http://carolynhinsey.tainteddreamstheseries.com/2013/08/22/tainted-dreams-is-guiding-light-coming-back/

http://carolynhinsey.tainteddreamstheseries.com/2013/08/22/tainted-dreams-is-guiding-light-coming-back/

I believe it. She is the one who said AMC/OLTL were coming back a few months before anything happened the second time. I think it was October when she said there will be news soon. Also, Robert Newman said a long while back on Facebook that GL might be back if AMC/OLTL are succesful!

“Oddly enough, Paul was working on getting the show back on the air before he died,” reveals Aleksander. “He had gotten pretty far with that, he was talking to big network executives. P&G was interested. When you look at what’s going on in Stamford right now [where AMC and OLTL have been filming], I don’t think P&G will just sit on a creative property if there’s a profit to be made.”

I wouldn't have wanted Paul Rauch involved in that. He created the GL I knew and ignored from most of my childhood and adolescence - the shrill, garish show done up in pastels and neon with trashy, loud or just plain embarrassed people.

I also don't believe P&G was really interested. P&G have been sitting on their soap properties for years. They don't want to use them, and they don't want anyone else to touch them. I'd love to believe it, but it goes against their long-standing corporate philosophy.

I'm hoping that if AMC and OLTL become syndication mainstays, P&G will finally reconsider. I think GL could fit very well in that same TOLN line-up, frankly.

Edited August 23, 201312 yr by Vee

The longer they wait, the more likely the show will be GL in name only. Of course that could be said for the show when it was on CBS for its last twenty years. GL needs to look and feel absolutely nothing like it did under EW. It would be DOA.

Was Rauch JFP's immediate successor? I'm trying to remember who was EP when I was into the show (mid '90s). I was in college and missed most of Rauch's run. Tuned in a couple of times to check out Joan Collins.

And shoutout from Maryland, Grant.

GL can take all the distance from its last few years as it needs. That show needs exactly the same kind of hard reboot and revamp AMC got. It could do the same kind of business with the same kind of clean slate - I won't rehash my thoughts on cast and characters from a thread some months ago, but I think Michelle Bauer and her kids could easily anchor it (even getting Rachel Miner back, if they reach for the stars a la Corbin Bleu).

Personally, I don't see the point in bringing GL or even ATWT back, even though those are soaps I liked more than AMC and OLTL growing up. At this point I think we have a good number of soaps and I'd be happy if no other soaps were brought back. However, if they were to bring something back, I feel it needs to be different. I'd look at rebooting Dark Shadows or even Passions as a daytime soap. If they do bring GL or ATWT back, why not do a remake? Doing a reboot of a soap is incredibly difficult, but a remake offers so much opportunity to truly innovate and not be boggled down in so much history. But yeah, my top choices would be a reboot of Edge, Passions or Dark Shadows. Basically anything that offers something unique and different. Otherwise, we have enough traditional soaps.

I'd love to see Edge back. But I think there's room in the world for both EON and GL.

Phelps left Guiding Light in mid-1995 and was replaced by Michael Laibson. Laibson was gone by late 1996 and replaced by Paul Rauch. Then came John Conboy and finally Ellen Wheeler.

The longer they wait, the more likely the show will be GL in name only. Of course that could be said for the show when it was on CBS for its last twenty years. GL needs to look and feel absolutely nothing like it did under EW. It would be DOA.

Was Rauch JFP's immediate successor? I'm trying to remember who was EP when I was into the show (mid '90s). I was in college and missed most of Rauch's run. Tuned in a couple of times to check out Joan Collins.

And shoutout from Maryland, Grant.

Granted, I wouldn't have wanted Paul Rauch involved at all, but I appreciate hearing about the fact that he was supposedly trying to save the show. I appreciate there is effort involved. Next to DAYS, I've always considered GL my second soap (even though AMC is pretty much right in there) so if anything were to happen I'd be thrilled but it would need to happen in the next year or two, IMO. They need to capture the momentum going.

