Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[chrisml]

This is the article mentioned in the June 3 column. Sorry it's out of order. I couldn't edit it for some reason. 

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Edited April 9 by chrisml

[DeeVee]

It's so interesting to look at these old soap magazine columns. Thank you for posting them.

Michael Logan complaining about the GL 50th anniversary show leaving out Nola's fantasies is a head-scratcher for me.

I do recall soap columnists adoring those scenes and never could understand it back then, either. I LOATHED them, and I adore old movies more than most people do. On rewatch I like Nola much more now than I did back in the day, probably because very few of the episodes available now have those fantasy scenes bringing everything to a screeching halt.

Obviously, there are people who liked them and that's O.K. But soapdom's creative pinnacle? I don't think so.

It's wild how soap operas have been so incestuous for so long. Instead of firing people who were messing everything up and bringing in new people, just rotate the same failures over and over.

Sure, soaps are a specialized field, not everyone can produce, write, or act in them, but you'd think they would have tried to train up more replacements from outside the industry, like they did with Harding Lemay. Especially when it became obvious the heyday of soaps was coming to an end.

[Vee]

I think it's precisely because many writers didn't want to lose these cushy and by most accounts well-paying positions (or lose them for their children/family, in a number of notable cases) that you saw less and less people trained up. Someone is always coming up from behind you.

Beyond the Gates has to its credit tried to prioritize writers of color in the dialogue/daily corps, some of whom are new or at least relatively fresh/new. But there's still a lot of friends of the show or creatives on staff, both because the entertainment industry is always about who you know and because those people know how to do the job. And I won't lie and say I don't wish a few oldheads (like Patrick Mulcahey) could be persuaded out of retirement to tweak some of those daily shows.

Edited April 9 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

That is the 1995 executive Producer musical chairs I have referred to multiple times over many years. This is not new, folks. And, it was 95/96 when the LA TIMES article teased getting Bill Bell to write a new soap to replace GL.  ??? What's up? 

That's totally misleading. Bill Bell wanted nothing to do with this crapola. 

[chrisml]

Interesting to me that it was discussed so much in the soap press that JFP's tenure at GL was so rocky and disliked. I've never even heard of this Douglas Anderson. He must not have lasted long.

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And Michael Logan said GL was so bad in 1994 that it needed an intervention. Perhaps, that's why JFP gave the interview in 1995 to do damage control:

[P.J.]

Don't blame Danny Cosgrove. St Alban wouldn't have known chemistry if she sat on a book.

Ed and Lillian kissed during the blackout. They didn't have sex until September. I think it's the same episodes where Vanessa gets into a car accident on her way to marry Fletcher.

[P.J.]

Sigh......so brilliant to set fire to 5th street for like the third time in 5 years. RME.

Firing Hunt Block? Applause, applause. Ben Warren was a pale imitation of Roger, and Hunt Block couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. I said what I said. 

I heartily dislike the 50th primetime special, but not because it didn't mention Nola's fantasies. I didn't like them then, and I skip them on rewatch. I love Lisa Brown, but those sequences go on FAR too long. 

[Contessa Donatella]

If she sat on a book? Who are you & what have you done with PJ? PJ, if you are being held against your will,, IOW if you've been kidnapped, try to find a way to signal us.I

[P.J.]

Well, I didn't want to be crass. Otherwise all that would've shown up in my post is [!@#$%^&*]  [!@#$%^&*] [!@#$%^&*].

And I couldn't come up with what I wanted to say...but what I should've said was "St Alban wouldn't understand chemistry if she sat on a chemistry book soaked in gasoline and lit on fire."

Edited April 10 by P.J.

[cassadine1991]

Weren’t there rumors that she was supposed to come back during Labine or am I wrong about that?

[P.J.]

I believe the rumor was that that horrible May the cigarette girl character was supposed to be Stacey working undercover for the FBI or something. But the character tanked so badly they simply fired her.

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, heavens no, we wouldn't want to be crass. 

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[Spoon]

That was speculation at the time but I think it was wishful thinking.  I liked May a lot, but saw no.on-air evidence of a connection.  GL had a string of newbies with no family ties at that time.  The Reardons and Vanessa were all gone by that point.

Speaking of wishful thinking, I so wanted Mike Bauer to ride back to town, taking out the mob in a blaze of glory.

Edited April 10 by Spoon

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm still angry that talented as she was Paul Rauch shot down every single idea Labine pitched including a romance between Holly & Olivia. Imagine them telling that story back then. I imagine other ideas might have been compelling too. Just because Paul couldn't see it, I mean what did he know? He overlit the show & ran a paranoid ship & dictated what the women could wear. Am I suggesting he was a tryrant? Why yes I am.

[Spoon]

Rauch, or Raunch as we called him then did way more harm than good.  The focus shifted further away from the legacy families and more onto a revolving door of aimless random.  Island Sean?  Sam the cowboy? Dr. Noah?