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Guiding Light Discussion Thread


Paul Raven

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i was going to suggest that the Brooklyn studio may not have had the facilities to support production of 2 60 min daily shows, but then I remembered that Texas was produced there throughout it's run.

I guess by the time GL moved it was too costly to produce Guiding Light there. I'm not sure what resources could be shared, and obviously not enough to to make it worthwhile economically.

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I've been watching a lot of Blake/Ross/Holly arc in 1992 and boy was it just so good. I might be in the minority, but I enjoyed watching Holly make Ross sweat during his election run. Ross was a selfish a** during that time, and it always unnerved me that everyone simply told Holly to "get over it." Holly's reaction was true to form and at times, I wish she would've went further with her reaction. 

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I wish she would've went upside Blake & Ross' heads more often. Again, it just infuriated me how many of the characters just wrote Holly and called her bitter that she lost Ross to Blake. Especially, Maureen and Vanessa. And it didn't help that Maureen would get a taste of the same medicine when her good friend and husband were humping, which led to her demise. 

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The great run of Long/Kobe started to fall apart a few months before (recast Ed, writing Mike off, the obscuration of the Bauers and Reardon's for Reva and the Lewises) but some of this is still good. I am surprised at for that time, how interesting the dialogue between Victoria and Alex was "separate but equal" despite the stupidity of Brandon being alive (he didn't even need to be alive for this to work.) It also is interesting how later they screwed it up worse with Amanda being Brandon's daughter...(I always wonder if that was a McTavish storyline...) It always kills me how dumb Roxie looked on the bull, and I hate how they made Mindy suddenly into a bitch on wheels to make good ole Roxie the heroine..

I always look at Bev scenes and think how Marj would have played it..(hissing and breathing heavy no doubt.)

 

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The first year and a bit of Gail Kobe/Pamela Long (Spring 1983 to Summer 1984) was popular and set in motion characters and storylines that would carry GL through its final 25 years (Lewis family expanded and elevated to a core family, Phillip/Beth, Josh/Reva, Alexandra), but from what I've seen it was too much chasing 1980s trends.

I'd go as far to say that the only bright spot of GL's final 25 years was the Robert Calhoun era.

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Long/Kobe had a lot of engaging new characters and stories initially but the problem was they chipped away at the core by obliterating the Bauers and the Reardons, who Marland had set up as the next long term family as well as slowly dropping most characters from previous eras, leaving only Ross and Ed (recast) and a few others.

Then when Kobe/Long departed there were more changes and the show became  a patchwork of fractured families in dull stories and more new characters eg Simon, Jessie, Calla that viewers were supposed to be interested in.

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Grant mentioned this in the reunion with the four musketeers. Grant said he wasn't happy that Kobe got rid of the fan favorites.

GL dropped in the ratings when the new characters debut and I don't think they ever recovered from it.

Simon, Jessie, Calla were such awful characters that no one cared about.

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Agreed, the summer of 84 was great..with the new colorful characters (Reva, the Four M's, Alex) mixing it up with the Bauers and the Reardon's..I never knew why they obscured Nola even before the fall....she should have been in the middle of the cabin mystery..why get rid of Justin right when it would have been dramatic. 

But in the fall it all got weird and started to fall apart. Kobe and Long actually brought in Calla and Simon and that boring girl (India was actually going to be Beth's cousin who was going to be like a Roxie....but when MKA read for it they switched the characters up. The whole mess with Infinity and the record company and Liz Taylor's kid who supposedly was going to be Beth's new love???? It seemed GL constantly screwed itself just as it got back on track.

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Amanda and Brandon I think was early Rauch and I believe b4 B&E came in as headwriters. Rauch said he wanted to cut down on Spauldings so he got rid of Alex, Alan Michael and Lucy. He said to him, Alex and Amanda served the same function which is why he cut Alex and made Amanda their sister. It of course went nowhere with the backlash over Zaz's firing. He said he wrestled over what to do about Amanda, but then decided to have her leave town with recast Roger 

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AND he hung on for a couple of years...they tried to pair him with Chelsea...why in hell would an English record producer hang out in midwestern Springfield?  

But at least we had a great line from BevAlex...

Jackson: "Madame, I am an ARTISTE!"

Alex: "Who told you that, the clerk that sold you that earring?"

They seemed to still be working on McTavish outlines but I could be wrong. It just changed from Vanessa telling Roger that Alex boasted to Henry that she had a file on Alan that was her failsafe for when he got out of hand, to that.  Rauch was right to get rid of Lucy/AM at that point. AM was played by that horrible actor and Lucy did not have the previous AM to support her in scenes. I think Marj/Alex needed a "rest" at this point, JFP and the writers screwed the character up so bad...(all she did was obsess on Alan and shriek at him..) I wouldn't have minded the focus on Alan and his two children...(not sister) fighting each other over Spaulding while Alan manipulates them just as he manipulates Annie. Unfortunatley we got Amanda as his sister, Phillip mooning over Harley and seeming to never go to work, and Amanda mooning over Roger, and Annie manipulating Alan instead of the other way around.

The funny thing is, Vanessa could have filled the Alex void...(she was declawed as soon as Long brought Alex on the canvas) with the Chamberlines owning almost as much of Spaulding as the family..and her return from the dead she could have gotten her old feist back, instead of mooning over Matt and wanting a baby with him, I would have loved her to take on Alan and Annie. 

I think it was MADD or the network that wanted Marj cut. 

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