20 hours ago, DeeVee said:

(And, yes, some of them ARE insane. I used to be on a screenwriting message board run by two very successful Hollywood screenwriters who wrote a hugely popular franchise. At one point, the board was overrun by shippers threatening all kinds of things if they didn't have the heroine end up with this guy instead of the other guy. They thought THEY were the reason the franchise was successful, when in reality the majority of viewers didn't care about the romance part of the movies at all. It was like being in an alternate reality).

Okay, I'm curious.  What was this message board, and what was the franchise?

15 hours ago, P.J. said:

I'll bite---what does Blake have to do with it?

The whole thing with Ben afterward. She saw what Abby went through and how horrible Ben was.  What he did went beyond his job. 

@alwaysAMC  Speaking of the dinner Blake had with Holly/Fletcher and Roger/Amanda...it seemed like it just met a quota to me. 

@DeeVee  I used to watch a show called Smallville for a short time and the shippers on that show were on another level!  

Edited September 8Sep 8 by MLH

48 minutes ago, SadPim8696 said:

Okay, I'm curious.  What was this message board, and what was the franchise?

The franchise is Pirates of the Caribbean. The message board is on a site called Wordplayer run by the screenwriters of the first four films. I haven't been active on there for a very long time (probably 15 years) but they're still there. I checked. 

Yes, there was war between those who wanted Kiera Knightley's character paired romantically with Depp's Jack Sparrow and those who wanted her with to stay paired with Orlando Bloom. It frequently got ugly. Do with that information what you will. 😁

48 minutes ago, MLH said:

I used to watch a show called Smallville for a short time and the shippers on that show were on another level!  

I never watched Smallville, and this may be a stupid question, but I can't help asking...didn't they know who Superman ends up with?

6 hours ago, DeeVee said:

The franchise is Pirates of the Caribbean. The message board is on a site called Wordplayer run by the screenwriters of the first four films. I haven't been active on there for a very long time (probably 15 years) but they're still there. I checked. 

Yes, there was war between those who wanted Kiera Knightley's character paired romantically with Depp's Jack Sparrow and those who wanted her with to stay paired with Orlando Bloom. It frequently got ugly. Do with that information what you will. 😁

I never watched Smallville, and this may be a stupid question, but I can't help asking...didn't they know who Superman ends up with?

I never got that there were fanatics over a couple per se, but were for sure outspoken fans (I wouldn't call them fanatics like the Smallville ones were) for Kim Zimmer at least. 

Smallville was about Clark way before becoming Superman.  It was on the WB (before it became the CW).  I think it was a mistake to bring in Lois in Season 4 and how she started not even being interested in journalism. Plus, not giving Lana and Clark at least a full season of a full relationship would have helped have the fans accept them splitting up more. 

I don't think Guiding Light ever had a super couple like Luke/Laura, Felicia/Frisco, Robert/Holly or Robert/Anna. 

Edited September 8Sep 8 by MLH

On 9/1/2025 at 4:57 AM, DRW50 said:

Is this Elissa Leeds?

 

No. 

19 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

No, hasn't happened yet  I've known that will be the outcome, which I'm upset by because I love Rick's bonding with Kevin, but I'm very curious to see how it all comes out. I'm assuming Rick will eventually force his name on the birth certificate legally and then it'll require some DNA test and maybe that's when it'll come out... *don't tell me  * - but nope, hasn't happened yet as of early November 1997.

It was dumb to retro write it back (and I was not loving Rick slipping with Blake and the twins thing, but they went  there leave it, and under a skilled writer, it could have caused some good tension for years. Rick watching Ross raise his kid, he being "Uncle Rick" and if Ed was in the mix, torn between his kid and his best friend. Throw in Abby who wants to delay having kids to start a career and life. she never knew she could have..and Blake who is really not that into being a Mom...and you have nice slow boiling drama..yes, not clone drama and psycho of the week drama.  

It was done to make Annie always look EVIL and Jeva all good, but it made no sense, Annie was just as shocked as Blake and she had no animosity towards Rick. 

2 hours ago, MLH said:

I don't think Guiding Light ever had a super couple like Luke/Laura, Felicia/Frisco, Robert/Holly or Robert/Anna. 

I would consider Phillip/Beth and Josh/Reva supercouples, at least in the Kobe/Long era.

12 minutes ago, kalbir said:

2 hours ago, MLH said:

I don't think Guiding Light ever had a super couple like Luke/Laura, Felicia/Frisco, Robert/Holly or Robert/Anna. 

