Guiding Light: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light - 2000s

Guiding Light - 2000s

At the turn of the century, a large segment of the show revolved around San Cristobel, as Cassie married Richard and Richard's evil brother Edmund (David Andrew Macdonald) plotted to keep them apart (the island became a democracy with Richard as president, was then overthrown in a coup by Edmund, and finally Richard gave the monarchy to his heretofore unknown brother Alonzo (Jim Davidson). The other segment focused on the Santoses and the Mob, specifically Michelle Bauer's mobster husband Danny (Paul Anthony Stewart), his sister Pilar and cousin Tony, and his sociopathic mother, Carmen (Saundra Santiago). Much of Danny and Michelle's story was fighting against the evil Carmen, and this story repeated several times until the character of Carmen was injured during a fight with Michelle in 2002, and went into a coma. Most of the veteran characters, save Reva, had few if any storylines, and ratings went on a gentle decline. Much-acclaimed writer Claire Labine took over as headwriter in 2000, but her stories focused on character development and clashed with Rauch's plot-heavy style. Labine's team lasted barely a year amidst rumors that she was being sabotaged backstage. She was replaced briefly by Lucky Gold (who created a split personality for Beth and started the road to a romance between Harley and Labine's creation, sexist FBI agent Gus Aitoro (Ricky Paull Goldin), who would later turn out to be another of Alan Spaulding's illegitimae sons. (Many longtime fans speculated as to whether Gus' mother would turn out to be Rita Stapleton, thus resolving decades of speculation as to whether Rita was pregnant when she left the show in 1981, but the writers instead made Gus' biological mother Phillip's nanny, whom Alan had had an affair with before he arrived in Springfield.) Reva went on a time-travel misadventure, proving unpopular with viewers.

Millee Taggart took the writing reins in 2002, and Taggart's run had some critical acclaim, breaking away from the organized crime and royalty which had dominated Guiding Light over the past few years. Taggart tried to focus on more traditional storylines, including Reva pulling the plug on a critically injured Richard. During this time, Guiding Light also tried to reinvigorate the role of Alexandra Spaulding by casting Dynasty star Joan Collins in the role. Not all of Taggart's stories were a hit; she was also remembered for an unfortunate sequence in which Marah (Lindsey McKeon), reacting to a rape attempt from boyfriend Tony Santos, stripped to her underwear and taunted him to force himself on her.

In 2003, veteran producer John Conboy and Ellen Weston took charge of the show. Weston had acted on Guiding Light as a teenager, and was a writer with several prime-time movie credits as well as a brief writing stint on Capitol (TV series), but had never been a headwriter for a soap. Conboy's first move was to relegate several veteran performers to recurring status, including Maureen Garrett, Beth Chamberlin and Elizabeth Keifer. History was re-written when the characters of Billy, Josh, Ed, Alan, and Buzz were revealed to have been the cause of the death of a young girl, Maryanne Caruthers, when they were young men in 1977. The storyline was roundly criticized for its plot-holes, such as the fact that only two of the characters (Ed and Alan) were even on the show in 1977 (and they were so involved with their own respective storylines at that time, that it's unlikely they would have had the time to become involved with Maryanne Caruthers, and Alan wasn't even introduced until November 1977, the main plot of the storyline supposedly took place in October 1977); the plot wildly contradicted existing character histories. The storyline was also substantially similar to the 1983 Annabelle Sims storyline, which featured H.B. Lewis (father of Billy and Josh), Bill Bauer (father of Ed), and Brandon Spaulding (father of Alan) in a murder mystery similar to the one their sons were involved in, which was met with some backlash due to rewriting character histories. The goings-on so annoyed longtime actor Peter Simon (who played Ed Bauer for much of the 80s, left in 1996 and returned in 2002) that he quit the show and refused all offers to return. Other stories featured during the "Wescon" regime included Cassie falling in love with a "reformed" Edmund, Reva discovering her psychic abilities, and her daughter Marah fell in love with Sandy, a loner who talked to a sock puppet who was initially thought to be Reva's son and Marah's half-brother. A particularly unpopular story featured longtime character Ben Reade (Matthew Bomer), being revealed out of nowhere as a serial killer and victim of child molestation. The story culminated with Ben committing suicide. The show lost around over a half-million viewers at this time.

Conboy and Weston were in turn, fired. Ellen Wheeler of Another World fame became executive producer in the spring of 2004. Her regime addressed unresolved plots including that of the characters of Roger and Dinah (Gina Tognoni), revealed Sandy was posing as Reva's son (her real son, Jonathan played by Tom Pelphrey, was a more toxic and dangerous version of a young Reva - he deflowered his own cousin Tammy out of pure spite) and had a protracted "who killed Phillip?" mystery. Wheeler and writer David Kreizman won much critical praise, and Guiding Light was named Best Soap by many, including TV Guide. David Kreizman won the Writers Guild of America Award for best written daytime serial in 2005 and the show was the only one nominated. But the show still seemed unfocused at times, ratings continued to stagnate and in early 2005, it was revealed that Procter & Gamble had ordered Guiding Light to take a large budget cut. The actors themselves would also see a reduction in salary, and long-time stars Michael O'Leary, and Marj Dusay were taken off contract. The show also learned that it would be moving to the old As the World Turns studios on the West Side of Manhattan (as opposed to their more lavish current studio on the East Side of the city).

By 2005, the show fired some of its popular actors including Stephen Martines (Tony Santos), Doug Hutchison (Sebastian Hulce), Paul Anthony Stewart (Danny Santos), Nancy St. Alban (Michelle Bauer Santos), David Andrew Macdonald (Edmund Winslow) and longtime veteran Jerry verDorn (Ross Marler). In addition, Daniel Cosgrove (Bill Lewis III) and Laura Wright (Cassie Layne Winslow) quit the program. Both Wright and verDorn jumped into different soaps in the fall with Wright joining rival soap General Hospital and verDorn joining One Life to Live. Cosgrove was cast in a midseason prime-time series.

On November 14, 2005, Guiding Light had a show "make-over". In the new opening sequence, the first few scenes are presented in widescreen and then followed by a new opening theme song with new video clips, a new logo, and a new musical tune. Also, the show has gone into the 21st century by being heard later in the day as a podcast on ipods, with many of the actors and actresses at the end of the show urging viewers to take the "Light" with them.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "2000s", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki