It shouldn’t surprise anyone that our favorite fan forum Big Purple Dreams reached another milestone over the weekend. As of yesterday, Big Purple Dreams reached 4000 members! That’s 4000 members in five months for a television show that has been canceled. Hey Lifetime, you might wanna keep an eye on this one, 4000 members in five months…just think what they could do in a year! The members of this fan forum are going exponentially rivaling any other fan forum in daytime or primetime for that matter so congratulations to BPD, Guiding Light and Otalia!
While the U.S. population make up a majority of those very fans, there is an impressive international following as well that most definitely needs to be acknowledge and praised. Guiding Light is being followed in at least 28 countries other than the United States from countries such as Australia, Bosnia, and Finland to Israel, Peru, and Wales. Keep in mind, these countries don’t receive a live feed the way U.S. audiences do. They aren’t even able to watch online from the CBS.com website the way U.S. viewers do either. To say the international following is dedicated is an understatement. Really, how many shows would you go out of your way to find that don’t show up in On Demand or cable reruns or download from iTunes? The international Guiding Light fans have none of that and yet they show up each and everyday to watch the show. They have also started their own international campaign to save Guiding Light with phone calls, emails, postcards and letter writing to join their U.S. family in the fight to save a show they love. I was lucky enough to sit down with several members of Team International over Skype (gotta love technology) to discus how they actually watch the show, differences in culture and how the international audience has a strong voice.
Calling all Crystal Chappell and Otalia fans! Come one, come all, today is a day you have all been waiting for. What day is that Tiffany? Well I’ll tell you dear friends. Crystal Chappell Podcast Day! That’s right folks, your favorite Guiding Light Goddess will be a guest on a very special edition of The Big Purple Podcast, the official Big Purple Dreams fan forum podcast, today May 7, 2009. BPD’s fearless leader and sexy voice Goddess herself, Destini, will be hosting the podcast this afternoon and assures me that it will be posted to The Big Purple Podcast site this evening.
When I talked to Destini last night I asked her what she hoped to get out of the podcast and she told me “I’m very excited to have this opportunity to chat one-on-one with the original Goddess herself, Ms. Crystal Chappell. It’s something the fans over at BPD and I have are looking forward to. My only concern is that I fear Crystal may try to kill me dead.”
Well there you have it folks! Be prepared to lose your minds when Destini (sexy voice #1) and Crystal Chappell (sexy voice #2) go head-to-head today May 7, 2009 and please don’t forget to be on the look out tonight for The Goddess Edition of The Big Purple Podcast. Let’s hope that Destini survives being Chappelled!
“I am here to solemnize the wedding of Frank Cooper and Natalia Rivera.” Wow, solemnize…that’s what every girl dreams of when she thinks about how her wedding day will be described. What a sexy word!! Mayor Doris Wolfe, played brilliantly by the fabulous Orlagh Cassidy, ends up offering to officiate the wedding and does so with style. Hey Orlagh, call me, we’ll do lunch…I’ll wear a hat! Doris is my star for the majority of this episode. I would imagine she feels that she can throw the odds in her new friend Olivia’s favor by oh, I don’t know, speaking of the virtues of marriage and how it is not to be taken lightly or rushed into lightly. Doris gives the “is there any reason you shouldn’t be married” schpeal to Frank and Natalia when suddenly Olivia bursts out with a “NO…body objects right?” causing a laugh throughout the church and further tormenting me. Crystal Chappell may be a Goddess but she’s pushing me right up to the edge of insanity too. I’m jittery and starting to talk to myself, it isn’t pretty.
Doris continues her rant about the sanctity of marriage and how love is never doing what’s expected (watch out Frank…anvil dropping), it endures all, it shouldn’t be entered into thoughtlessly or out of a sense of convenience (oops, another anvil). She’s peppering her every word with enough not so subtle messages trying to shine a guiding light (sorry, I couldn’t resist) over Natalia to lead her out of this deep fog she seems to be lost in. Doris is my hero today. She even fakes a phone call that forces her to stop the wedding! I’m impressed by what an incredible friend she is trying to be to Olivia by attempting to help her do what she refuses to herself…stop Natalia from making the biggest mistake of her life by marring a man she doesn’t love.
Tuesday my heart was torn from my chest and tossed into the wood chipper by Crystal Chappell’s performance of Olivia Spencer’s tormented confession of her undying love for Natalia. Today I am unsuccessfully trying to recover from Wednesday’s episode, which picked up right where we left off Tuesday with Olivia and Natalia in the cemetery. Olivia once again professes her deep undying love for Natalia.
At this point Olivia is determined to finally speak the truth, finally say what has tormented and consumed her for so long. She realizes that once she verbalizes what she truly feels that she can never take it back, something that Natalia tries to remind her of and something Olivia is painfully aware of but needs to say it because this could be her last chance to, in her words, “set the record straight.” She’s not sure exactly when things changed but they most certainly did. They started out as rivals, became friends, hell, Natalia gave Olivia her dead husband’s heart! Somewhere between roommates and best friends they turned into a family. Natalia is Emma’s (Olivia’s daughter) other mommy. She and Olivia know each other so well they finish each other’s sentences. They love each other and in that moment you undoubtedly know it, you feel it, you believe it.
I realize that is a bold statement to make and an even bolder headline to lead off with but when it’s the most accurate way to describe one of the finest actresses in television today I say go big or go home. But maybe that’s just me.
If you’ve been following the current Guiding Light storyline with Crystal Chappell (Olivia Spencer) and Jessica Leccia (Natalia Rivera) as Otalia, then you are well aware that yesterday’s episode and what transpired. It was the beginning of the heartbreaking admission of love, from Olivia actually TO Natalia; we have all been waiting so patiently for. Natalia and Frank have hastily moved the wedding up because Rafe was released early for good behavior but only for a week before he heads to a halfway house to finish out his time. So Olivia steps in and within a few hours throws together a wedding and begins to move out of the farmhouse (aka the Farmhouse of Love).
It’s not until towards the end of the episode that things begin to really heat up and where my bold yet accurate headline comes into play. We cut to Olivia (Chappell) at the cemetery near the church placing long stem red roses at the base of Gus’s headstone. She’s trying to tell him about how his gift of a heart was actually a gift of life, a family and a great love…Natalia’s love. She blames him for giving her this great love because now she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s going to stand next to Natalia and watch her marry someone else, losing her forever. Olivia comes to the realization that she has learned to truly love someone unselfishly. While confessing her feelings to Gus, Natalia shows up to make peace with Gus so she can move on and start a new life. She see’s Olivia and after a few minutes of the two of them discussing how it is the right thing to move on and how each of them are about to embark on a new life, Olivia begins to break down. She can no longer contain her overwhelming emotions. Her love for Natalia over comes her and she begins to passionately cry devastating tears. Natalia pushes Olivia to tell her why she is so upset and though Olivia tries desperately to move past her feelings, her raw emotions finally over take her and she screams out in frustration “I’m in love with you!”
As most of you already know, last Wednesday Guiding Light, the longest-running scripted program in broadcasting history, was canceled. Fans of the show and quit frankly, the cast and crew were shocked and devastated by the news. The rest of last week was a difficult one that had everyone involved scrambling to make sense of the situation and wondering if there was anything that could be done to in fact save this beloved show. It is after all an American institution, an icon if you will.
Now that we’ve had a few days to snap out of our grief and start thinking clearly, we as fans can stand up and take this fight to the streets. We are determined not to go down without a fight. A show that has been part of the very fabric of our lives for 72 years isn’t going to brushed aside and put out on the curb like yesterdays trash. We’re standing up and yelling at the top of our lungs KEEP THE LIGHT ON!
Guiding Light has many passionate, loyal, loving fans ready to stand by its side and do whatever it takes to make this a successful campaign. One such fan has taken her voice and laid out her feelings in an open letter to all those in the industry who might actually have the foresight to pick up this rare jewel, brush it off and help it to shine bright once again. I hope you will read her letter and follow her lead! The only way to save Guiding Light is to be vocal.Write, call, email and let your voice be heard!
If you’re a fan of daytime television and have been following Guiding Light’s break through storyline over the past year between Olivia Spencer (Crystal Chappell) and Natalia Rivera (Jessica Leccia) affectionately know as Otalia, then you most definitely know about the fan forum Big Purple Dreams. BPD was created by a group of soap fans wanting a place of their own to gush over the burgeoning epic love story they were witnessing over at Guiding Light. First came the Otaliafan channel on YouTube then the forum and after a few months, this little engine that could is nearly two thousand members strong and growing!
Recently I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with the three podcast mavens, Mel aka the cheerleader, Christi aka flowchart and Destini aka the sexy voice that lead this band of loyal, enthusiastic, and intensely passionate soap fans. The following is what took place or at least what I was allow to print…they’re a saucy bunch and I loved every minute of it!
No Comments