3 hours ago, j swift said:

Holding Kobe accountable for not anticipating what the show would need a decade later doesn’t quite track with how soaps operate.

Gail Kobe and Pam Long come onto GL and pretty much began dismantling a lot of what the Dobsons and Doug Marland had put into place.

That is of course their perogative and they did it with the approval of P&G and CBS.

Their job was to bring up the ratings and demos. And it worked.

The problem was that a lot of it was short term and soaps don't work that way. GL had been going for decades and at that point there was no reason to believe it would not continue for decades more. Soaps are habit forming and the TPTB had to keep an eye on retaining viewers as well as bringing new ones.

The Dobsons brought on Hilary to bolster the Bauers and Marland created the Reardons as a counterpoint who could provide another family structure to complement the Bauers 

But Kobe and Long were pretty much focused on the here and now, which of course is vital, but didn't seem to think beyond that. Perhaps thinking 'we'll be long gone and it's somebody else's problem.'

But it did damage GL . And subsequent writers and producers only made things worse.

18 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Gail Kobe and Pam Long come onto GL and pretty much began dismantling a lot of what the Dobsons and Doug Marland had put into place.

That is of course their perogative and they did it with the approval of P&G and CBS.

Their job was to bring up the ratings and demos. And it worked.

The problem was that a lot of it was short term and soaps don't work that way. GL had been going for decades and at that point there was no reason to believe it would not continue for decades more. Soaps are habit forming and the TPTB had to keep an eye on retaining viewers as well as bringing new ones.

The Dobsons brought on Hilary to bolster the Bauers and Marland created the Reardons as a counterpoint who could provide another family structure to complement the Bauers 

But Kobe and Long were pretty much focused on the here and now, which of course is vital, but didn't seem to think beyond that. Perhaps thinking 'we'll be long gone and it's somebody else's problem.'

But it did damage GL . And subsequent writers and producers only made things worse.

And the thing is, it didn't even damage GL a decade later - it had gutted the show by 1985, while Kobe was still producer.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

Personally, I wouldn't blame Elvera if she was disappointed in the way the story of Hope's alcoholism developed. Much like Vanessa's pill addiction, it seemed to blow up out of nowhere and immediately result in her becoming a falling-down drunk.

The idea of the story was excellent. If they hadn't been rushing everything to hustle her out of there, it would have played so much better. 

45 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

The problem was that a lot of it was short term and soaps don't work that way.

This is a great point. I'm certain there was pressure on Kobe and Long to do as much as they could to compete with General Hospital. So they did short-term stories like the Fishing Trip Mystery (which I actually really liked), the Dreaming Death, and the Barbados Mystery that didn't do much for the show long-term.

55 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

And the thing is, it didn't even damage GL a decade later - it had gutted the show by 1985, while Kobe was still producer.

I know you guys go over this a lot and I feel bad asking about the obvious things, but this still fascinates me. I know some of the story of course like losing Charita Bauer, Lisa Brown, etc. or cutting certain vets (like Roussel and Don Stewart I believe), but what left them up shít creek so fast?

Edited October 10Oct 10 by Vee

27 minutes ago, Vee said:

I know you guys go over this a lot and I feel bad asking about the obvious things, but this still fascinates me. I know some of the story of course like losing Charita Bauer, Lisa Brown, etc. or cutting certain vets (like Roussel and Don Stewart I believe), but what left them up shít creek so fast?

I will say it wasn't ALL their fault. Chris Bernau left, Robert Newman left, Grant Alexander left. They wanted Lisa Brown to stay but she got frustrated waiting for the promised storyline so she jumped to ATWT. That exacerbated the problem because of all the major characters who had already been cut. 

I don't think Peter Simon was terribly popular as Ed, but bringing in Richard Van Vleet to try to sex up the character a bit was a big flop.

There were positives, of course. There's no denying that Kim Zimmer was very popular. And Beverlee McKinsey coming on was a big plus. But there had been such a huge turnover of characters and actors.

After Long left as HW the first time there was a literal merry-go-round of writer changes. I think we had counted SIX HW changes during 1986. 1985 and 1986 were really bad years.

Bernau, Newman, and Alexander came back. Long came back and she did improve things somewhat, but then that long writers strike hit and Bernau had to leave in the middle of a big storyline due to illness.

It wasn't until Kobe left that the show started to recover, at least creatively. Michael Zaslow returning as Roger gave the show a shot in the arm. But their ratings for some reason didn't improve as much as you would think, considering the positive changes that were made.

Edited October 10Oct 10 by DeeVee

Kobe/Long injected a lot of energy into the show and there was an initial mix of old and new interacting.

But slowly the culling began with Mike, Justin, Hope, Lesley Ann, Kelly, Hilary, Amanda.

