Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[RavenWhitney]

Remember: all the shows, but particularly GL, were in a race to copy and/or steal from GH which was a huge success in 1981 onward through about 88-89.  All the producers/writers were pressured to do ice princess stories, copy Luke and Laura etc.  Doug had Kelly/Morgan and the Nola fantasies, Pam did the dreaming death, haunted cottage stories. SFT did the jade story and on and on. Gloria Monty ruined traditional daytime even if she sort of saved it.  James Reilley also ruined daytime.  Two of the worst influences on the genre ever.

[Bill Bauer]

 

ICAM

[titan1978]

I think that would have been an interesting pairing from what I have seen.  Her GL is all big emotion and not very tight structurally, while his ATWT is very meticulous and thought out but lacks some of that heat.  At least that is how it looks to a viewer like me, who watched after the fact and in spurts on YouTube.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

If you've only seen what's been uploaded up on YouTube, you have missed many spicy scenes.

No offense to the uploaders, who have provided fans with lots of entertainment, but if you really look at who is featured in the majority of those episodes, it's mainly Lily and Holden, lol. The sultry stuff from Tom and Margo is not even on there.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Long was a fairly novice soap writer when she took over the reigns of TGL, and while I admit she exhibited heart and feeling for her own creations, her work really damaged and crippled the core of the real TGL, which had been consistently solid for decades. I do think the situation was exacerbated  by the dread Gail Kobe, whose comments and actions at the time showed that she simply did not understand or care about the series and its audience. The two women combined were poison to Springfield. I cringe when I recall how Long dismissively remarked that she had so much "dead wood" to get rid off among the cast of characters.

 

I don't think that The Doctors showed Marland at his best (General Hospital, on the other hand, soared under his pen), but I remember that at the time of his tenure on TD, a soap, a soap critic remarked, "Marland worked wonders with the garbage he inherited." I agreed. It was like going from a putrid Charles Pratt to mediocre Gary Tomlin. Any improvement, no matter how slight, was welcome.

 

I'll never really understand how Loving turned out to be such a failure, with both Nixon and Marland involved, although I never felt is was terribly well cast or produced. A lot of the actors did not seem to have chemistry with each other (IMHO), and  many characters just did not...gel. (Still, if I had a choice, I'd watch the entire run of Loving again over today's excruciatingly bad, Y&R, B&B, DAYS and GH.)

[DRW50]

 

Loving eventually has a very strong cast, who carry the show through many regimes. I don't get the impression that was the case when Nixon and Marland were there though.

 

Marland's 86-87 ATWT is closer to what Long might have done. It is at times excellent, other times it feels very unnatural (the scene where Iva waves a pitchfork at Josh, Meg's fantasies, etc.). His writing from the strike on is much more contained and somber; I think it's the most refined version of what he struggled to put together up to that point (his GL work feels especially difficult to put together).

[Soaplovers]

Marland was a snooze on The Doctors...and it did help with my insomnia when watching his stint.

 

His GL rode the wave of the Dobson's..and I think he quit before he completely sapped GL of its energy.

[Mitch]

That's exactly it! Long had that heat and made her characters, even BIG ones like Reva and Roger seem real, but plots would drop for days on end, etc. Marland had the structure and kept the momentum going but his characters seemed more idealized and cold (it would piss me off so much how "polite" Oakdale was..no "good" characters ever said about thing about another "good" character, etc.) and you could tell someone was "writing" them.

 

Tho as much as Pam and Marland looked like they respected each other I think they would have killed each other while working together!

[BetterForgotten]

I think Long became more structured during her second stint. But maybe that was more so Curlee/Calhoun's influence. 

[Soapsuds]

If Long thought she was Marland 2.0 ..why didn't ATWT consider her as Douglas replacement in 93?

 

Marland  ATWT consistently beat Long GL in the ratings by wide margins.

[Mitch]

CBS and P & G and Long had parted company and no one involved was interested in going back.  ATWT did indeed beat GL but I always thought that was because it kept its stable core..thanks to Marland..where GL didn't..thanks in part to Long. They both have their good points and weaknesses.

[victoria foxton]

Long on ATWT could've been good. Instead of the wonky dreariness we got. 

[Soapsuds]

I thought Long second run on GL was too fluff. Its a shame Calhoun was EP GL instead of ATWT at the time.

[Forever8]

Which characters you think Long would've done well by writing wise? I'm curious to read others thoughts on the matter.

[victoria foxton]

 Off the top of my head. I could see Pam totally getting complex bad girls like Emily, Barbara and Julie. And of course Queen Lucy. I think Pam would've deep-sixed the Snyder clan. And brought in her own southern clan. She would've still done business stuff. But not on the level Doug did. All the families would have been front and center. I wonder if she would've cared for Holden & Lilly? But ATWT under Pam would've been zesty and passionate.

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Edited March 23, 2021 by victoria foxton