret past, but didn't figure it out before the strike. When the strike was over and they asked Zaslow to return as a recast Alan when Bernau got too sick to work, he suggested they bring Roger back instead. Once they decided to do that, they retconned Blake into Christina, which is how they ended up with plotholes, like why Ed and Rick didn't recognize her. It also made no sense that Ed would lose touch with her, but they covered that when Ed asked Holly why Holly told him not to contact her anymore. Anyways, I didn't mind the plotholes because Holly and Christina were now back, and you knew Roger wasn't far behind. BTW, SOD interviewed writers after the strike about the mess they had to clean up from the scab writers. Long told them that she asked producers who Blake was making those secret phone calls to,and they told her that they did not know lol. Also, once Blake became Christina, Long had to throw out her backstory and develop her using Chrissy's backstory. I always wondered if it's why they got rid of Dennehy, who was in Philip and Rick's age group, whereas Rick was born in 1970, and Chrissy in 75

[Contessa Donatella]

LOL, thanks for that, about every third sentence was something that I knew already. The other two sentences, though, NOT KNOW!!! (Yodaspeak) What a great day to be a GL fan here on SON!!!

[Contessa Donatella]

Both as AW's Iris and GL's Alexandra, which you know is a role that Pam Long created for her, Beverlee was magical! If you haven't you also would enjoy her "City Lights" interview. It's her best & most candid interview. Also Canadian. 

Love her as Ginger, back then. 

rumble dot com

acct: shallotpeel

video titles:

Beverlee McKinsey The City Lights Interview 1980

GL Payback is a Bitch (Alex humiliates Roger in front of most of the town at the country club, famous, iconic.)

GL 3-5-90 Alex & A Family Dinner Party (pass Beth the butter, cannibals, Harley)

AW Rachel & Iris, 1979, Short

There are also a dozen TEXAS videos. 

 

[DRW50]

I or someone else posted a post strike interview with headwriters somewhere in here (I think) - I can't remember exactly what Long said but she clearly was not thrilled with the treatment of Blake during the strike. I think she may have said they moved too fast with her in story, and that meant Long had to change some of her plans for the character.

Thanks. That's what I was thinking of.

I loved Sherry as Blake but she always looked older than her age, so the change was a bit of a wash.

I think the biggest difference for me is the characters often seem to lack inner lives under Marland. We hear how they feel - boy do we hear it - whereas with the Dobsons, we know how they feel.

[P.J.]

Ed....or Peter Simon? I haven't seen enough of 70's Ed to really judge if they softened Ed so much in the '80's that he's just adverse to putting himself in the line of fire, so to speak.

Thanks for the refresher. 

I know why they got rid of Dennehy, she was awful. God, I remember some horrible scene where she's actually talking to a coconut. She's a good actress, but this wasn't the role for her.

[chrisml]

I liked Elizabeth Dennehy as Blake. She's not to blame for inconsistent writing. If every actor was fired for bad writing for his/her character, we would have had very few actors left standing over the years. I remember reading that one of the reasons they fired her was because she looked like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Don't know why that would matter.

re: writer's strikes. Was there ever a time when scab/fi-core writers made good decisions during a strike?

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes. On AMC they brought back Darnell Williams as Jesse. What is so ironic is that it was scab writers in a previous strike who stupidly killed him off. 

[Vee]

I liked Dennehy's Blake from what I've seen. It was a very different, arch look though, the whole Glenn Close/Alex Forrest style and vibe, and I can't deny it probably wasn't what they were looking for from a heroine/antiheroine of the show. I am admittedly biased from spending decades worshipping her brief but important role on Star Trek.

Edited March 22 by Vee

[DRW50]

The '08 and '23 writers' strikes were a benefit to GH. 

I can't speak about the 1988 strike as I haven't watched a ton of that period.

I know some fans think the strike made the Sonni/Solita saga more compelling, even if it also made the story a mess. 

Does anyone know if anything on GL changed through the '08 strike, or did the show even have storylines at that point?

I think she's good as the early mysterious Blake, from what I've seen. I'm not as sure if I could have seen her bedding Alan-Michael, but you never know.

Edited March 22 by DRW50

[alwaysAMC]

Wait - the original Blake was Shelby from ST:TNG?!?  Oh, how my worlds are colliding haha!  I'll have to go find GL episodes of this.

[Vee]

Idk about that one. I found it comical watching JFP try to turn GH into mid-'90s GL starring Rick Hearst with his dayplayer foreign bride while Guza was out of the building. I half-expected her to change the locks and light fixtures and maybe finally bring on Kale Browne as Jeff Webber. Then there was Sarah Brown's Claudia Zacchara getting a Tangie Hill/Angel Sorel-style color-coded intro. It was very strange.

[Soaplovers]

I think the combination of Clarita Bauer (Bert) passing away in real life in the first half of 1985, plus adding Jeff Ryder as co-headwriter probably caused some sadness/disarray backstage and it translated into the writing of the show.  Plus, Long was pregnant and preparing to leave GL in the fall of 1985 so she probably was more apt to listen to input from others on the staff instead of going with her instincts.

The 2nd half of 1985 seemed to be more neo-noir then the the fun and spirited GL of the 1983/1984.. and it doesn't really regain that fun community spirit again until 1989

I could have seen her Blake be more of an antagonist in the Beth/Philip/Blake triangle in the 2nd half of 1989 then how SS played Blake during that time.  Dennehy's Blake played her final scenes as so lost/tragic after discovering Adam Malik was really her long believed dead father Roger.

I often think how she played Blake was more how Blake should have been after the trauma of what happened to her parents played out in her childhood and what we believed was her life growing up after Holly left the show.

[P.J.]

LOL...you're gonna get sucked down a rabbit hole yet.