4 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

#1 - Can we talk more about this idea of Reva  & Josh & toxicity? This to me is a new idea. 

Do we need anything beyond the fact that Reva married his father and brother? Sure, we have other soap characters who have done this (I think I made a list recently). But she was like Delia on RH--obsessed with belonging in this family. Not to say she didn’t really love Josh, but that she was willing to change him out for his family members to be a Lewis seems pretty toxic.

Then there's Josh, who, let's face it, literally drove other women he was with insane because he couldn't let go of Reva.

33 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Do we need anything beyond the fact that Reva married his father and brother? Sure, we have other soap characters who have done this (I think I made a list recently). But she was like Delia on RH--obsessed with belonging in this family. Not to say she didn’t really love Josh, but that she was willing to change him out for his family members to be a Lewis seems pretty toxic.

Then there's Josh, who, let's face it, literally drove other women he was with insane because he couldn't let go of Reva.

Now you've got me laughing. This is a good thing. Typically when it is anything related to ewww "Always" or ugh "Bud" I cannot get beyond snide. Jeva just has this nauseating effect on me. Funny & amused is much better than snide. I see what you did here. Slay me with the obvious then knock me over with ... things I'd rather not think about. 

Finally, an explanation for the fact that Josh & Olivia were mad sexually attracted to each other but, they could not make it work between them for more than an evening or special afternoon.

 

 

Edited June 25Jun 25 by Contessa Donatella

44 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

#1 - Can we talk more about this idea of Reva  & Josh & toxicity? This to me is a new idea. 

I thought Reva and Josh were very toxic together, although some of that is the result of Kim and Robert each being on about 150 episodes a year, so the writers kept having to come up with front-burner stories for them and inevitably came up with "Josh and Reva break up AGAIN". The same thing happened with Jack and Carly on ATWT, and it had the same result on me: I eventually came to the conclusion that this couple was better off apart than together. 

I think some of the problem was that their breakup scenes were a little too brutally realistic, with Josh in particular saying some hurtful things about Reva that lingered in my mind. It's hard to root for "Always" once you've seen those 1996 Masquerade Ball scenes where Josh weaponizes Reva's childhood sexual trauma against her. I just got the sense that while Josh had powerful feelings toward Reva, he never respected her or even liked her that much. Men who were meeting her for the first time in middle age could see an accomplished and witty woman, but Josh always saw her as the oversexualized white trash girl he grew up with.

So at the end, I was definitely rooting for Reva to stay with Jeffrey, who didn't always agree with her but who looked at her with admiration and seemed to be having fun with her.

2 minutes ago, prefab1 said:

I thought Reva and Josh were very toxic together, although some of that is the result of Kim and Robert each being on about 150 episodes a year, so the writers kept having to come up with front-burner stories for them and inevitably came up with "Josh and Reva break up AGAIN". The same thing happened with Jack and Carly on ATWT, and it had the same result on me: I eventually came to the conclusion that this couple was better off apart than together. 

I think some of the problem was that their breakup scenes were a little too brutally realistic, with Josh in particular saying some hurtful things about Reva that lingered in my mind. It's hard to root for "Always" once you've seen those 1996 Masquerade Ball scenes where Josh weaponizes Reva's childhood sexual trauma against her. I just got the sense that while Josh had powerful feelings toward Reva, he never respected her or even liked her that much. Men who were meeting her for the first time in middle age could see an accomplished and witty woman, but Josh always saw her as the oversexualized white trash girl he grew up with.

So at the end, I was definitely rooting for Reva to stay with Jeffrey, who didn't always agree with her but who looked at her with admiration and seemed to be having fun with her.

This is great stuff!!! Thanks. I have never gone too deep in this couple, because, well, frankly because I did not care. 

 

11 hours ago, DeeVee said:

It took me a long, long time to realize TP is not a bad actor, he's actually pretty good. As Jonathan, he gave me the creeps. I just loathed the character. One of the big reasons I didn't watch the show much the last years.

Jon giving the creeps was a good thing...when he first came on he was the villain, hurting a young girl, a relative (and yea, sorry, there was a consent issue there.) For a few months he was the villain and it was great...like Reva's sexual ID  come to life, with no constraints weaponized to do harm (whatever you say about Reva, her use of sexuality was never intended by her to harm anyone..) It also helped the TP gave off of a vibe that he would f*ck anyone he wanted, no matter the sex, to get what he wanted which was usually to hurt someone. 

