Jdee43

I would love to see whatever they have of 1963-1967. It would be great to see how Matt, Maggie, Althea and Nick all started out. Here's hoping they haven't abandoned the project, and that they bring it to it's completion!!

Early Mason is such a loser. Santana and Veronica barely stand him; they only pretend to be friendly to get what they want. His father barely tolerates him, and his mother can't be bothered to give him the time of day. Hard to believe his character is going anywhere.

There was no back and forth between Bethel and Lydia. Lydia started appearing one day and that was it. Going by the airdates on the itsrealgoodtv website, Lydia's first airdate was Wednesday, May 15, 1968. Bethel's final airdate was Friday, May 10, 1968. I thought Bethel's final episode was a fitting tribute to Maggie and Matt's relationship; loving, adult, and understanding. With that in mind, what follows in June, July and August with Lydia in the role didn't make much sense to me. I can definitely see recasting Maggie as an example of taking a character in a new direction, in this case, making the character more neurotic, less stable, less confident. Perhaps the nail in Bethel's coffin was when Kathleen Murray was temporarily playing the role of Maggie from March 5, 1968 to March 19, 1968, "due to" what they said on air was "illness." I thought Murray played the role more shrill and neurotic, less stable, centered, and wise. Maybe after seeing Murray's performance, the producers decided that that's the direction they wanted to take Maggie in. Presumably Murray was acting from scripts intended for Bethel. I guess with Lydia Bruce, the producers had the best of both worlds. Lydia could play Maggie as Bethel did, strong, wise, sarcastic, confident, kind (if the producers ever gave her that material, which seemed rare in her first months). Lydia could also play Maggie as Kathleen Murray did, weak, shrill, neurotic, unstable, self-centered (which is what it seemed the producers were initially going for with her).

I think the scene you're talking about is in this clip, starting around 2:50.

Ava, Dane and Julie were all very pretty people. What Ava and Dane had, and what Julie didn't, was charisma. What Dane had, and what Ava and Julie didn't, was chemistry with everyone. They should have given Dane more of a chance, and Ava too. Charisma and chemistry can overcome bad acting, especially on a soap. Watching the first 14 weeks, it's hard to believe Mason would ever become a popular, lead character. He's given absolutely nothing to do.

I managed to watch July and August 1968, and It was tough, July more than August. I don't like the Matt/Maggie/Karen/Steve story. I miss Bethel Leslie. If Bethel was in fact let go, I could see why, as I don't see her playing this version of Maggie. Maggie has become more unlikable and has lost some of her smarts and savvy. I feel Bethel's Maggie might have figured out that two of her co-workers were having an affair, Steve and Karen. I feel she would have at least listened to Matt. Not so Lydia Bruce's Maggie. I feel sorry for Lydia Bruce, that this was the story she had to start with, with her character in such a poor state. Karen and Steve have zero chemistry. Steve has been written poorly from the beginning. From a bad doctor and questionable man, a slacking Romeo with murky motivations, he finds out Karen is pregnant and all of a sudden he wants to do the right thing; he is no longer a Romeo, and everyone is calling him a good man and good doctor? Ok. It's a 180 that was not really earned on screen. The show really misses the light John Rice character and the humor. Young janitor Jody is a poor substitute. Also, when they tried to give comedy to Steve and Karen, like when they were getting their marriage license, I cringed; that felt wrong: they are not a funny couple. I am surprised how repetitious the show is with its overall plots. Karen is going through what Althea went through 6 months before. Anna's situation is another version of the Nathan Bunker case. The show is good, but it does have its limitations. I find the limitations especially come out when I binge watch; spreading the shows out is much better.

A's a stand up guy. Dane's firing was his big break on the show; otherwise, A might never have become the lead. Didn't A try to keep in touch with Dane? A was the one who announced Dane's passing on Facebook back in 2014. It seemed like Santa Barbara always wanted to do a story of a Hispanic man and a blonde girl. In the very beginning, they kept this story in the youth set; it seemed to be the direction they were going with Danny and Jade. When they decided to go with Cruz and Eden and make this kind of story their lead one, it also meant giving the youth set and the characters of Jade and Danny the shaft. It was probably just as well as those characters were not that strong and those actors were a bit green. Overall, the youth set on early Santa Barbara was a part of the reason the show wasn't working.

A's quote: "But what happened is that it wasn't working, so they started looking for, like, a scapegoat. And they decided to blame the guy who was playing the main alpha lead guy, um, Dane. You know, to this day, I think it was a terrible mistake to blame him. He didn't deserve to be blamed for the show being, having faltered."

I like KW. She looks great! They should totally have her mixing it up with some of the actors in their 30s and 40s who are on the show. Whatever they do, they need to get her character out of domestic bliss.

Could I ask, are these full episodes online somewhere in English? I can only find them in Russian or German.

When they wrote the character of Joe Perkins out, did they just basically give his character type and stories to Cruz? It seemed like in the first few weeks, they were building Joe up to being the action/adventure character, the one who'd become the detective and investigate mysteries. I wonder how much of what they wrote for Cruz and Eden was originally intended for Kelly and Joe.

Melissa Brennan was really green on Santa Barbara. It also didn't help that her character wasn't that great. She did have a spark though, aka charisma, unlike say Julie Ronnie; so it was not surprising that she eventually became a star in soaps on another show with a better character, a character that suited her more.

If you can believe it, Santa Barbara was supposed to debut a few weeks earlier than it did, but wasn't ready yet. This gave Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour a few more weeks of shows, through June and July 1984. I thought SB's July 30, 1984 premiere wasn't bad. A lot of money was poured into it, with the remotes, the sets, and the extras. But things went south from there. You could argue that Santa Barbara still wasn't ready, after 13 weeks being on the air! Here's a link to an article from Nov 5, 1984 by Tom Shales of the Washington Post talking about how SB resorted to an earthquake, ordered by NBC, to shake things up! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/11/05/santa-barbara-shakes/c98d4919-3537-4a36-91f5-971417239fca/ Quote from the article: ...the quake was originally envisioned as a means of doing away with characters in the soap that, according to audience research, aren't particularly popular with viewers. Those who tested poorly would have pink stucco houses fall on their heads. NBC ordered the testing and the guinea-pig audiences made their choices. That's when the network got the really bad news. None of the characters tested very well. None of the characters was particularly popular with viewers. So NBC considered, at least briefly, making this such a killer of a quake that it wiped out virtually the entire cast.

I think a lot of Santa Barbara's woes are traceable to all the money that was poured into it, at its beginning and through its history. I think that's one of the main reasons for its rocky history; with all that money comes a lot of people overseeing how the money is spent. The Dobson might have been better off on a more modest show, one without such a big budget. They might have been able to retain more control and come up with more relatable stories.

It's probably best to pretend that the show ended earlier than it did, or to imagine that if it hadn't been canceled, a later regime would have corrected all the ridiculous mistakes made.

I thought the star of Santa Barbara's first few weeks was Louise Sorel. She was smoking; absolutely oozing charisma! But then in week 5, they brought on her character's husband, played by Nicolas Coster, and it seemed like she totally got neutered. It was Coster who now got all the fun stuff. I like Nicolas Coster, but boy, was he waaaaay over the top the first few weeks he was on SB. I really wish the director had told him to tone it down. But perhaps Coster was trying to compensate for the lifeless, wooden actors they cast as his children. Julie Ronnie was beautiful, but unfortunately she had nothing; no spark, no charisma; again, nothing. I liked Dane Witherspoon. It seemed he started off good, but then got worse as the weeks went on. I thought he did have enough charisma and chemistry with everyone that he deserved a chance to stay on and try to improve; it's a shame they got rid of him. Making Peter into an ex-gigolo out of no where was totally ridiculous. The same with Cruz suddenly turning out to be a secret agent. Cruz was introduced as "Joe's best friend." That's funny as that's basically his character throughout the show, everyone's best friend. (I remember watching it as a kid, back in 1988 and 1989.) In the first few weeks, I thought Cruz had chemistry with everyone, everyone except Ava Lazar as Santana unfortunately. Ava Lazar is another one they should have kept on. She had so much charisma. I thought her best chemistry was with Mason. It was a real shame they didn't pair the two right away. Instead, they wasted her character by putting her with Cruz and CC (gross!), and making her obsessed with finding her child, a totally boring story. In the mean time, Mason basically had no story at all, doing nothing these first 13 weeks, except being a joke or punching bag for the other characters. The decisions this show made were so poor right from the beginning. It's no surprise it continued to make bad decisions throughout its history.

