Guiding Light discussion thread

[Mitch]

Ha..on another thread they said Soap Opera Digest of 96 gave that its "worst wedding," and one so richly deserved.  I just remember an interview where somehow McLaiby thought Universal would be a great place? It had to be a promo and Universal covered all the costs..so really, really dumb. AM had the money to close down Universal, pay the staff to sit around and cater to his guests but he couldnt fly his own mother in for it..(was she even mentioned.) This would have been a great time to reintro Hope and Mike actually.

[Khan]

IIRC, didn't Michael Dietz join the show as nuA-M right around the time of his and Lucy's wedding?  So, right there, you had two big strikes against the story: the ridiculousness of the wedding's locale, and the fact that it wasn't Rick Hearst playing A-M anymore.

[Mitch]

No Hurst was still playing AM for the wedding...Dietz first scenes...(and I remember this clearly) was later on with the ridiculous Alan vs. 5th Street and he (Alan) is trying to knock down a building and is arguing with Buzz and AM walks in and is so wooden..you can even almost see Zimmer kinda of laughing like.."What the hell are you going to do with this?" McTavish must have been wedded to the whole "Who is A Spaudling story" to keep AM and Lucy around after Hearst left as it was the perfect time to just right them off ala Phillp and Beth.  It took Dietz to show just how bad SS was and that RH was pulling all the weight.

[soapfan770]

I remember it was Dietz’s A-M who exposed Amanda as infamous Malibu Madam and his announcement was so underwhelming. Didn’t Phillip come back for A-M & Lucy’s wedding? I remember thinking him and a lonely Rick were going to dance together at the time lol.

[Soapsuds]

Hearst was still playing AM. He mentioned how horrible the wedding was and how much he hated it during the reunion show with Satra.

Dietz was a horrible AM. I lost all interest in the character with him in the role.

[DramatistDreamer]

Rick Hearst and Sonia Satra gave their thoughts on that wedding on The Locker Room reunion livestream. Hearst was particularly outspoken on what he really thought of that wedding, lol.

Okay, I just saw that @soapsuds mentioned it. Rick's depiction of it was hilarious.

Edited November 26, 2020 by DramatistDreamer

[Mitch]

Phillip was back..but in disguise...as Frankenstein's monster..yes, the wedding was THAT dumb!

 

[soapfan770]

 

Lol I saw that after I found clips of it on YT, it was lousy as I remembered. One saving grace from the clips I watched was Phillip was rather repulsed when he found out that Buzz was married to Reva lol although weirdly for all the talk of how long Phillip and Reva knew each other not once did Phillip even acknowledge Reva’s return from the dead. 

[victoria foxton]

Character Profiler: Hawk Shayne

Character Snapshot: Bess Lowell

Character Snapshot: Vicky Spaulding

Character Profiler: Maeve Stoddard

[Mitch]

Vicky Spaulding..what a wasted character. Why even bring her on?? I remember E & B in one of their endlessly dumb interviews saying that bringing back Alex was important to Vicky's story...and then Alex had one fight with Annie in the attic and disappeared and then so did Vicky. Also it was fun when Van got back to some bitchiness when she was pissed at Vicky..but also wasted opportunity.

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Mitch

[Khan]

IMO, Vicky's story suffered from not having her mother (Alan and Alex's half-sister) there to act as a buffer of sorts between Vicky and the rest of the Spauldings.  If nothing else, we needed scenes of conflict between Victoria, who respects her half-siblings and does her best to keep peace between Brandon's two families, and Vicky, who resents her side of the family's status as Brandon's dirty little secret and fights for equality and legitimacy within the Spaulding empire.

[DRW50]

 

I think someone said there were plans to expand the black Spaulding canvas but it was vetoed by P&G. I can't remember if that was at this time or in 1984. That whole period of GL, that whole last decade, was the epitome of lip service - bringing in tokens and not bothering to do more with them so they could say, "We tried." The only thing of consequence that any of this had was that Victoria Platt and Terrell Tilford are still married today. 

 

(it's sad, if not surprising, just how little use the show had for David by the time Monti Sharp left - he was stripped of any purpose or personality [can you really see Monti's David wanting to be a cop?])

[Khan]

 

I'm not sure about the late '90's, but, yep, P&G nixed Pam Long and Jeff Ryder's plans to expand the Spauldings via Brandon's Barbados family.  Ryder told me as much, via email.

[DRW50]

 

I think they had Rick dancing by himself, which Michael O'Leary made fun of in an interview over how pathetic it was. 

 

I didn't actually mind the wedding, but I can see why the actors would think it was ludicrous. I remember this was the peak of the "Queenie" and Hawk comic relief saga, which was NOT true to Alex, but Marj Dusay managed to make fun. That period with Hawk was probably the first time I began to like her a little more as Alex, oddly enough. 

 

The last thing Rick Hearst did was some kind of mini-plane crash with Lucy and Alan-Michael, which I don't remember the point of. They also recreated flashbacks of Hearst's Alan-Michael and Philip with Alan-Michael styled like a preppy nightmare (tennis outfit and all) to try to retcon them as having a bad relationship at the time, which annoyed some fans as that wasn't the case.  

 

If Sonia had stayed they seemed to be trying to go for an Alan-Michael/Lucy/Zachary the angel triangle, but she must have told them she was going, as he moved over to Michelle.

 

I did like that she finally got a scene with Harley before she left. It really irritated me how she was dumped onto the show as a Harley replacement (I think in the very same episode Harley left), and it felt like Harley was erased from the family in those years. Harley's brief return was so well-written. Looking back, I kind of wish that had been the last time we saw her.

 

Thanks. That must have been what I remembered. Considering the most GL could manage at that time was "Q,"  clearly that wasn't happening. I'm not sure why even as AW and ATWT tried to expand their black canvas in the mid/late '80s, GL would not until finally Gilly worked her way up from a bit part at the end of the decade.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I wish I could migrate this quote the ATWT thread because I definitely believe a similar dynamic occurred with the Franklin and Griffin families on ATWT. In later years, there was the appearance of what I refer to as "half-families" like Ben and Isaac, the appearance of Camille's mother but not a full set of family members. Really unfortunate.