But then he got popular and the press went on and on and Kreizman got a writers boner for him and they had to vanilla the character and the (God I hate the word...Jammi) relationship. But Jon still gave the creeps out despite trying to make him a generic anti hero. He was always going to win, not only at the end of a storyline, but in each scene (you can see the director letting TP get away with his "laugh" to end every scene) and the character quickly became intolerable. If they let him continue to be destructive, have Reva and everyone continue to stand up to him (did Billy ever get to give him a beat down) and even paired Tammy with him to show a truly toxic relationship (this was one time sexual abuse counter would work for both characters,Jons use of it to hurt others and Tammy's low self esteem to accept her attacker and make excuses for him) would have really interesting and I think both actors could have pulled it off. But GL went the cheap boring route. Too bad first couple of months were damn good. 

I remember when Reva returned in 1995, that there were a lot of viewers that actually were team Annie and not team Reva.  It was pretty evenly split until Annie was made crazy. The one thing I noticed about late 90s Guiding Light was that the show seem intent on not writing compelling triangles.. instead having a couple with a third wheel as spoiler.

We had Hart/Cassie/Dinah, Beth/Phillip/Harley, and Reva/Josh/Annie that took up the 1996 to 1999 era... and it always involved ruining a character to prop up the main couple.   Annie became psycho, Beth became an emotional unhinged mess, and Dinah ended up accidently killing Hart when he stepped in front of her intended target Cassie.   

Who knew once 2000 rolled around that those badly constructed triangles became a high point once we got into Santos/San Cristobel overload.

53 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Slay me with the obvious then knock me over with ... things I'd rather not think about. 

Not that I mean to knock you out more 😁 but it occurs to me that the romantic lead Josh evolved into after Reva hit town was a facade.

Originally, Josh was a creep and a player who used women. He didn't really change. Outwardly, he seemed like a good guy. But he constantly yanked Reva around, and he yanked Sonni, Annie, and Olivia around.

You have the more outward villains like Roger and Alan, then you have the faux heroes like Josh, and, I would argue, Phillip, who often treat women (people in general, really) disgracefully but don't get the reputation for it.

31 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

The one thing I noticed about late 90s Guiding Light was that the show seem intent on not writing compelling triangles.. instead having a couple with a third wheel as spoiler.

I would argue that started even before the 90s. Alan was used this way a few times (Billy/Vanessa, Ross/Trish, Ross/Vanessa, Josh/Reva). In none of those scenarios was he a real contender for the lady in question.

I suspect one of the reasons Larkin Malloy bailed was because he realized he wasn't going to be the third side of a triangle, he was only going to be the spoiler for Josh and Reva. So they gave it to Spoiler Dude Alan instead. 

28 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Not that I mean to knock you out more 😁 but it occurs to me that the romantic lead Josh evolved into after Reva hit town was a facade.

OH NO! This is terrible. Beautiful, blue-eyed, very, RN, who always knew who I was & also who he'd met me with. Him? A facade? A fake? Now looking down I see the word CREEP & also mention is made of trouble with Olivia, which has been an ongoing concern of mine. I guess we are getting somewhere.

28 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Originally, Josh was a creep and a player who used women. He didn't really change. Outwardly, he seemed like a good guy. But he constantly yanked Reva around, and he yanked Sonni, Annie, and Olivia around.

Don't forget Harley!!!

28 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

You have the more outward villains like Roger and Alan, then you have the faux heroes like Josh, and, I would argue, Phillip, who often treat women (people in general, really) disgracefully but don't get the reputation for it.

Phillip pretty much had the rep. I mean any man who can be paired with so many different women, there's something going on there.

Phillip with Beth, Phillip with Harley, Phillip with whothephuck cares, they were all interchangeable, weren't they?

Hmm, that is what you said up above here about Josh!

So, at GL were the only real good guys, like Dylan or Alan-Michael, don't tell me only Mark Derwin or Bogue  later?

I know. Is it Rick? No, Ross, is it Ross?

Are we having fun yet, hell yeah.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Phillip with Beth, Phillip with Harley, Phillip with whothephuck cares, they were all interchangeable, weren't they?

