Realize I was only a regular viewer from the 1970's onward. Someone needs to fix this cast list thing though, because like losing Hoss was to Bonanza, it was only a matter of time after Michael Zaslow was unceremoniously booted from the show after he began to show symptoms of ALS, that this show would fade into the sunset. Zaslow played Roger Thorpe, the guy you loved to hate, from the early seventies (he's what got me watching) until 1980, and then again 1989-1997.
The writers, trying to capitalize on a headline in late 1978, wrote themselves into a corner by having Roger commit a particularly heinous act against a beloved member of the cast, Holly, in March 1979. He couldn't just hang around town after that. Then, in a move so typical of soaps, after having you watch him fall off a very high cliff in April 1980, with several severe bumps with said cliff along the way and into the sea, the writers resurrect him in 1989 saying somehow he survived and has been palling around with the CIA all of these years! He'd have a better chance of growing a third arm!
Zaslow's Thorpe was a bit more complex character when he returned in 1989, but he was still up to no good. After he left, the show really only had Reva and Josh as the center of the action, and there are only so many times you can watch this couple divorce and remarry before you begin sympathizing with all of Josh and Reva's rebound spouses as they get promised the moon, gradually become ignored as the Reva/Josh romance rekindles, and then get blamed for being bitter after they are dumped. The last straw for me - cousin love in the form of Reva's son and her half-sister's daughter. Eeeeewww! I actually have cousins and this was just too much.
All in all, among soaps I'd still give it a seven. If you ever find the specialty VHS tape about Roger Thorpe that Guiding Light put out in 1994 -"Roger Thorpe: The Scandal Years" - give it a look. I think that you'll see the charisma and complexity of the character that got so many of us hooked forty odd years ago.
The writers, trying to capitalize on a headline in late 1978, wrote themselves into a corner by having Roger commit a particularly heinous act against a beloved member of the cast, Holly, in March 1979. He couldn't just hang around town after that. Then, in a move so typical of soaps, after having you watch him fall off a very high cliff in April 1980, with several severe bumps with said cliff along the way and into the sea, the writers resurrect him in 1989 saying somehow he survived and has been palling around with the CIA all of these years! He'd have a better chance of growing a third arm!
Zaslow's Thorpe was a bit more complex character when he returned in 1989, but he was still up to no good. After he left, the show really only had Reva and Josh as the center of the action, and there are only so many times you can watch this couple divorce and remarry before you begin sympathizing with all of Josh and Reva's rebound spouses as they get promised the moon, gradually become ignored as the Reva/Josh romance rekindles, and then get blamed for being bitter after they are dumped. The last straw for me - cousin love in the form of Reva's son and her half-sister's daughter. Eeeeewww! I actually have cousins and this was just too much.
All in all, among soaps I'd still give it a seven. If you ever find the specialty VHS tape about Roger Thorpe that Guiding Light put out in 1994 -"Roger Thorpe: The Scandal Years" - give it a look. I think that you'll see the charisma and complexity of the character that got so many of us hooked forty odd years ago.