I would consider Phillip/Beth and Josh/Reva supercouples, at least in the Kobe/Long era.

Yes, I would agree with that. And while many viewers didn't feel this way about them, Ross/Blake, Matt/Vanessa, and Danny/Michelle had some very vocal fans. So much so that they probably lasted a lot longer than they would have otherwise. 

2 hours ago, MLH said:

I don't think Guiding Light ever had a super couple like Luke/Laura, Felicia/Frisco, Robert/Holly or Robert/Anna. 

Not to the degree of Luke/Laura, of course.  But I'd suggest Mike/Leslie were a super-couple of the 1970s -- not unlike Bill/Laura or Doug/Julie on DOOL, or Alice/Steve on AW.  1970s super-couples were more grounded than those of the 1980s-90s, and had fewer bells and whistles. But they were super-couples to be sure. 

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

It was dumb to retro write it back (and I was not loving Rick slipping with Blake and the twins thing, but they went  there leave it, and under a skilled writer, it could have caused some good tension for years. Rick watching Ross raise his kid, he being "Uncle Rick" and if Ed was in the mix, torn between his kid and his best friend. Throw in Abby who wants to delay having kids to start a career and life. she never knew she could have..and Blake who is really not that into being a Mom...and you have nice slow boiling drama..yes, not clone drama and psycho of the week drama.  

It was done to make Annie always look EVIL and Jeva all good, but it made no sense, Annie was just as shocked as Blake and she had no animosity towards Rick. 

I think it was done more to clean up story. It was easier to isolate Blake and Ross and focus on the triangle with Ben if Rick wasn't involved. I do think story potential was lost but considering they did [!@#$%^&*] all with Rick and Harley having a child later on, maybe not.

3 hours ago, MLH said:

I don't think Guiding Light ever had a super couple like Luke/Laura, Felicia/Frisco, Robert/Holly or Robert/Anna. 

Quint and Nola may have been the closest to being in that vein. They even had the first call-in-to-name-our-baby gimmick.

I would absolutely argue that Josh and Reva (both in the '80s and later, for better or worse) and Quint and Nola were in that tier. I do wonder if people felt that way about Billy and Vanessa at one point, but I am not as familiar with them as to know.

Danny and Michelle were kind of the worst possible example of lazy supercouple rot in the late '90s and 2000s. They came close, but it was not good for the show at any point.

27 minutes ago, Vee said:

I would absolutely argue that Josh and Reva (both in the '80s and later, for better or worse) and Quint and Nola were in that tier. I do wonder if people felt that way about Billy and Vanessa at one point, but I am not as familiar with them as to know.

Danny and Michelle were kind of the worst possible example of lazy supercouple rot in the late '90s and 2000s. They came close, but it was not good for the show at any point.

I don't think that Danny and Michelle were that bad with Joie Lenz in the role. Afterward...absolutely. 

I adored Billy and Vanessa but I don't think they were ever treated as a supercouple. Probably for the best.

5 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I don't think that Danny and Michelle were that bad with Joie Lenz in the role. Afterward...absolutely. 

I agree, but it's the NSA years and the fanbase's psycho behavior that I mostly remember these days. I think by the end even PAS desperately wanted out.

10 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I never watched Smallville, and this may be a stupid question, but I can't help asking...didn't they know who Superman ends up with?

Just as an aside---if you think soap fans are crazy, you ain't never met comic book fans. I learned this while watching Arrow. There were "purists" who thought Oliver and Laurel belonged together because that was comic book canon, even though Stephen Amell and Katie Cassidy had zero chemistry. The other problem is that there are different series of "realities", where other pairing hook up/play out.

GL had supercouples, Quint/Nola, Josh/Reva, Phillip/Beth. But if you mean if they "went adventuring" like Luke/Laura, Anna/Robert, etc....then I guess the answer would be no. Of those, only Quint and Nola ever really went on an adventure. Guiding Light didn't really do those type of stories. (Harley and Mallet did so some crime solving in the early '90's). But Guiding Light didn't have a cop as a central player until Rusty in the mid-80's. They really didn't have "action adventure" type characters. 

As much as I love Billy and Vanessa, and think they get short-changed in the discussion of GL's best couples (thanks to being sandwiched and overshadowed a bit by signature couples like Quint/Nola, Josh/Reva and Phillip/Beth) I don't think they would qualify as a supercouple. Which probably does work in their favor, because it never seems to me like they're being forced together. (as opposed to say **** and Vanessa, where man0whore is suddenly supposedly reading poetry to somehow "prove" how well he and Van are matched. RME  but, que sera, sera.)