I won't lie that I'd love a AMC reboot for GL. It can be done, IMO, there are SO many options for GL to base the show around. Nola's got kids. Vanessa. Michelle. Good recasts of Shayne/Marah. Oh man, I'm starting ...

Unfortunately, I will believe this one when I see it. I need more "movement" here before I can even consider thinking of even the possibility of GL coming back.

And I know most will be quick to say P&G isn't interested but we'd be dumb to think that there wasn't at least SOME interest. Especially now. I trust him when he says there was an effort made. Maybe it wasn't genuine on P&G, who knows, but I'm happy at least something was being tried (even though I had heard about Grant/Crystal trying to save it), and Paul, say what you will, he wasn't someone to sneeze at in the business (longevity) and frankly, I could see the honchos at CBS liking Paul and listening to him.

I need a lot more info though.

Edited August 23, 201312 yr by KMan101

I don't believe it either, but if any soap can be remade, it's GL. No other soap went through as many revamps and survived as many huge upheavals as GL. You go all the way back to the Truman era, they were completely rewriting the face of their show, the town, everything.

The central concept of GL is eternal, and there are still enough actors to bring back to help revive it, while mostly focusing on new faces.

All you really need to do is bring in people like Trudy Bauer and her family, have Rick and Mindy pop in sometimes - have Rick's daughter Leah as a young central heroine. Have Philip and Beth (or Philip on his own), with some focus on their son James, maybe Beth and Alan's daughter Peyton. I would have Billy and Vanessa adopting an unruly but loving teenage girl who reminds Vanessa of Dinah.

I know this won't happen, I know the show won't come back, but it is there, forever, if P&G gave a !@#$%^&*].

If there is any life on this planet in a hundred years, GL could still be revived. It is the beginning and the end. Always will be.

And shoutout from Maryland, Grant.

Maryland what what! Sure, he's from Baltimore, but you can't have everything.

Sigh, Grant Aleksander is one of my biggest soap crushes ever, right up there with James DePaiva .

My God, the two of them onscreen together? I can't even deal right now.

Edited August 23, 201312 yr by MissLlanviewPA

I'd have Leah and Phillip and Beth and at least a couple of his/their kids, but I'd centralize the show more around the newly-single (and widowed) Michelle and her teenaged kids sharing the family house (somewhat fractiously) with Ed and Holly, who had counted on being semi-retired and having the homestead to themselves at this point. That is a classic teen drama setup in primetime which works very well here. I'd also have Nola running an establishment and some of her kids on the show, as well as probably Bridget's son, and Blake and Ross's twins. But I've been over all this before.

And you can't do it without Josh and Reva in some way, still having embarrassing sex and good times at age whatever. Kim Zimmer has earned that by singlehandedly carrying the last years of that show in the mold of a middle-aged/senior British soap heroine, and Robert Newman is always fantastic (though I wish he was on OLTL right now instead of Ron Raines).

Edited August 23, 201312 yr by Vee

Glad to hear P&G was entertaining the idea. Provides us with some hope. . . But I doubt P&G will ever act on it. I just want (if all) my shows (ATWT, GL, AW) back. There is still so much to do with all of them.

How convenient:

Nelson Branco ‏@nelliebranco2m

Yep, I can confirm Paul Rauch was trying to reboot GUIDING LIGHT. He called me about it several times. I was sworn to secrecy.

Honestly, I have to say that the AMC/OLTL reboots have worked out far, far better than I ever thought they stood a chance of working out.

I would be willing to trust my first and forever favorite soap in the hands of PP and I think there are more than enough former cast members who move around in the same circles or are in touch with those who are already blazing the trail with AMC/OLTL and have an understanding of just how great those productions are. I really think GL could succeed, even after four years.

How convenient:

Nelson Branco ‏@nelliebranco2m

Yep, I can confirm Paul Rauch was trying to reboot GUIDING LIGHT. He called me about it several times. I was sworn to secrecy.

LOL, is there anything that guy won't do for attention?