Okay, so last week I got all my frustrations out and I must say, it felt good. Whew! So now, enough with the grousing, the reservations, the nagging dangling threads, let's get positive. No more nitpicking, all praising, beginning now.
Better then any individual story on Guiding Light is the change in the show's atmosphere. This is something a lot of shows have lost, even new Emmy powerhouse ATWT. While most shows when they began were about family, the eighties brought the adventure era and very few soaps survived it. ATWT and GL did, only to go through a period of delayed puberty if you will in the mid 90s. Wacky storylines, silly characters, and people trying to recreate the magic Days and ABC soaps had in the 80s, destroyed the atmosphere of the sister soaps. The familial element is crucial to a good soap and after awhile even with good writing, if a soap doesn't have that, the fans will feel it. Well, GL has regained theirs. The hearth, the home, the family unit, they are slowly but surely beginning to re-surge. Every story on GL right now has friends and family acutely involved. From the coldhearted Olivia's quiet reaction to news of Richard's pain and suffering to Tony confronting Maria feeling betrayed. Stories are about the human spirit and character emotion again. The stories don't have to be your favorite, these layers of emotion makes it impossible not to watch, you might miss something very important because the stories are now rooted in the people who are your favorites.
It is this change in atmosphere that has drastically changed the direction of storytelling. Instead of reaching for the cheese, Lucky and Millee are now grabbing at the heart through familiar characters we have known and loved. Take for example a scene between two long absent characters, Ed and Vanessa. Ed had just returned after being gone from Springfield for years and had barely talked with his children for various reasons. Ed had made Rick's wedding at the nick of time but was now faced with dealing with Rick's impending death, his daughter's life as a wife and mother, and a home that seemed foreign. Vanessa had come back to see Josh and Reva marry, again. Vanessa reached out to Ed and the show treated us to scenes where Vanessa and Ed simply talked about the changes in his life and where it would go from here on out and how it would effect his sobriety. It didn't move a single storyline, it wasn't necessary, but it fleshed out a newly returned favorite character with someone most viewers know well.
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