Oh, they did a LOT to change Beth from here going forward.
As @P.J. mentioned, Beth was an shy teen who had been abused by her stepfather. She was never a schemer, not even in a mild way. She was THE heroine on GL during her first turn on the show. She was practically the Queen of Sincerity.
Judi Evans' Beth was SO different from Beth Chamberlain's, mostly because of the writing. Beth was practically like a goddess to Phillip. She was so friggin' perfect, it could be off-putting. Almost every man she knew fell in love with her. Alan hated her for no reason other than Phillip was so crazy for her it was a threat to him because that undermined his control of Phillip.
What's happening now during your GL watch is MILD compared to what's coming up for Beth. They always had the excuse of the trauma she went through when she was younger, even though she seemed to weather that fairly well at the time--of course, you never get over something like that, but she did seem to be able to cope. But there's also when she lost her memory (when she was supposed to be dead). She was so traumatized she couldn't talk, and she was with this creepy guy Neil, and who knows what their relationship was really like.
(They went back and forth so much with Neil's character that the actor complained about it in interviews).
Anyhoo, she and Phillip eventually got their happy ending, Grant and Beth left the show for a time. When they came back, even though it was still Beth Chamberlain, the character was different. She became SO neurotic. Would it be believable that she got involved with an abusive man? I mean, maybe, because a lot of abusive men hide that part of themselves at first.
But Beth was stronger in the past, and much smarter when it came to men. She didn't put up with being manipulated--she literally brought Jackson down when she realized he was trying to manipulate her. This version of Beth became a lot weaker and a lot more susceptible to manipulative men like Carl and Alan.
Don't get me wrong--I didn't love the original Beth, but I wish they had kept more of the strength and intelligence Beth had instead of making her this weak dishrag.
It's just one of the oddest character changes I can remember from a soap. She went from being the ideal heroine to almost a villain at times. Very bizarre.
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DeeVee ·
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