Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Soaplovers]

@Khan I didnt think Marland was horrible at GL...just that I didnt think he was a good fit for the show.

ATWT seemed cold/reserved...like you were at a country club or in a bar in New England.  They allow you in, but only to observe and not join their clique.

GL seemed more like a Bar in Chicago or in Texas.  Warm, fun, and maybe a bit messy...but very welcoming.

Marland seemed able to mimic the energy/pace of those he replaced for the first year or so especially in the plotlines he inherited...but his plotlines were either too complicated or too analytical without any heart.

The Reardons had more warmth and energy when Pam Long wrote them vs when Marland wrote them.

 

[Mitch64]

Ha..the bars are a good analogy....I think that is why I always stuck with GL even during more tedious times...it was warm and energetic and messy (at its best.) Something that made Marland...Marland was that he made the Reardon's an Irish Blue Collar family..protestant...(Bea talks about having Minister something or other marry Nola and Floyd....) .but Long made them Catholic. I do agree that Long was great at writing the Reardons..that is why I don't understand the abrupt abondoment of them in 84/85.

I also agree that Marland improves what he inherits, but then its back to cold analytical time...I thought it first year on ATWT was his best...it still had some of the campy messiness of the show he inherited but he put polish, and structure to it, while going back to the core. 

[Broderick]

I'm crazy about Marland, but his primary weakness is definitely all that awkward exposition.  lol.  And he brings it upon himself; it's a self-inflicted wound he could easily avoid. 

In the latest episode posted, check out the scene at 44:50.  What theoretically should be a two-person scene showcasing the anxiety and fear of the two oldsters (Adam & Barbara), culminating in their horror when Holly drops the phone, is shot to hell by Marland's trope of "herd mentality" and "over-exposition".  

Marland brings Bert and Kelly into the scene simply to provide exposition.  It could be handled entirely by Adam.  ("Adam, I thought I heard the phone."  "Yes, that was Bert.  She wanted us to know Mike and Ed caught an early morning flight to the Dominican Republic.")  The director is forced to shoot 4 characters in a two-character scene, which results in poor Bert having to sit in that chair that matches her outfit and also matches the bricks just beyond the chair.  Kelly practically has to sit in Bert's lap.  And then the exposition becomes so clunky, Charita and Bob Milli understandably get tangled up in it and are left standing there flailing their arms and trying to get it back on track.  "So Mike talked to Rita?"  "Yes, Rita told Michael ..."  "What did Rita say?"  In my opinion, every bit of that dialogue could've been handled by Barbara and Adam, in a slower, more realistic manner while they wondered if Mike and Ed had arrived yet, and whether they should call Holly to check on her.  

[DRW50]

I think he created some good characters and helped to tailor the show into a new era, while dealing with the changes P&G mandated. I also think that so many of his available episodes being washed out in print quality doesn't help my enjoyment because this adds to a lifeless atmosphere. (some of the Dobsons-era episodes are too but more are available in higher quality).

I really do love a lot of his work on ATWT, even if I am critical of some elements, so I was surprised at how much I generally don't gel with his GL run - what I have seen of it, anyway. 

I think there's just a very stilted nature to most of the canvas, even when on paper the show was moving toward a much younger, more vibrant atmosphere. 

The major contrast between the show's scheming characters (who are often one-note, hissable, and aggressive) and the "good" characters (often incredibly bland, passive) is also striking to me. Some of that is on the cast, but not entirely, because I think some of the same cast who come across as dreary in this time frame had more life before and after (if they weren't fired soon after). There are attempts at more complicated figures, like Tony, but unfortunately, I just don't find him appealing, even if most of the women his age in Springfield did, and any time he starts thrown another tantrum I just want to see somebody kick his ass. (maybe Sara's son Tim could finally put all that offscreen karate training to use)

The example that says with me most may be the whole Amanda/Morgan/Jennifer setup. You have a woman who has been broken free of years of repression, leaving a marriage, and is now running a major company, the long-lost mother who spent years toiling and is now happily reunited with her daughter, in a high-powered job, seeing a younger, handsome man, and her other daughter, who is living out a Barbie dream life (married to a Ken doll, working as a model)...and they are all wet blankets. 

That isn't entirely Marland's fault - Kristen Vigard brought so much more presence to the role of Morgan, and whoever replaced her with Jennifer Cooke (possibly one of the all-time blandest heroines on GL) sapped his writing of some of the complexity Vigard found. And he also inherited a show where a number of vibrant actresses who played heroines/anti-heroines to a tee were leaving (Cindy Pickett, Maureen Garrett, Lenore Kasdorf). If he had stayed longer, then more layered female characters brought in by him, like Maureen, might have had a chance to shine.

Still, I don't mean to ruin anyone's enjoyment of that era, and at least I guess through certain moments we can say he was the closest we got to John Waters penning a soap:

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[Paul Raven]

The other matter to consider  is that Marland had actor guarantees to fill and put Charita into the scene to take care of that. That set was available etc. 

But of course the dialogue could have  been handled better.

[Broderick]

Oh yeah, the guarantees are important, but it often seems we catch Marland shoehorning people into scenes and creating unnecessary "clutter", which tends to zap the emotion out of the scene.

Kelly was obviously Marland's "pet" -- the preppy little innocent virgin, junior chamber of commerce, goal-oriented young leading man who needed to stray into the main storyline to demonstrate that his heart was in the right place.  And Charita got the thankless job of regurgitating exactly what Rita had told Mike on the phone, along with reciting all the details of exactly when the flight left Springfield (6:30 a.m.!!) and when it should land in Santa Domingo (in approximately 30 minutes!!) 

