Jump to content

Guiding Light Discussion Thread


Paul Raven

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Hilary was good with Jim and with Fletcher...and I never thought Fletch had chemistry with anyone.  Wonder why they didn't go there.

 

Of course I heard the spy thing on Datalounge so take it for what its worth..I wont even go into the claim of what JWS, the Holden actor and Marland's penchant for feet...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 17.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

I'm of two minds on the Marion/Brent story.  At the time I recall being on the proverbial edge of my seat during the story.  The youtuber who covers Springfield history has a brilliant edit of the story with all of the tension and drama.  However, in retrospect, the transphobia and HIV scare tactics are heavy-handed and inappropriate.  

 

Marion/Brent on GL and Michael Baldwin on Y&R reflected an offensive sensibility about rape.  It was as if there wasn't any faith that justice would be served by the legal system.  There is dialogue in both stories about how both rapists would be freed because of their race and financial positions.  So, rather than going to prison for their original crime the writers had to up the ante in order for the threat to be validated by the other male characters.  It sent a bad message that women aren't going to be believed if they report sexual assault unless they've been stalked, beaten, or their was mother killed.  The exploitation of female victimhood is one of the things that has turned me off of soaps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I don't think so.  Most AMC fans whom I've encountered online have been willing to defend some, if not all, of her storyline choices.  GL fans, OTOH, pretty much agree that her HW'ing stint there was a disaster from start to finish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I just watched the video, and yeah, I have never seen this storyline but the video is like.... this is crazy, but in a way it’s crazy enough that it kind of works? Ridiculous and over the top, but, like the famous Sonni/Solita story, so ridiculous and over the top that it circles back to good. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Very true, but the storyline was ahead of its time for actually talking about some of the things we are talking about today...white professional affluent males can escape justice...(well okay, every regular character can escape justice if the plot calls for it and he says he is sorry. I hated that GL, after Alex is revealed to be involved with the drug ring (I wont even go into the stupidity of that...) didnt use the storyline to have the feds investigate Spaulding, and unseat ALL of them from the business and disbar Gus. Interesting storylines..)  I also think the transphobia thing doesnt hold...Brent was not trans, he was evil using a disguise...and the HIV thing I thought was a good twist on the old baby switch storyline, and it did use it to talk about HIV/AIDS at that time. The rest of McTavish stuff was crap!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Only downside of the story was killing off Nadine....the same effect could have been achieved if she'd been put in a coma, etc so she could return later.

 

At the same time, killing her off raised the stakes especially at a time when Nadine had become a better person and was taking control of her life..while putting others ahead of herself on occasion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

During the 90s, GL became a bit too ready to kill of women of a certain age, for my comfort. 

Wasn't there an episode where all the dead mothers of some of the characters appeared to them in dream sequences? 

GL seemingly proceeded to kill off an entire group of would be matriarchs.  Okay, Jenna and Nadine were probably never going to be your typical soap matriarch but between Maureen to Nadine, it just seemed like a pattern had emerged and these characters had really established themselves on the Springfield canvas.  I found it unsettling for the future health of the show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

@WhiteDressGhost: Bernau was incredible as Alan. He gave what could have been a one dimensional character so much range. Unfortunately, that's what ended up happening with Raines in the role. I never figured out who could ever take over adequately in the role. Zaslow was definitely correct - it would have been way too awkward for him to portray Alan. Someone mentioned to me almost two years ago that they wondered how George Reinholt would have fared as Alan Spaulding. At first I dismissed it, but then I thought about how Steve Frame definitely had some similar characteristics to Alan. Maybe it could have worked. I wonder if TPTB would have even considered Reinholt...

 

If you are referring to the Alan/Roger scenes when Roger comes back to Springfield in December of 1979 and stays at the Spaulding mansion while spying on the Bauer house,  Zaslow and Bernau knock it right out of the park. My favorite moment is when Roger first sneaks into Alan's house, grabs some spare cash from a desk drawer, then casually offers that SAME money to Alan when Alan comes in and finds Roger in his home ("Alan, do you need some money?")

 

As for the Bauers, I honestly think Gail Kobe had some sort of directive from P&G to do away with the Bauer family. Apparently Marland had been given the same directive when he assumed writing in 1980, but he managed to keep that directive at bay. Roussel (Hope) either quit or was fired, depending on who you ask, Stewart was out and out fired by Kobe, and Marsha Clark was killed off to bulk up the Susan Piper/Brandon Spaulding storyline. I think Kobe felt as long as she had Charita around, things would be fine. That didn't work out too well...

