Guiding Light discussion thread

[j swift]

Agreed, I like that it is aspirational without being flashy.  They all have careers, dinner parties, and nice homes, without being princes, or super villains.  It seems like it is always trying to be a heightened reflection of the culture at the time.  Even the discussions of family planning seem so much more evolved that the baby crazy women portrayed on soaps today.  Jackie isn't trying to ensnare Alan in order to mother Phillip, she is pragmatic that Phillip was close to his father and marrying him was a good way to join the family; also Alan was unusually magnetic when he wanted to turn on his charm.    

 

Jackie and Justin were so groovy it is hard to believe what a wet sock Samantha turned out to be, but her casting was an excellent use of history given the SORAS-ing of Alan-Michael.   

[robbwolff]

When Samantha was introduced, TV Guide had an excellent article about the casting. The other actresses vying for the role were named and explanations from the show given as to why Suzy Cote was cast.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

You're right about Jackie's motives. She wasn't some pre-menopausal woman with a biological clock ticking who was trying to reclaim a son. She was a woman who wanted to be part of her son's life, and as you say, join the families together. Her motives were fairly pure. Cindy Pickett was superb in this portrayal and I could never really take to the recast. This said I don't think she should have been killed off in a plane crash, that seemed like a mistake.

 

The reason I really love this storyline about Philip's parentage is because it becomes an open secret. A lot of modern soap writers make it all about keeping people in the dark. But as this story went on, all the adults knew the truth. They kept it from Philip to protect him. That is why several headwriters were able to keep it going for seven years of airtime. The adults were not in a rush to reveal it to him. Today's writers get too impatient and want the big ratings episode where the bombshell is dropped six months later. But it became more interesting and more involving for it to just continue along, with all these extra layers added. It made the story much more powerful and the ramifications run that much deeper.

 

The fact that both mothers were not around when Philip finally learned the truth hurt the story a bit at the end, in my opinion. We really needed to see Philip confront all four of them. He should have visited Elizabeth wherever she was, and he should have gone to Jackie's grave. Instead, it became more about him and the two fathers. After Justin left it became more about Philip and Alan, with Ross there as a sounding board.

 

The aged Samantha didn't work for me, because I think Long brought her on as a sister to Philip more than anything else, instead of making her into a lead character that could stand on her own. It didn't surprise me when Suzy Cote left two or three years later and the part was never recast. In fact I don't even remember Philip mentioning Sam after 1995, did he?

[robbwolff]

 

The revelation had been anticipated for years but Long and Culliton bungled it. The reveal with Phillip learning the truth from Bradley in the country club stables happened sometime in August 1983 as I recall. Within a month, Justin was gone...off to Arizona. The following spring, Alan was written out. So all four of the key adults in the story were gone. Such missed opportunities.

[j swift]

 

I wholeheartedly endorse these views.  It worked because it was a story about the parents.  Today the whole story would be told from Phillip's POV, but that was the least interesting part.  I'm guessing there were some influences from OLTL's long running Jenny Woleck baby switch story; it is as if there was a competition to see which soap secret could be kept the longest.  I believe as long as the audience knows a soap secret it works, its when a secret is held for months, and then explained with long exposition scenes, that do nothing to intrigue me.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Another mistake soap writers make, and the British soaps make this mistake too, is they think the whole town needs to find out about the secret. No, it should only involve those in the immediate orbit of the story. That's what made the Dobsons' tale so effective-- it was not about all of Springfield knowing the truth about Philip's parentage. It was this one extended family dealing with it.

 

The story about whether Roger or Ed was Chrissie's father was also handled expertly by the Dobsons. It just affected the Bauers and Thorpes. People on the wrong side of tracks across town did not need to be drawn into it.

 

Going back to my earlier point about the chaotic 80s. In addition to so many new families and characters being added, the show added too many new sets. Back when the Dobsons were writing, it was really just Cedars and the homes of the core families. Maybe a small set was used for Mike's office, which probably also doubled as Alan's office, shot from a different angle. They did not need Company, suites of offices at Spaulding Enterprises, Frank's chop shop, the Beacon Hotel, Towers, the courthouse, WSPR, Springfield U, Lewis Oil, and so on and so forth. The Dobsons wisely kept the action centered at the hospital and inside the homes of the main families. Again, they kept things basic.

Edited August 21, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove

[Mitch]

 I realize why they did this in the 80s and 90s...all the shows were doing big multi sets and since the "critics' were always kind of dissing the P & G soaps as not being as 'hip" as the ABC soaps..(apparently Geary's fro was very hip for daytime at that time..)they had to do it.  But GL's budget problems could have been help along as I said before, by just having less sets built.. but really good sets built on the ones they do. I see a really good Cedars set lobby...I would have Beth and Holly both set up a rape crisis center in Cedars so it makes sense they are walking around, have Olivia leave the Spaulding sphere and be the hospital administrator, Alex take charge of the Spaulding Foundation so she can spar with Liv and flounce around the halls, have Alex take Dinah in as her assistant to keep an eye on her...build a mayor's house set for the Mahlers it make sense that people are coming in and out all the time...keep Company as that would be a community get together, keep the Towers set for blow outs and fancy dinners...keep the old Spaulding living room set for infighting drama, the Bauer kitchen and that Lighthouse hotel thing would be condos and just show the lobby as people come in and out and talk and gossip and fight and engage in bitchy repartee with each other.

