Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Dan]

The story part of that was the culmination of the previous year's worth of work from the writing team. San Cristobel had been written out of the show in February, Richard was killed and the stronger elements of the story, Edmund and Olivia were mixed with the Spaulding story quite successfully. Carmen had finally been sent packing in November, bringing the mob story to an (albeit temporarily since Weston would bring it back) end. The Tory nonsense was over and Blake and Ross seemed well on the way toward a reunion.

 

The show started to refocus toward the people we always cared about and brought about new couplings that seemed interesting. Relationships with Cassie and Bill brought new spark to Danny and Michelle that hadn't been seen since Joie Lenz left the role with the added satisfaction of royally pissing off 2 fan bases. 

 

The beginning of the Reva stalker story and Gus' parentage were interesting even if the resolution to both were botched by Weston. Phillip had softened a bit from having the stick up his ass from earlier in the year. Ed and Holly seemed to be heading towards a reunion. 

 

The Conboy came in and got rid of the Rauch pastels and bright lights and, at least initially, it was a breath of fresh air. The story was still top notch and the added production value seemed to really make something of the show. And then it all went to pieces. 

[Khan]

Either way, what they were doing amounted to character assassination.

[Contessa Donatella]

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Here she is with Robert Hogan. 

[Khan]

I knew we were done for as GL fans when John Conboy brought back Bradley Cole as Jeffrey because some of Cole's cult followers had sent Conboy some damn flowers.  Clearly, those shut-ins had watched Y&R/CAPITOL and knew the best way to influence Conboy.

I was not as high on Conboy/Culliton/Taggart, because I thought it still paled in comparison to the GL I had watched growing up.  On the other hand, it was a damn sight better than everything that had occurred during Paul Rauch's reign, so I was willing to give Culliton, Taggart and especially Conboy a chance, despite my misgivings.  (IMO, Conboy was someone who needed a strong HW in order to be effective as a producer.  Otherwise, the man was just a glorified lighting designer).

Then - like you said, @Dan - it all turned to [!@#$%^&*], beginning with how Ellen Weston effed up the climax of the Reva stalker story.  Not that I thought the story was great to begin with, lol.  Reva as a talk-show hostess made no sense to me; and for all the suspense that Culliton and Taggart had generated around the identity of Reva's stalker, it still amounted to a "black glove story," one where it was clear they had no idea who to pin the crimes on, as there were no viable suspects on the canvas.  (Over the years, I have heard that Alexandra was the intended culprit, with the motive of framing Holly.  I still do not know whether to believe that, lol).  But even if no resolution to the mystery would have been 100-percent effective, anything would have been better than the resolution Weston gave us.  (I will not spoil it for those who do not know and want to find out, but I tell you, of all the shitty ways to introduce a new character to a soap, that had to have been one of the shittiest).

Edited December 29, 2023 by Khan

[Khan]

To be honest, @Vee, I had mixed feelings about Labine joining GL.  For one thing, I knew from the start that she and Paul Rauch would be a bad combination.  (Unfortunately, I was proven right).  For another, Labine's writing style, IMO, was better suited to ABCD's earthier, more urbane shows than it was to a conservative, P&G-produced show like GL.  Even if MADD was intent on ABC-ifying the P&G shows, there still was a traditional, middle-American vibe to ATWT and GL that was hard to eradicate.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Khan

[MichaelGL]

My guess was Reva's stalker was going to turn out to be Jonathan who resented Reva for not only giving him up, but for killing his father Richard. It would've made sense since we just had resolved the Richard/pull the plug storyline and suddenly somebody was stalking Reva. 

[dc11786]

As a friend of Conboy, I believe she also wrote for his Euro soap, Secrets. 

For some reason, I had associated the start of Weston with the new opening credits, which are in the February 24, 2003, episode. I remember the bombing being the last episode as well so I was surprised to see Taggart and Culliton credited in the post-bombing episode March 3, 2003. This is their last credited episode. I know that the show was still on a delay or maybe these are misnumbered. 