I've been trying to watch Santa Barbara from the beginning on youtube and it's hard. After a little over a year, I'm finally through the first 13 weeks of it, through episode 65. It's so poorly written and cast. Characters change on a dime. Plots come out of nowhere and lead nowhere; there are hardly any pay-offs. And a lot of the acting is so bad. This show eventually gets better right? I was expecting much more from the Dobsons... Through 13 weeks, I don't think Santa Barbara was that much of an improvement over the show it replaced on NBC, the mediocre Match Game - Hollywood Squares Hour..

1972 sounds interesting. I'm not sure I'll ever get to those shows, but we'll see. I'm really enjoying 1968!! It really is a privilege to be able to watch any daytime show from this period, practically complete, considering how much was destroyed. I just finished June 1968. Unfortunately, 6 episodes from June are missing on the site, 5 of which did air on Retro TV. 6/17/68 -- never aired on Retro; either missing or does not exist; perhaps there was a pre-emption that day (Imdb says the missing episode or preemption occurred on 6/6/68, the day of the death of RFK) 6/20/68 -- Penny writes a letter to Nick 6/24/68 -- first appearance of Zeida Coates as Anna 6/25/68 -- Matt says "Karen" in his sleep 6/26/68 -- fall out between Matt and Maggie 6/28/68 -- Nick and Ed go for a drink If they ever update the site, I hope they get around to adding these episodes.. June was a good a month. The only complaint I have is with Matt. He's supposed to be the moral anchor of the show; to have him suddenly notice another woman and end up kissing her in an elevator after given no evidence at all that he was unhappy with his wife; all that felt wrong. It felt like the writing was missing a beat. It seemed like James Pritchett was confused too, not sure as to how to play it; he just comes off as closed and grumpy throughout.

So sad about Rita McLaughlin Walter. Wishing her all the best!! I was surprised to learn that she was the body double for Patty Duke on the Patty Duke Show! There's also an episode of Mr. Wizard from 1963 on youtube with her in it!

1996 was the last time this show was truly good. Hard to believe it has pretty much stunk for the better part of 26 years now! I'd say the decline began with the 1997 spin off, which divided the attention of the creatives. Spin offs usually are not very good for the mother show, especially when they take away key characters. Another World in 1970 and 1980 are other examples of this.

To be honest, I don't think we'll ever see a racier, PG 13 rated, Days of our Lives; too off brand. Rather, when this experiment craters, I think first they will make it free to watch on Peacock, and then try to get it back on TV. Whether the affiliates or the audience will have any of this is another story, but I think NBC will try. The episodes are already in the can; it's all about finding the best way to put them out there. And NBC is the network that flip-flopped on Jay Leno; why not flip-flop on Days of our Lives?

I tried watching the final episode for history's sake. Caught the pre-empted parts online. Excuse me but that was trash. Pathetic as a regular episode; disgraceful as the final episode. 57 years and those are the characters they end it on? Wow. They couldn't even do something as small as insert a picture of Tom and Alice at the end that said something like "thank you"? Again, truly disgraceful.

I'm surprised they didn't pre-empt the whole episode. It's quite poetic. NBC didn't really care that much about the show and its audience to the very end. Or maybe they did that on purpose, to encourage people to watch on Peacock without interruptions? LOL

What makes the situation unique and interesting is the 6 months stockpile of episodes they have. They were made for broadcast TV. They are not changing them. What's the point of putting them on Peacock other than a money grab? I'm surprised there isn't more of a protest demanding NBC keep DAYS on TV, and air these shows made for TV on TV. When they make new episodes now, are they making them as if they were still on broadcast TV? Would they be contractually obligated to do so? Or maybe they hope to return to TV in the winter or summer if this doesn't work out? Or would they be making shows under less stringent Peacock standards? If so, that would be a big change, no doubt requiring some extra money! Would their current contract cover the retooling? What happens if they start making episodes for Peacock and it goes belly up? It will be interesting to see what happens and how this all plays out! Corday sued Sony once. Think he'll sue NBC for their handling of this if none of this works out?

It's pretty stunning, the lack of media coverage. Once upon a time, something like this would have been HUGE news. Now, no one seems to care, or they treat it like "don't forget to set your clock ahead an hour for daylight savings time"! If DAYS is eventually cancelled behind a paywall, the coverage will be even less, if there is coverage. Very sad.