Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DeeVee]

I have to root through the 1985 episodes on YT now because I must see this for myself.

I'm pretty sure she was blind on their wedding day.

No, Bill was sacrificed to the Fishing Trip Mystery. Hillary was sacrificed to the Barbados Mystery.

Yeah, unbelievable. I wasn't that wild about the Hillary/Jim pairing, but by blowing her up they left him without anything to do (except fall for his sister-in-law, ew). So both the Bauers and Reardons were diminished.

It's something that happened a LOT during this time period: pairings that were built up and then died. If it's not working, sure, they have to cut their losses. But there were so many. Rick and Mindy, Rick and Meredith, Mindy and Kurt and Frank and Rusty and Will, Philip and Chelsea, Johnny and Roxie, Johnny and Chelsea, Philip and Blake, Alan Michael and Dinah, Alan Michael and Harley, Dinah and Cameron, Trish and Ross, Claire and Kelly, Claire and Fletcher, Maeve and Fletcher...it goes on and on.

Other than Reva and Josh, they had almost no pairings with staying power. (They would have with Philip and Beth if Evans hadn't left or they had done a decent recast right away).

[Mitch64]

Yes..everyone had a weird reaction to a character being brutally murdered...and so young. But it was Kobe's f you to the actress, who had time off scheduled for pilot season but Kobe wanted her to film the Dreaming Death thing were she meets Fletcher in Santo Whatever the Hell it was, Clarke insisted on taking it, so they had to come in the studio on weekends to film to cover the time she was off.

I never liked the actress, but have her blown up and just be in a coma and sent to the Soap Opera Rehab Center for People with Mysterious Diseases They Need To Write Out and then come back months later with a recast.

I wanted Michael the Clone Doctor to be Jim Reardon, who would have gone to the same doc that Amanda Spaulding did who froze time.

[DeeVee]

That's the problem with bringing a core family member in for a short-term storyline. What do you do with them afterwards? They should have had a plan. Being the kind of doctor he was limited what he could do on the canvas.

This reminds me of a funny story Joel Carruthers told at a soap event back when he was on EON. He had previously been on Somerset (paired with Tina Sloane, btw).

Anyway, his character was a pianist. The show decided that was too limiting for his character. So they injured his hands or something. They had a scene where someone asks him what he would do with the rest of his life.

"Luckily, I have a journalism degree!" He cries as he reaches into the piano bench to pull out his diploma.

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By the way, I always thought Jim and Amanda could have been a good pairing. Though I don't know about the freezing time thing. (I remember the clone and the time travel painting, but not that).

[Soaplovers]

It always fascinates me seeing a soap that's firing on all cylinders like GL was  in the summer of 1984 (where they ranked #2 or 3 consistently during that summer) shoot themselves in the foot so quickly as they did during the fall of 1984.

Killing Hilary off in September, Writing off Mike in September, Bert ending up being off canvas due to Charita's quickly declining health starting in late 1984, sidelining Nola/Quint with that Jonathan story, Jim making eyes at his sister in law Annabelle, Reva/Billy/Josh/HB eating up airtime, etc

It was a miracle that the show maintained a #3 or #4 ranking all the way through the summer of 1985 before ratings started a slight decline to #5 during the fall/winter of 1985 (only hitting #4 at the climax of the Largo story) before settling at # 5 through the start of 1986.  Once Long left the writing staff and Ryder was sole head writer, the ratings really took a nosedive.

Edited 2 hours ago by Soaplovers

[chrisml]

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[Contessa Donatella]

@chrismlDid the Emmy Segment with Clarence tell you what GL submitted?

[robbwolff]

I wasn't watching Guiding Light regularly when Locke Walls was on, but I think the woman in the song "Aubrey" had been inspired by Alexandra. I came across a blog post from 2013 that referenced the story and included YouTube clips, which are no longer available. According to the blog post, Locke died in Alex's arms.