A lot of uproar started when it was announced Taggart was replaced. Didn´t Culliton stay on for a few more months before being replaced by Donna Swajeski in the fall? Then, the new opening sequence brought out more groans. 

In reflection, I think one of the reasons I didn´t completely deride Conboy/Weston because I enjoyed what they did with Phillip and Olivia, even if it wasn´t as strong as it was or would have been under Taggart and Culliton. Chappell and Alexander just ran with whatever they were given and the script writers seemed to make it work.

I agree that December 2002-February 2003 was incredibly strong. I felt that energy was similar in the early months of Wheeler (April - June 2004). It was probably because they were just cutting heads and stalling the rest of the stories, but I enjoyed that period as much (if not more than) Culliton/Taggart/Conboy. I would be curious who was script doctoring because I´d believe it was Weston´s work over Swajeski (who couldn´t do much in the lengthy term she had with Kriezman). 

I´d offer up the suggestion that Swajeski might have cooked up bits of the Maryanne Carrouthers plot. Carrie Nye was supposedly a friend of Ellen Westonś according to Wikipedia. I don´t remember that personally. I do remember Weston´s college roommate was Lanie Kazan and she appeared in a single episode as Joey Lupo´s mother, Shirley(?) Lupo. Mrs. Lupo was mentioned afterwards until I want to say Joey departed in September, 2004.  

On this board, I remember the general consensus was that the show was running on all cylinders at the time. In context of the greater soap landscape, it just wasn´t enough considering Guza had returned to ¨General Hospital¨ in June, 2002, Hogan Sheffer was still being praised for ¨As the World Turns," and Paula Cwikly and Peter Brash had started at ¨Days of Our Lives¨ in early 2002. Add in the impending return of Michael Malone to ¨One Life to Live,¨ the happenings at ¨Guiding Light¨ were registering with the general soap audience. Also, the ratings didn´t move, from what I recall. I know Weston hit a new low fairly early into her run (March or April, 2003) but the number she was beating was from several weeks earlier (or maybe months) under Culliton and Taggart. 

Conboy´s version was very flashy. In hindsight, I probably wanted it to work much more than it actually did. Even when people were being dropped from contract we usually saw them (Holly, I think may have been the exception who I think appeared only twice after August, 2002, for Blake and Ross´ Christmas remarriage and a one-off in Febraury, 2003, to tell Ed she was there for him during the tailend of the Maryanne Carrouthers tale. 

Kriezman had an incredibly strong fall with JB´s arrival, Roger´s death, Phillip´s downfall, and just a plethora of interesting character interactions. By January, 2005, it was clear how Kriezman/Wheeler´s run was going to be. The fascination with Tom Pelphrey quickly grew old and switching from a Manny overload to a GusH overload only meant less prominence of the Bauers (even though Manny tended to be a problem to everything rather than a solution). I appreciated that Wheeler liked the veterans, but she was always trying to create a show she didn´t have the money to produce. That´s why I am curious if Tomlin could have salvaged it, but it was probably too far gone. 

2002 started with Lucky Gold and Christopher Dunn, right? I think Taggart was added as a headwriter around March/April. Carolyn Culliton replaced Lucky Gold sometime in the fall September/October. Then Raunch left in November with Mary Alice Dwyer Dobbins acting as defacto EP for the brief time before John Conboy started. 

The show got some goodwill from the 50th anniversary episodes featuring Josh and Reva  yet again with guest appearances from Maeve Kincaid, Krista Terseau, Rebecca Hollen, and some others. Ed Bauer and Bill Lewis were both brought back around then too. For me, though, it was still very messy. I remember being excited Bill was back and then remember watching them reveal he knew Lorelei and being like, yep, I´m out. 