Then Bert dying, Ed recast and other departures like Quint/Nola, Tony/Annabelle.

By 85 Pam long seem to be out of ideas and there were more newbies than ever.

The Bauer and Reardon families were shells of their former selves.

The next team should have looked at re-establishing those families but instead continued on the path of focusing on new characters.

 

 

Brent should have killed off Buzz, not Nadine.

With Buzz dead, there'd be plenty of story potential for Nadine.  For example, bring back Carroll (the truck driver) and have an honest, touching, lasting romance.  One that shocks Nadine, the family and the audience.  Is she capable?  We find out she is!

She quits the diner, gets her real estate license (residential and commercial) and takes over Fifth Street.

 

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I know you guys go over this a lot and I feel bad asking about the obvious things, but this still fascinates me. I know some of the story of course like losing Charita Bauer, Lisa Brown, etc. or cutting certain vets (like Roussel and Don Stewart I believe), but what left them up shít creek so fast?

Part was the typical failing of the era - chasing one OTT story after another, "adventure," trying to find the hot new thing. 

Actor departures were also a big factor, as already mentioned above. 

The churn meant that so many stories that were started by Long and Kobe were invalidated.

Philip/Beth were popular with viewers, then they were split for Beth/Lujack as Grant Aleksander left the show. Vincent Irizarry then left after only a few years, and Judi Evans six months later. 

The show could have had Mindy and Rick as a stable couple to contrast all this turnover, but instead they were split up for no real reason, for pairings that were never as popular. And that meant there was just nothing left of that whole Four Musketeers period for viewers to hang onto.

Then you have the Billy/Vanessa love story, where within a year or so of them getting together the qualities that drew them together were turned into her having to be the little woman, raising a baby and popping pills. 

The pairings were a constant tilt-o-whirl. Josh is Reva's soulmate...but she marries HB. Josh is gone, and her new soulmate is insta-Lewis Kyle. She's pregnant, Vanessa runs her over, she tries to kill herself, then she is teased with a guy named Cain who turns out to be a psycho.

Claire is in love with Fletcher, who was in love with Hilary and then here...but wait, Claire is knocked up by Ed, so Fletcher is now in love with Maeve. 

Trish and Ross are sort of together, but after a long time spent teasing, she's written out, so he can get together with Calla, whose great story is about her VD shame, while her daughter is the new Beth, falling in love with Simon, who is the new Lujack, sort of paired with India, but sort of not, just as she was sort of paired with Philip, but sort of not. 

Someone else can put all this out there much better than I can, but the storylines and relationships almost feel designed to be threadbare and impossible to invest in, maybe due to all the actor turnover.

It's the Reva-tization of the show that trashed Guiding Light from 1985 through early 1989, and again from 1995 through the end.  I will *always* remain steadfast in that point of view.

Ultimately, "Reva" served as THE conduit/excuse for poor writing, direction, isolation/sidelining of characters, destruction of characters, writing out of characters, inane plots and storylines, you name it.

Whenever Reva was around, the rest of the show tanked.  Reva allowed laziness from the very top all the way down, with the overall thought process being "with Reva around, we can present any type of garbage, and the viewers will lap it up."

Reva's mere presence on the canvas immediately meant heavy decline in good, meaningful story for nearly all other characters, including Ed, Mike, Vanessa, Holly, Ross, Nola, Alan, Roger.  Look what happened to Ed, Vanessa and Ross from 1985 to 1989.  Look what happened to Holly and Roger (both in shared story and in separate story) from 1995 onward.

Guiding Light as a whole was generally idiotic with Reva around.  The notable exception was late 1989 through mid 1990 (Reva's post-partum story - wherein Reva was not acting like herself!).

 

 

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Someone else can put all this out there much better than I can, but the storylines and relationships almost feel designed to be threadbare and impossible to invest in, maybe due to all the actor turnover.

One of the things that was most noticeable during my recent 1985-1986 rewatch was how quickly romantic pairings burned out.

After a short courtship, Mindy marries Kurt (a character connected to nobody) in an insanely elaborate wedding. Kurt is killed off like a year later. She's then bounced around several aborted romances: Rusty, Frank, Will. 

When Newman left, they quickly paired Reva with Kyle. The minute Newman returned--LITERALLY--she was back with Josh. Larkin Malloy wanted to leave, to be fair, so they couldn't do a love triangle, but the way she switched from one to the other within a day basically invalidated almost 2 years of story.

The same when they killed off Lujack. In a very short space of time, Beth was back with Phillip. They had put SO much effort in the Beth/Lujack pairing and it was almost like they were saying, "Ha, just kidding!"