I'm up to the point now where Phillip is with Chelsea.  Even though I didn't love her character that much, I still see red when I remember what he did to her. 

5 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

So, at GL were the only real good guys, like Dylan or Alan-Michael, don't tell me only Mark Derwin or Bogue  later?

I know. Is it Rick? No, Ross, is it Ross?

Are we having fun yet, hell yeah.

You left out Ed. 😂

On 6/23/2025 at 9:17 PM, SheenaSoaper said:

Yes! She barely lasted during her first GL run. She ran back to ATWT for a year and a half as director.

 

I love that KZ stood her ground with TPTB. Great for her!

Wheeler was GL’s killer. She was so unqualified for the job. Remember those ridiculous Wednesday episodes? Harley as a comic book character? Stupid. And those Wednesday episodes were more often than not, the lowest rated episodes of the week. That was Ellen’s idea. What was she thinking??? And then Peapack. Worst idea ever, and that was all Ellen. It was a disaster. None of it made sense. Characters walking out of the woods having a conversation. Thank you to the soap execs who never hired her again. 

1 hour ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Wheeler was GL’s killer. She was so unqualified for the job. Remember those ridiculous Wednesday episodes? Harley as a comic book character? Stupid. And those Wednesday episodes were more often than not, the lowest rated episodes of the week. That was Ellen’s idea. What was she thinking??? And then Peapack. Worst idea ever, and that was all Ellen. It was a disaster. None of it made sense. Characters walking out of the woods having a conversation. Thank you to the soap execs who never hired her again. 

A thousand times yes! Chappell’s and Byrne’s web soaps that came out only a few months after GL’s cancellation had better production values. It was so sad what Ellen did to our grande dame.

52 minutes ago, SheenaSoaper said:

A thousand times yes! Chappell’s and Byrne’s web soaps that came out only a few months after GL’s cancellation had better production values. It was so sad what Ellen did to our grande dame.

Quote

This in reply to someone who doesn't get it, who said 

Thank you to the soap execs who never hired her again. 

Now, the problem here is the huge number of people who were employed by a half dozen or so soaps in NYC & most of them are not employed by any soap, anywhere, WHY? You ask why, very simple, although horribly sad, because there were not even close to enough jobs for those now without them. Facts matter. Not a dam*ed thing to do with Ellen Wheeler but all to do with the decimation of the NY soap scene. And, to SheenaEtc you missed the point entirely. It was thanks to her that we had our beloved soap on the air for 4 more years. 

And, FTR, Venicetheseries didn't launch till the winter after. 9-18-2009 till 12-4-2009.

4 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Who knew once 2000 rolled around that tose badly constructed triangles became a high point once we got into Santos/San Cristobel overload.

I've said it before & I'm sure I will say it again. No soap should ever try to maintain 3 locales. Springfield, fine, Company, 5th Street

The Santos clan, one might argue are people not a place. But, the tier their organization represents must be tended & attention must be paid. 

San Cristoblah, the island principality, GMAB!!! 

Edited June 25Jun 25 by Contessa Donatella

45 minutes ago, SheenaSoaper said:

A thousand times yes! Chappell’s and Byrne’s web soaps that came out only a few months after GL’s cancellation had better production values. It was so sad what Ellen did to our grande dame.

I’ll never forget what Wheeler did to kill our grande dame GL. The evidence is out there for all to see. (Wednesday! Peapack!) And I chuckle at the justification some try to defend her. There is no defense. She was weak. And cried. Alot. 
Why is it that when strong EP’s (Rauch, Conboy) are in charge, everything is their fault, but when you get a weakling like Wheeler, none of it is her fault, it was all P&G and CBS? 

3 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I'm up to the point now where Phillip is with Chelsea.  Even though I didn't love her character that much, I still see red when I remember what he did to her. 

You left out Ed. 😂

Chelsea was a notch in Phillip's whatever? And, of course, I left off Ed, LOL. 

19 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Chelsea was a notch in Phillip's whatever?

Oh, yeah. She was his assistant while he was writing for The Mirror, and sleeping with him, too.

The night he had Alan kicked out of Spaulding, Phillip locked out Chelsea on the observation deck of the lighthouse so she wouldn't warn Alan. They had already been on the outs because he wasn't as serious as she was, so he lured her there by making her think he wanted her back.

Major creepazoid move.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by DeeVee