Saying Good-Bye to Old Friends

It has been well over a year now since Guiding Light aired its final episode on September 18, 2009, but many are still feeling a sense of loss.

Ever since the cancellation was announced many held out hope that the show would some how be saved, but that did not happen.  A year later CBS and Proctor and Gamble also brought As the World Turns to its close as Proctor & Gamble made it clear it was getting out of the soap opera business after over 70 years.

Even into late December of 2010 there were those individuals out there who still tried to hold out hope that some how someone out there would get the rigths to GL and bring it back, but it is pretty clear that is not going to happen.

On January 1, 2011 PGP/Telenext cut its remaining ties to GL and its fans by closing down the Official GL Facebook page that had thousands of members and continued to grow long after the final episode aired. Sadly it also became host to rumors of the show being saved, and in some cases getting some people's hopes for its return ....something I saw as cruel and uncalled for.

Someone there kept citing Tweets posted by a "television executive" and telling posters that the references were in regards to GL, but that was not accurate to say the least. If this poster would have bothered to read what this individual originally said when he claimed to be trying to buy the rights to GL she would have known that what this executive actually wanted to do was buy the rites so he could use the name to try and muster viewership for a show of his own ....in his own words, he was going to focus on a specific family, but recast the entire show. That being said, I am glad that PGP/Telenext refused to sell the rights, because GL and GL fans deserved a lot better than a bastardized version of the show they held so dear. I find it difficult to believe that the die hard GL fans would tune into any version of GL that no longer contained the characters we knew and loved for 72 years...A Guiding Light without Kim Zimmer as "Reva Shayne" would be like ...a car with no wheels!