Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Soaplovers]

It would have been nice to have both Sherry and Elizabeth there.

[Asb23]

Bummed Sherry couldn’t make it but it was nice to see the other ladies and Jerry. Kimberley was very emotional. His daughter is lovely. Well done.

[FrenchBug82]

I don't want to be unkind but I notice a pattern of Alan announcing surprising gets that end up not "being able to make it" on the actual date, a mere week or so after the announcement.

Once, OK, things happen. But this isn't the first time that the unlikeliest announced participant ends up not participating.

[Forever8]

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[applcin]

I really enjoyed it. Too bad that Fiona's connection had so much trouble. It's nice that Brynn Thayer was able to send a message and sort of represent his time on OLTL. It would have been cool to have incorporated a few more of his OLTL costars, like Robin Strasser and Erika Slezak, but it probably wouldn't have been practical to combine the soaps like that and he did have the longer history with GL.

And that video they showed at the end of Zas winning the Emmy is one of the few uploads of mine that I left up on youtube. I don't think I ever got copyright-slammed for anything related to GL.

[victoria foxton]

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Doug Marland,Pam Long and Meredith Brown 1986 interview

[Soaplovers]

 

They would have made an excellent team....shame it never came to be 

[RavenWhitney]

How dare Pam compare herself to Doug!  She ripped off Dallas, Gone with the Wind, General Hospital and other movies and shows for her initial GL stories.  Her OLTL and SFT stints were utter failures.  Doug had his issues but he made a huge and positive impact on The Doctors, GH, GL and ATWT; his one pock mark is Loving but that was Aggie's failure too.

[Paul Raven]

Pam never stayed around long enough to earn her stripes as a true soap writer.

On GL she basically brought on a slew of new characters with a specific story in mind for them but didn't have to put in the hard yards of following through and keeping them interesting.

[Bill Bauer]

 

I don't think I'd ever seen Pam Long before. She was quite attractive but delusional if she thought she was as good as Marland. I kind of blame her for the beginning of the long, slow demise of Guiding Light. 

[Soaplovers]

Quite frankly Marland may have been a good start writer..but his show were just dull and kind of stuffy. 

 

Long had energy and emotion in her writing.

 

It's why I think they would have worked well with one another..balancing each other out.

[Mitch]

Totally agree and you can see that the two really like each other and admire each others work. As I have said before, Doug had the structure, the discipline and the history down, while Pam had heart, sexiness, family and both of them wrote great community stories...(whatever happened to the Lewises in some way effected the rest of the families.) 

 

Also, I knew Pam was beautiful but wow!!!

[KMan101]

 

All of this. They would have made a great writing team IMHO. Ah what could have been. I do wish a better balance had been made from the 70s into the 80s. But network agendas and all ...

[MichaelGL]

His impact on TD was hardly positive. 
 

I get a sense that if Doug had stayed on to be Co-HW with Pam, we most likely would have never witnessed the decimation of the Bauer’s like we did. While I believe Pam never wanted to initially write them out, Marland would have fought tooth and nail against network brass to keep them on the show. 

[DRW50]

 

Marland's GL writing was so cold, which didn't do the Bauers a lot of favors (Mart Hulswit's firing was a huge mistake for that reason). I do think he would have been more likely to keep them on than Kobe/Long were, but they were not especially appealing for me when I watch his run.