Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[NothinButAttitude]

I hated both of the Foley brothers. I wished that they had killed Cyrus too. I hated how Mel got shackled to him in the end, and he was instantly made Jenna's child to wash away all of his sins. And Susan was ruined when they brought her back de-aged and younger than Lizzie and Tammy. That just bothered me for continuity reasons. There were plenty of younger core female characters that they could've SORASed for Bonnie Dennison to play. Clarissa quickly comes to mind. 

 

I didn't care for Natalia and Rafe either. Never got why Otalia was considered great. They romance was boring as hell, and I never believed that Olivia, who was obsessed with penis majority of her run, had an 'a-ha' moment and realized she liked women. Same with Natalia. It was a cheap way to ride off the popularity that Luke and Noah were generating on World Turns to garner some publicity. The Kriezman/Swajeski era was horrible. Too bad that Jill [Lorie Hurst] wasn't given enough time to turn the show around, which she was getting to towards the end of the show's run. 

 

Guiding Light focused too much on the Coopers and Lewises. Not enough on the Bauers. And the Spauldings were becoming too slapstick and mustache-twirling. I prefer to forget about the last 4-5 years of the show starting at the height of 'Jammy.' I wanted the Guiding Light that I fell in love with back in '93 as a child. One which had a strong sense of community and family. One which had strong male and female characters. One which had ambitious and driven characters. A show that had romance, adventure, and intrigue but had emotional depth. It became painful to watch the show just become a hollow shell of itself. Especially during the Peapack era. Watch Harley's homely looking ass check her mail and open bills did it for me. 

[cassadine1991]

Jonathan ate the show during his time there, it's so glaring. I'm still not over how Alan wasn't remorseful when Tammy died. I agree Susan shouldn't have been DeSORASed, there were LOTS of mistakes done to GL during it's last decade

[DRW50]

I never really cared about Susan regardless of who played her. I'm one of the few who never saw the great appeal in Brittany Snow. The character often seemed flat and contrived.

 

I didn't mind Cyrus, mostly because at least Murray Bartlett had some charisma, and he wasn't always yelling in my ear like that greaseball Jonathan.

Edited August 24, 2015 by DRW50

[NothinButAttitude]

Yes he [Jonathan] did. But that's a big issue [allowing certain characters to drive the show too much] with soaps all across the board and has been since the 90s. It became Jonathan Light instead of Guiding Light. 

 

And Tammy dying was just another way to further dehumanize Alan. Wasn't bad enough that 2-3 years previous he had supposedly killed Phillip. Now he kills Tammy. It was like they were trying to make him into a megalomaniac villain, which he wasn't. 

Brittany Snow's Susan was fun in the beginning when he had spunk, but she did become flat upon her departure; however, I did still care for her somewhat because she was a core character to the Shayne and Cooper families. But she became expendable upon her arrival in the form of Bonnie Dennison and stayed that way till the end. I also found it gross to see her schmooze up to James given that James was named after her adoptive father. Didn't she also view Lizzie and James as her siblings?

 

I never got the appeal of Tom Pelphrey. People used to make him out to be the second coming when was decent at best. His acting style reminds me much of Christian J. LeBlanc--the whole 'Look at me!! I'm acting!!!" style. Justin Deas [on Guiding Light] was another one who was known to do that too. Sometimes subtleness goes a long way. 

 

And Murray Bartlett didn't impress me until I saw him on an episode of HBO's Looking. He looked more relaxed on that show, but that could be b/c he was performing material that he was comfortable with--being a gay man. 

[cassadine1991]

it seems that lots of things could've been different at GL, certain decisions should've been made

[NothinButAttitude]

But TIIC didn't wanna make any of those decisions. Procter & Gamble checked out of soaps around the late 90s. Possibly earlier. They wanted these shows to be killed off, and got what they wanted in the end of the day. 

[DRW50]

I kind of felt like Bartlett was more ill at ease on Looking than GL (but then that show was ponderous and he didn't really have much chemistry with his main co-stars), but he got better with time.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said (although I don't think "Otalia" was an attempt to rip off ATWT), but I do think the last or so of the show had the right idea, and felt more like GL to me than anything from 1993 or 1994 on. It's just too bad it wasn't better executed.

[NothinButAttitude]

Well we can thank Jill Lorie Hurst for trying to center the show to what it was back in 93/94. It boggles my mind how she's never landed another head writing job (or writing job period on daytime) post Guiding Light. Maybe it's on her end, but that's always shocked me. She seemed to be one of the brighter head writers this generation. 

[DRW50]

I'd be more surprised if it weren't for soaps always hiring headwriters now based on who somebody knows or who is the "name."

[NothinButAttitude]

They'd actually probably gain some longevity if they went back to hiring new blood and weening them for the next generation; however, that'll never happen at this point. Ron was technically the last one to benefit from that idea of thinking. Plus, it does not help nowadays when the networks and production companies are involved in the writer's room as well.

[cassadine1991]

I still don't understand why

[NothinButAttitude]

Possibly because they weren't making profit from them like they did in their heyday. IMO, they should've sold the rights to their whole library.

[cassadine1991]

they should've had CBS or Sony get the rights

[NothinButAttitude]

Doubt SONY would've wanted the rights and I doubt CBS would've paid for the rights of these shows when they wanna fill daytime up with talk and game shows anyways.

[cassadine1991]

That's disappointing