Taggart still struggled a bit into the fall of 2002. I was not a fan of Marah Lewis screech at Tony Santos to basically rape her or for Cassie Winslow to be stripping for Danny Santos because she owed him money and this was suppose to lead to romance. I liked Bill and Michelle, but I´m not sure what story could have been told with them in the long run. 

The stalker story was fun and Alexandra Spaulding wasn´t the best choice. 

The Gus parentage story was complicated because Gus had been introduced with the implication he was Miguel Santos and Selina´s son, but that quickly got squashed. I don´t think Gus as a Spaulding worked or as a Bauer (wasn´t the original ending Gus was Rita and Ed´s son or was it Alan and Rita´s?) 

[Contessa Donatella]

That was accurate & true. 

[dc11786]

The Rassies and the Mannies were well organized. I´ll give them that. I thought Cole´s return was a blunder for sure and felt someone had needed to sit Conboy down and explain that the Internet had changed the fanbases. When was the Cassie effigy in the form of a demented Big Bird that the Mannies sent to the set? Was that still with Raunch in the office? 

I don´t remember the flowers, but I do remember Conboy saying he was dumbfounded how the show could have let him go given the number of fans he had. You can almost imagine the Rassies making a video collage of Marty West´s oil wrestling videos intercut with horror movie clips ending with a Rassie smashing a twinkie as the ultimate threat to Conboy´s harem.  

The original culprit in Reva´s stalking was Jonathan Baynes, Reva´s son by Richard who was later renamed Randall. Scott Bailey was hired to play the part, but then they made him Sandy, the radio show DJ. Bailey appeared as just a voice for months and I don´t think he first appeared until August despite being on contract in like February or March.

BTW, 

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Raunch and Labine were never going to work. I´ll agree on that. I don´t think Labine was a bad fit though, but she was certainly hired for the wrong reasons. Given her track record at ¨General Hospital,¨ it appeared CBS and P&G wanted her to continue to turn GL into CBS daytime´s answer to ¨The Sopranoes.¨ I think early 1990s ¨Guiding Light¨ tonally is something that Labine could have worked within. Also, if the woman could bring life into ¨Love of Life,¨ than I don´t think GL was too conservative for her lol. 

That´s how I remember it. I remember them suspecting it was Annie and us seeing Annie in the mental hospital that Alan had designed to look like the Lewis living room (correct?). Jonathan was missing at the time. I believe it was Olivia who informed Reva of this. 

[Contessa Donatella]

The Rassies & the Mannies were practically publishable in Sociology texts! 

That's hilarious! So you think he actually did sell some of those tapes out of his car?!! 

And, then the poor actor had to deal with "sock puppet"!!! 

 

 

[Khan]

 

Thanks for the clarification, @dc11786!  I have no idea why I thought it was the other way around.  I admit I was not following GL too closely at that point.  I would watch maybe 1-2 episodes per week - maybe more, if some plot twist sounded intriguing enough - and keep up the rest of the time on GLBuzz, so that might explain my mix-up.  I apologize, though, if I misled anyone.

Jonathan/Sandy/Sock Puppet Master as the culprit might have been good if we had been introduced (or re-introduced, as it were) to the character some time before the stalking storyline - like, say, right on the tail end of Reva pulling the plug on Richard? - and if it had been an "open mystery," where we knew all along (or at least early on) who it was, but no one on the show did (because, again, outside of him, there were no viable suspects on the canvas...even Holly would not have had a strong enough reason for doing it...which makes the entire storyline an Idiot Plot, when you think about it).  IIRC, however, Jonathan had not been seen or heard from for a long time; and as far as anyone in Springfield or in the general audience knew, he still was in San Cristobel with Marissa and her husband.

As I said upthread, that was a really shitty way to introduce a new (or SORAS'ed) character.  (And no, hearing only Scott Bailey's voice for months before his first, on-screen appearance does not count, lol).

 

[Vee]

It was obvious from the jump the stalker was supposed to be Jonathan, whoever he turned out to be played by. The choice (under Conboy/Weston IIRC) of his being Sandy was always bizarre to me. I didn't like the character and his strange introduction as a voice-over DJ with a hand puppet or something was just another bizarre flourish of that team.* Plus Sandy just seemed too pedestrian a guy to be Reva's long-lost tropical prince of a son. He was a boring guy with a bit of generic spunk. It was a nothing event. Which is why it didn't surprise me when the next team changed it up and found Pelphrey, hellbent on revenge.

*(Ironically, OLTL '03 had one of its few successes around this time with Al Holden as radio DJ The Voice of the Night, following in stepmother Luna's footsteps - but we knew fairly quickly it was Al, a character the audience was invested in, and there were no fúckin' puppets.)

Edited December 29, 2023 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

How long did Rhonda Lewin go before her face was seen on AW? 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[soapfan770]

Scott Bailey was indeed generic and never offered nothing special. His acting work also left a lot to be desired, whether it was on GL, Undressed (don’t judge me lol), that MyNetwork TV telenovela where he was really, really bad, or the Kamen Rider remake on the CW. 

[Khan]

I think TPTB had floated all three ideas at one time or another, lol.  In order for either of the latter two solutions to have worked, however, I thought that Rita needed to be there, or at least have it explained why she could not be there (i.e., she had passed away years before).  Otherwise, it did not matter whether Gus was Ed's son or Alan's: the drama would be undercut by not having Rita there to explain why she had given away Gus or kept him from learning the identity of his biological father.

Gus's parentage was another storyline (like Reva's stalker) where even the easiest solution (that he was Miguel and Selena's long-lost son) was not entirely agreeable, yet certainly better than the answer Ellen Weston would settle for.

You might be right about Labine's ability to adapt to the P&G "house style," @dc11786.  I know when I heard that she once had been offered the HW'ing gig at ATWT, I thought that would have been a slightly better fit for her than GL.

For some reason, I am thinking the "Crassiebella" incident occurred while Paul Rauch was still EP, but I might have it wrong again.  (It has been a long, long time since I last thought about any of this, lol).

As someone who grew up watching GL everyday with his mother and grandmother, I had a tough time witnessing rabid fanbases ruin GL the way that they did.  In years past, GL was one show that was above all that fanbase [!@#$%^&*] that had crippled other shows, such as DAYS.  If you watched GL, it was because you cared about the characters and the families and their histories, not about whether this-or-that couple was together and happy in every scene of every episode.

However, Rauch/Esensten/Brown chucked that mentality out the proverbial window with their focus on so many insufferable pairings; so that, by the time Taggart and Culliton arrived, both the Mannies and the Rassies were holding GL hostage.  Neither Danny/Michelle nor Richard/Cassie ever could grow as characters or as couples, because, in both cases, their fans were ready to storm EUE/Screen Gems at even the slightest hint of romantic discord. 

The Santoses were gnawing on one half of GL, and the San Cristobel crew was noshing on the other half.  If you were like me and not a fan of either contingent, then you were S.O.L.  Therefore, I was glad when someone - Taggart, Culliton, Rauch/Conboy, the intern who refilled the coffee makers every morning, but someone - finally pulled the plug on both.  Unfortunately, flushing both the Rassies and the Mannies merely created a vacuum for the GusHers to fill - and IMO, the GusHers were worse than the Mannies and Rassies combined, because their attacks on those who did not agree with them could get very nasty and very personal, very quickly.

For me, Gus and Harley's aborted wedding was the moment when I saw how Kreizman and Wheeler's GL was going to be - basically, reinforcing GusHers' ridiculous notion that "Spauldings BAD, Coopers GOOD" - and I knew that the show was never going to get better.

ICAM, @Vee!

 

Don't forget his guest-shot as the amnesiac bio-terrorist on "Walker, Texas Ranger," lol!

Edited December 30, 2023 by Khan