In doing all that exposition, Marland deprived Barbara and Adam of a tender and suspenseful scene in which they could've elaborated their anxieties about Roger and Holly, questioned their own parenting skills, and then ultimately been relieved when Holly answered and horrified when Holly dropped the phone, with them hundreds of miles away and unable to help. 

That's what makes Marland's work a little bit "cold" in my opinion -- he hits all the beats, but he sometimes accomplishes it in such awkward fashion that the emotion of the moment is lost in the exposition.      

[Mitch64]

Oh..that was..pretty bad!!! Who was trying to kill boring Eve? Van was jumping on hot..but obviously gay Ben...glam Van was desperate and jealous of wet rag Eve?Shouldn't Ben be home protecting his wife? 

I like what you say, Jennifer and Amanda are really wet rags themselves...I know people on here like Cullen as Amanda, but I lurve Poser's A..even if it made no sense that she was deaged at least  a decade and her Malibu Madame thing was really bad. I can see Amanda moving to Cali and really letting her repression go...and becoming Vixen Amanda...(kinda like closeted guys who BURST out of the closet...) 

[DRW50]

Marland really used Vanessa as a prime plot device, which could be a lot of fun, but gets confusing. She was with Ed, she was with Ross (I think that's who she wanted here, although she DID have designs on Ben when she first got to town, IIRC), she was with Tony, I think she might have been with the PI Joe Bradley, she was with Mark or whatever his other name was, she was interested in Quint...all in about two years!

Jennifer's flaming brother Chet was stalking Eve.

I like Kathleen Cullen but I don't think we ever got to see her play the harder edge of Amanda that they should have given her (maybe that is in the missing 82/83 episodes as I remember a few glimpses - I get the sense by the time that started she was fired).

I also liked Toby Poser - I saw her before I ever saw Kathleen. She did a lot with some very silly and at times insulting material (I remember Liz Keifer saying she felt guilty for some of the comments she had to make about Amanda's appearance). She was starting to blossom into a more nuanced character when Rauch dumped her. I do wonder if things might have been different if not for Michael Zaslow's illness, but I think she would have gone anyway.

Edited January 2, 2024 by DRW50

[Soaplovers]

Didn't Adam and Barbara divorce because of Roger?  There could have been more subtext and tension between them because of their failed marriage..and I assume he was already dating Sara at that time.

I remember Denise Pence in one of her videos about GL stated that the Debson's had an outline of plot and plot points...but let the script writers decide how to implement them vs Marland...who didn't seem to do that.

@DRW50the reason the Kelly/Nola/Kelly story worked was because of what Kristen V and Lisa Brown put into their characters.

Also, seeing the March 1980 episodes...I liked this Nola.  Confident and smart...and she had chemistry with Mark Arnold. 

Edited January 3, 2024 by Soaplovers

[Contessa Donatella]

Do we know when Douglas Marland decided that Lisa Brown was his muse? 

[Broderick]

Yes, and somewhere buried in all this exposition, Barbara thanks Adam for "coming over and sleeping in the guest room", so we won't erroneously assume he slept in her bed during that 5-hour period between Mike's discovery of the listening device (at 1:30 a.m.!!) and the flight to the Dominican Republic (at 6:30 a.m.!!) which was overseen by Bert & Kelly (so Adam could get some rest!!) but only after Mike's early morning call to Rita (who revealed Roger had a listening device at Indian Lake!!!  And she knows that because she heard Ed's voice!!!  But then there was so much static she decided she'd imagined it!!)

(I feel Douglas Marland got a bit too caught up in examining everyone's step-by-step itineraries for the evening to mine the emotion from the scenes.) 

P.S. This storyline seems like yesterday to me.  I missed a dentist appointment because of it.  My mother was supposed to pick me up early from school for a check-up, but I missed the appointment entirely because she was glued to the TV watching the climax of this storyline, lol.  When she finally picked me up at school, I had to listen to exactly what befell Roger in the Dominican Republic.)    

Edited January 3, 2024 by Broderick

[DRW50]

This was my favorite part. I do appreciate Marland making sure viewers did not think Rita kept quiet about Roger's bugging devices, although my guess is some grandma in Topeka was still muttering, "That evil whore Rita."

I think Pence also said she preferred the comedy. Pence was a good actress but I do tend to agree that she was better in the lighter material. 

On the one hand, it kind of made sense for Katie to have the abuse story with Andy, because she was such an isolated character, but given Hillary's history of already loving an abusive man, I wonder if it might have made even more sense for her.

I wish more had been done with Andy. The optics of Barbara having a son who was so much like Roger are absolutely brutal, and could have produced a lot of exploration for her. Unfortunately, she was packed off, and Andy, unlike Roger, seems so one-note.

Edited January 3, 2024 by DRW50

[GL Oldtimer]

@SamandWillowFan, I always thought that Holly was supposed to be between 45 and 47 when she became pregnant with Fletcher's baby. Does that make sense to others on this board?

These old episodes that have recently been posted here are just awesome to see!

Annette

[DRW50]

That sounds about right.

[Paul Raven]

Re Mark Arnold as Buck... first of all -why that name?

Was he planned as a short term character? 

For a character like that did Betty Rea's assistant make the decision-how thorough was the casting process ?

So Arnold is cast-was there talk of expanding the role or was it put down to a missed opportunity and then he was suggested for EON.