These are only the major examples. With the exception of Josh and Reva, the show did not seem interested in investing in long-term love stories. IMO, that hurt the show a lot.

Edited October 10Oct 10 by DeeVee

14 hours ago, j swift said:

Now I'm intrigued. Do you know which character that was? I'm trying to guess but I can't figure it out.

It had to be Claire. They had spent time putting Hillary and Fletch together....( she was the reason he came to SF..) and they gave them a comedic oddball relationship. During the cabin mystery they put Fletch with Claire for no reason and made her try comedy, which was not what the character was involved in before.  I think it wasn't so much that they had to give Claire Hillary's plot, (as this was post DD, and after Clarke's time off) but more that Kobe MAY have been pissed and may have thought Clarke was leaving, so why give her a storyline? I think Long had Ed and Claire ONS planned but not the way it ended up (in Beruit, which was really stupid but..) 

I do think that they had problems with Stewart, and I know people like her but Elvera was not the greatest actress and I did hear she did not like what was given to her...and Kobe had it out for Clarke after the plot season thing..again, Kobe thought as long as Charita was there, all was good, and she actually was planning to put Bert and H.B. together so maybe she thought Bert would be given a whole new family( Bert Lewis????) Producers and writers take out their anger actors on characters all the time...McTrash...Rauchie had Dinah kill Hart because they were leaving and he didn't want them to ever come back (and actually gave Moniz some great material... I really felt Dinah coming apart.

Again, I think this era is really interesting. I think Long and Kobe did a great job infusing the new characters into the show without pushing aside the core...but then the summer and fall of 85 the show just abruptly changes course.

By 1989, Guiding Light truly becomes a strong ensemble show where lots of other stories/characters were getting focus/writing that didn't have anything to do with Josh/Reva.

From late 1988 till summer 1990, Reva is basically part of an ensemble and not the main focus of the show.  I think had Kim Zimmer not quit that she would have been written properly during the last golden age of GL and not been the sole focus of the show.   The one positive of JFP was that she wouldn't have put up with Zimmer being a diva.

And when she first came back in 1995, she wasn't the sole focal point.. the show still had some sort of balance between multiple stories (bad as they were)... and that lasted through 1996.   I think when the show had a brief surge in ratings at the climax of the Annie Dutton story in summer 1997, the writers/Rauch wrongly assumed it was due to Zimmer and the focus became all Reva, all the time after that period.

6 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

With Buzz dead, there'd be plenty of story potential for Nadine.  For example, bring back Carroll (the truck driver) and have an honest, touching, lasting romance.  One that shocks Nadine, the family and the audience.  Is she capable?  We find out

God I would have so love for Brent to off Buzz...I would have had him gag him and tie him up first so we don't hear the caterwauling or arms flapping Deas would do. Plus it would have made more sense to have everyone think Buzz left to town and his family as usual. 

But I still think putting Deenie with Ed would have been good. Maybe Jean could have cheered up old sourpuss Simon up! I can imagine Van, Holly, Bridget, and Nola all giving that the sideeye. I can't decide if Nadine and Nola would be co conspirators or hate each other .

6 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

Brent should have killed off Buzz, not Nadine.

Then who would you pair Reva up with, once she broke it off with Alan?

32 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

14 hours ago, j swift said:

 

It had to be Claire. They had spent time putting Hillary and Fletch together....( she was the reason he came to SF..) and they gave them a comedic oddball relationship. During the cabin mystery they put Fletch with Claire for no reason and made her try comedy, which was not what the character was involved in before.  I think it wasn't so much that they had to give Claire Hillary's plot, (as this was post DD, and after Clarke's time off) but more that Kobe MAY have been pissed and may have thought Clarke was leaving, so why give her a storyline? I think Long had Ed and Claire ONS planned but not the way it ended up (in Beruit, which was really stupid but..) 

I thought maybe it was Claire, but I was thrown by how it ended up with Ed and Claire sleeping together. 

Claire and Fletcher is another example of a romantic pairing that burned out too quickly. No matter the reason why they put Claire and Fletcher together, they had potential. The soap mags liked them. Pratt and Hammer both talked on The Locher Room about how much they loved their pairing and bemoaned how it was cut short.

Of course every romantic pairing needs conflicts and separations. There was nothing inherently wrong with the baby drama. The problem was turning Claire into practically a psycho, then blaming it on a brain tumor, then shuffling her out of town.

43 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Kobe thought as long as Charita was there, all was good, and she actually was planning to put Bert and H.B. together so maybe she thought Bert would be given a whole new family

I wouldn't have minded a romance for Bert, but HB? The guy who married the ex of both his sons? Then romanced the daughter of an old friend who he had to have known since she was a child? 😬 I don't know about that.