 

I think the other thing was that all the P & G soaps should have kept their styles instead of trying to be ABC "hip." ATWT was always the midwestern "family heartfelt show, while GL always seemed more "sophisticated and upcrust."

[Soaplovers]

 

Which is the Peapack experiment didn't work on GL because the show was always about the upper middle class and the upper class with the Reardon's, than the Coopers, being working class on the upward swing.  The sets were upper crust, but not over the top.   Even Reva's (later Holly's) house in the rougher part of Springfield looked comfortable and cozy.  The Peapack experiement made it seem like it was a poor, struggling town (even though Spaulding and Lewis Oil were still big players).. perhaps if the show had picked a more ritzy town in New Jersey.. it could have worked.

 

 

 

 

[Mitch]

Actually Peapack is upper crust and beautiful..(Reva's aborted wedding to Kyle was filmed there..) and so many places could have doubled as SF locations.,,the Wildwood Arboretum would be a great stand in for places in the Jessup farm and the grounds of the Spaulding mansion..you would think they would love to have the blurb "Filmed at..." in the credits. P & G was just too cheap and unimaginative to do things like that so we were stuck with the junk in Harley's back yard.

[j swift]

BTW re:Phillip's baby switch, I know many have suggested that Gus should have been Rita's child, but imagine if he was Elizabeth's kid that got switched for Phillip...

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Yes, I agree...that would have been better. I think Rita had reached the end of her dramatic shelf life. But Elizabeth had more life in her, from a writing standpoint. She should have been brought back later. She could have been someone Alex brought to town again to rattle Alan.

 

Plus I always wanted to see Lizzie have scenes with the grandmother she was named after.

 

I also think Hope should have been brought back. Elizabeth and Hope were two legacy characters that could have added a lot to later storylines.

[robbwolff]

 

Indeed, Peapack is upper crust and beautiful. It's lovely. As I've mentioned before, what could have worked was for Guiding Light to film on occasion in New Brunswick, which isn't far from Peapack. New Brunswick is a bit more similar to what we saw with pre-Peapack Springfield -- a university, hospitals, urban areas, tall buildings, beautiful parks. With Rutgers University (where I work) right in town, they could have used the college setting to re-establish Springfield University.

[Mitch]

 

I had suggested before that Edmund was the real Spaulding heir...I have no idea who you would work the mechanics with that one but we have had clones and paitings as portals to time travel..so.  I didn't really like Edmund but I loved DAM and he would be more the age and no..Gus was not a Spaulding it was all a big mistake...

 

I actually think they should have brought a "new" character on for the real Spaudling heir...a blue collar guy but this time, unlike Lujack etc...really, really happy to be super rich and he would be ruthless like Alan. It would be a nice add on angst if Prince Phillip got a real rival that was more then happy to be Alan's son. I can't believe they never went there. Instead of Alex Collins could have been Elizabeth..having found out her kids really survived...(no doubt Brandon was involved with faking his death) hiding it all of these years.

 

Also, they could have establish an internship program with PG and the university..using cheap production labor (hey we all did it) in exchange for experience..including the writing staff.

[j swift]

 

I think we all agree that it was the tone not the location that was the problem with The Wheeler Experiment.  They could have been strolling through the most luxurious cites in New Jersey, but the focus on monotheistic values and punishing aspirational characters put me off after one viewing.

 

 

Oddly, Alan's one redeeming quality is that he never brought the issue of biology into his relationship with Phillip.  He fought harder for custody of Phillip than for Alan-Michael, then he shot Roger, and went to prison, in order to protect Phillip.  Alan-Michael had a problem with the fact was Alan wasn't Phillip's biological son, but to his credit,  Alan never made it a concern. 

Edited August 21, 2018 by j swift

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

The Spauldings didn't need any more long-lost kin crawling out of the woodwork. Esenstein & Harmon Brown tried to revisit the Jamaica story from the mid-80s by bringing a young Victoria Spaulding on to the show in the late 90s. But after a solid introduction she quickly became just another token black character who stopped appearing after a year or so. I don't even think Labine, Gold, Weston or Kreizman ever addressed what happened to her. Did she die? Did she go back to Jamaica? It was like she had never existed. At one point she was living in the Spaulding mansion and involved with David Grant, another token black character who didn't amount to much in the scheme of things.

Edited August 21, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove