Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Roger was already gone, but I do think Alan should have had more fallout beyond marriage woes. I suppose you could say he suffered by losing the company to Amanda for a brief spell.

[DRW50]

@P.J. to mention your brief comment about Anna Stuart...I do love Anna Stuart's work as Donna, and what I've seen of her as Vanessa is OK too, but one thing with her in those heiress parts is she often plays into the humiliation and weakness of the character. And in Marland's tenure Vanessa was often humiliated. Maeve could be campy and silly too in that period, but she played against some of the degradation - you could see Vanessa essentially chewing her cheek and pondering her next move.

[P.J.]

Point taken. 

Or Andy--who had literally just been sent to jail in spite of being scum. Then again, Carrie walked away from two dead people and married her attorney. 

I've been watching early '82, and it made my head spin how quickly this all goes down. If SM had been around then, God knows what the reaction would have been. Jane Elliot or no Jane Elliot. 

[VelekaCarruthers]

Doug Marland made his mark on each show he head wrote but he only had a lengthy tenure on ATWT during his second run until his death.  IMO his best work was on The Doctors but he dumped the show for GH; then had a falling out with Monty and left less than two years into that historic run. Same on GL. And he lasted on Loving 2 years and was scrubbed from created by credits. I guess Nixon was boss!  Marland needed a lot of control over his material and wouldn't bend to the will of whichever EP he was reporting to.  I think Calhoun and Caso let him have tons of control, but his latter ATWT years were messy and unwieldy with too many characters and scenes with groups. 

[P.J.]

I know it's unfair to rag on AS, as her tenure was so brief, and not all of it's online. I think what annoys me is that her Vanessa seems so flighty---almost to the point of air-headedness. Yes, Maeve plays up the man-hungry socialite to the hilt, but there was also a shrewd business woman in there too. I'm not getting that from AS.

Yeah, '82 is not a good year for Vanessa, in terms of humiliation. But then again, she is a pot-stirring bitch in heels, which was probably fun to play.

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, if Anna were to enter in here, now, in the persona she played on AMC, Mary Smythe, she would very politely chew you up & spit you out, etc. So, one thing we know about Anna Stuart it's that the lady has range. If someone at GL had indicated to her that they wanted something else, she'd have given them another take. 

[P.J.]

I guess I didn't realize he had written on The Doctors. I know he some pushback for his plotting (some of which do go on too long), but I loved his ATWT and his ability to juggle story for 35-40 characters almost effortlessly. 

His GL to me doesn't seem to be as intricately plotted as ATWT. Whether that's about his level of control or the brevity of time, I couldn't guess.

[P.J.]

A) I'm sure they would have. But b ) I don't tend to change my mind about actors once I've seen them. Again, in fairness to her, it's got to be a hard assignment to step into a role at a heavy point in story with a co-star who's also new to his role (Peter Simon).

I should be grateful...if they had liked AS more, they might've replaced Maeve.

[Contessa Donatella]

I was always puzzled by P&G having the Dobsons switch places with him. 

[P.J.]

Were they that worried about ATWT's looking terribly stodgy in the wake of Y&R/GH's youth movement?

[Khan]

That's okay, @P.J..  I like to pretend he never wrote for that show myself.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Khan

[Mitch64]

Yes...they had "contemporized" GL and PG wanted to do the same with ATWT. ATWT was always their number 1 show and their top priority and they needed to do something fast. The problem was, the Dobson's were a bad fit for ATWT and they didn't want to do it...and it showed. 

[P.J.]

So, Doug Marland wrote Roger's death in Santo Domingo?

Am I misremembering---I thought I once read an interview with Doug Marland where he was given the choice between ATWT and GL, and he chose GL because it was in better shape. 

 

[kalbir]

I believe Roger's fall off the cliff in Santo Domingo was Douglas Marland first major storyline at GL.

[Paul Raven]

This has been discussed before but Marland's 13 week stint at ATWT seemed very  much a 'caretaker' position. 

He did not make any major changes, merely continued the stories in place. No formal announcement was made at the time oh is appointment as headwriter.

However, when the Dobsons moved to ATWT and Marland took over GL there were announcements and in both cases a shift in storylines and character was apparent from the get go.

So it seems like for whatever reason ATWT needed someone to fill in. Maybe Marland had already been signed for GL and there was some backstage stuff that had to be worked out, so took the temp ATWT stint.It has never really been resolved.

The Dobsons had left GL in far better shape than what they inherited at ATWT.