 

I wonder if that would have worked. Elizabeth (at least how Dalton portrayed her), was meek. I suppose in the almost-20 years since she was away from Springfield, she could have gotten a backbone. With Collins in the role, that would have been a SERIOUS backbone!

Please register in order to view this content

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

True, they could have done it like Marland did on ATWT..and Doug Cumming (or was it Marsha) attacking Heather and putting her in a coma...so the whole thing was...will Heather wake up in time to warn Kim, etc. I felt that Nadine's story was over..and I was sick of her pining over that troll Buzz, so I liked it when they put her together with that Trucker who liked her...but he disappeared when McTavish started writing..I would rather Deeney be written out wiht a happy ending.  Of course, I wanted Buzz to be the one to get murdered..I can imagine how long his death scene would be..."GAAK....you STABBED me...spit, spit, AAGGGH I'm dying...windmill arms..." and the soap "press" raving about Deas acting in his exit scene....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I couldn't take McT and after she was out at GL, I was glad, though when she ended up back at ABCD, I ended up changing the channel on whatever soap she ended up in the headwriting position. There are very few people in that role that ever made me glad when characters I liked to watch weren't on screen. 

 

The Brent/Marion thing disgusted me as in those days the long term drug regimes weren't known to be long term yet (they were just starting to come about), and they had Lucy who wasn't HIV positive start a drug protocol or something of that nature. GL became about shock/awe which the show wasn't about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • I know some of y'all really like Brooke Kerr, and so I've tried to give her a shot, despite her frequent flat line readings and distracted "did I leave the front door unlocked?" facial expressions. But lord, she is so bad at playing a tough-talking badass that I was actually rooting for Brad today to spill the beans to Drew. 
    • Googling does tend to ruin it.  For those of us who were teens in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you can't imagine how much fun it was to watch the show in the afternoons.  (It came on right after school.)  There weren't any "spoilers" at the time.  We would always try to anticipate how each crime and each mystery would be resolved, and we were ALWAYS wrong, because the stories are filled with so many weird twists and turns.   The head writer (Henry Slesar) and his dialogue writer (Steve Lehrman) invariably toss genuine clues directly into your face in the most unlikely ways, but then they provide a host of "red herrings" to completely confuse you and send you off on the wrong path.  Once the story reaches its conclusion, all you can think is Why didn't I figure that out weeks ago?  lol
    • Does the vault have the original scene and not the short flashback?
    • I appreciate that you are using AI with the knowledge of it's limitations. Some posters take everything it produces as fact.
    • And of course Mama Ru herself appeared on All My Children.
    • The Saturday 8pm slot usually had the lowest rating of the NBC 4 sitcom lineup for some reason. NBC let Saturday night fizzle, They used 9.30 pm to launch 227 and Amen, both of which moved to earlier in the evening but they  kept Empty Nest following GG for several seasons.  Empty Nest should have moved to 8pm with their strongest new sitcom at 9.30, anticipating that GG would eventually falter. Instead they left them there and stretching the sitcom pool too thinly on other nights. When Grand talk over at 9.30 Thurs maybe Night Court and Wings could have been used on Saturday.
    • @Maxim Great to see your mini-reviews again. There are a number of clips on Youtube of Janice's slow mental breakdown, especially as we go into January 1980. Christine Jones is just superb. She played the hell out of that role. Something which isn't referenced as much later on is how Mitch pushed Janice's doubts and mental instability for his own ends...until suddenly he didn't want to anymore (I guess he caught on with the audience and the show became wary). I don't want to post a bunch of clips, but this one has a very good confrontation between Rachel and Janice.

      Please register in order to view this content

      This has a good scene around 7 minutes in where you can see Janice struggling internally with her need to identify herself so much by the men around her, all of which helps lead to her crackup.  
    • It really made Oscar the Doorman seem like an imbecile.   I think the show's unusual format & subject manner is what makes EON often seem less "dated" and "old-fashioned" than other shows from that time period.  It never attempted to be especially "trendy" or "modern" -- and its film noir style is pretty timeless.  
    • Dallas, Dynasty, Knots and Falcon Crest all had good runs but by 85 they had seen better days. I think they were a victim of the format. After several seasons seeing the same characters front and center viewers were bored. What was once fascinating grew predictable. JR, Alexis etc had to be front and center and after a while their schemes and shtick grew repetitive. JR remarrying Sue Ellen, Alexis constantly trying to get he better of Blake etc Unlike daytime, there wasn't the flexibility to bring in other stories and characters and maybe let the likes JR go backburner. That same mentality also invaded daytime with characters like  Sonny and Victor still peddling the same stuff after decades. I guess the same could be said for MSW eg every week Jessica encounters a crime and solves it,but I think viewers come to that format with a different mindset.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy