Guiding Light discussion thread

[Contessa Donatella]

@dc11786   I don't know if it was during ConWest or not but there was one Bruce Barry directed love scene where his forearm covered the only part of her we didn't see. She appeared to be naked.They were each in black underwear, earlier. They ended up on the floor. She was with Alan, who was in the hospital & Phillip came to her & he talked & then she didn't let him leave. 

Also not sure if this is anything you're talking about. I believe it also to be Bruce Barry & there's a series of them & they are very good. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkDa52LUCU8

With Beth C. you're not talking about when she was Lorelei, are you? 

ConWest was also Eden & Ben Reade nightmare, right?

[robbwolff]

Brown and Esensten revealed months in advance about the direction Holly was going to take. In an interview in early 1998, they indicated that Holly would become obsessed with baby Maureen and kidnap her. Somewhere along the way, they morphed it into the nursery rhyme stalker storyline. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, the Carruthers storyline called into question serious wrong-doing by 5 adult male veterans. And, it wasn't true. It was a gigantic lie. Of course, you have to understand that Weston wasn't really a qualified experienced writer. I never understood why she was hired or why she had an extra year on her contract that he did not.

[dc11786]

That is the scene. That is Conboy with Taggart and Culliton writing. Conboy took over mid-December if I recall. I want to say the same week Marj Dusay started appearing as Alexandra again. I believe Taggert and Culliton´s last episodes were the end of February when the bomb went off in the studio. 

I was making a bad joke about Chamberlain was more effective in a supporting role post-Lorelei. In particular, there was a scene about October/November, 2003, where Lizzie was pouting because she was cast as the Nurse in ¨Romeo & Juliet¨ and Beth explains to her daughter the significance of the role and, in essence, explains where she is herself in life. There were other scenes, but this one stood out. 

Conboy and Weston had Ben working as an escort for Eden, but Eden was a Taggart creation or a Gold/Dunn/Taggart creation. I think Taggart and Culliton may have written Eden out in their last few episodes, but Weston brought her back. I thought the initial escort angle made sense. Ben was broke and most of his stories with Matt Bomer in the role had a seedy undertone to them. I thought the serial killer storyline was fine as I hadn´t watched Ben grow up so it meant little to me. I thought the sexual abuse angle made sense for who Ben had been since returning to Springfield (placing bets on Marah´s virginity, going out with an underage Marina). I just wish it hadn´t been revealed in context of a serial killer storyline. 

Nowadays, I think having a character like Ben Reade becoming an internet sex worker would be an interesting twist on an old tale, but I just don´t see any of the current shows handling that kind of story well. 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, then I have found something John Conboy did that was good. Remarkable love scene!

[dc11786]

I believe the period of Conboy producing Taggart and Culliton episodes was December 26, 2002-February 21, 2003. It is a very good two months. 

This episode features a sequence that I remember was fairly well regarded at the tiime. After months of being deceived her then husband Alan, Olivia learns everything that her husband has been up to, including changing her birth control pills. Agreeing to meet with Alan on a secluded island, Olivia lays all her cards on the table. The final line of the episode, I believe, typically found itself in the favorite dialogue threads on this boards for the next several years. 

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[Paul Raven]

Ellen Weston had written for Capitol and several TV movies. She was as experienced as some other writers who got gigs on soaps. And she was a friend of Conboy.

[Contessa Donatella]

Looked very hard for her credits & did find 1 for Capitol, it's true. Thnx for into on movies . 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[Dan]

I think the last official episode they were credited was the 28th with the bomb going off during the call in show. I remember exactly where I was when I figured out that the Conboy era was going to go straight to hell. I was at a Safeway looking through a copy of SOD and saw that Maureen Garrett was being taken off contract. Rauch for all of the negative things about him always stood up for Holly and Blake/Ross being on contract. And with Holly finally getting more screen time in early 2003 and then that news, I know my enjoyment of the show was going to drop. I just don't think I correctly estimated by how much. The late 2002/early 2003 episodes were the best period of GL that I watched live and I wish like hell it could have continued. I really think the show might have been saved if it had and that's the tragedy. 

I have a hunch and I've never been able to prove it, but I think the Maryanne Carruthers story is probably a David Kreizman idea. Besides her brief role on the show as an actress in the 60s she didn't seem to have a real working knowledge of the history of the show. Considering how many past stories that arc ripped off, it would have had to come from someone with at least a working knowledge of the show.

 

Kreizman had been with the show since 94 and showed in his own tenure that he did know the shows history even if his execution was just at the level of really bad fan fiction. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Is the "her" here Ellen Weston? 

[MichaelGL]

I agree, the writing and production was good. Everything after that went downhill. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I was thinking about this & I think she was far less experienced & I can't think of others who were so inexperienced who were plopped down in the HW chair! You may disagree with me, but if you do, who in the world might you be thinking of who went from almost no experience, or very very little, to being HW of a show? 

This probably has nothing to do with anything but there have always been rumors that they were each other's beards. 

 

[Dan]

Correct. Weston played Robin Lang briefly in the early 60s. 

[Vee]

This is the first I'm hearing of people loving this period so much with Conboy already on base. It's interesting to hear discussion of from more veteran fans; I may have to go back and look at it again. I just remember the Conboy/Weston regime that followed being utterly deranged in a new way, as bad as Rauch's excesses yet somehow even worse. On a side note I'd really thought Claire Labine would work out at the show, it's too bad she didn't.

The MAC/Annabelle Sims story, from both decades, is ultimately just a farfetched, kludged-together ripoff of Peter Straub's horror classic book and film Ghost Story, which came out shortly before the original take on the storyline in the '80s. I couldn't believe they were ripping off the same storyline twice, both times clumsily retconning all the elder male characters as having known each other long ago when it just did not work. I do think Kreizman had some good ideas early on - a Roger revisit with Holly, an Ed return, Jonathan - but it was clear he had no ability to execute (and the Sebastian story became a nightmare).

Edited December 29, 2023 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

And, what a nightmare for her, the experience she went through there. To begin, everything she pitched got shot down. She pitched a Holly/Olivia love story. And, in the final analysis, she was heard to say that the only thing she wrote while she was there, that she personally liked, was Mae the cigarette girl, in Danny's awful after hours club, do you recall? And, then, they fired her & her family. But, for whatever reason Paul couldn't get anyone to come take the reins so he called her & asked her if they would come back. ... And, she did. Oy vey y'all. 

What a nightmare, indeed!