Ben

Thanks for sharing @victoria foxton. So many great memories.

Didn’t Sarah Buxton also appear on Days in a guest roll playing someone called Crystal? I think she was Marlena’s prison cell mate in 2005 or something.

From what’s been said, it appears Amazon FreeVee is paying a licensing fee to produce the show in partnership with Network Ten in Australia - so, kind of what it was before. The show will also be moving back to the main channel in Australia instead of being on a digital channel. It’s really good news that it will be on FreeVee as the ad revenue will support the production costs. The only problem with streamers is that it’s difficult to know what constitutes a successful show from a viewer perspective. I’m very happy about this. Totally buzzing. The back catalogue being available is a lovely bonus, especially as it will be available in the US, too! The American market has always been a bit difficult for Neighbours to break into, so I hope this is a success. 🤞 I remember watching One Life To Live when it moved to Prospect Park, and I thought they did a decent job, generally. But that was a move that was ahead of its time as someone else said. It’s a bit like Days moving to Peacock - these are experimental times for the genre.

Not Julie, as she was still alive at this point, but strangely, after Julie’s death, Hannah did start believing that Julie was still with her. This Hannah story was one of those filler plots where she thought paranormal activity was causing all of these easily explainable things. Not sure how it ended. 1994 had some good points, but it wasn’t the best season and it did transition into 1995, which is regarded as being one of the worst years.

Speaking of Family Affairs, I found out the other day that the series finale ended the way it did because they were apparently setting up for the more popular characters to get a spin-off. My guess is Eileen Callan (who randomly won the lottery) and the Costello’s. If only that had come to pass. I struggle with H&A as it’s just not the same show as it once was, so whenever I tune in, it’s either boring or extremely plotty. Not many characters with personality.

Thanks for remembering me and the many convos we shared. I pop back here from time to time to see what’s happening with Days/B&B, but there’s not a lot for me to talk about or join in with. I can’t believe how long its been since the days when we used to discuss so many soaps. It was a real pleasure talking to you and sharing knowledge.

Back Amber and… Is that Thomas? Wasn’t Drew Tyler Bell playing him during this era? Nick Marone and Taylor or Aggy (I think she was called) Rick, Bridget, Jackie and Owen in the pool. Two models Dayzee, Thorne, Pam, Stephen Front The man and woman…? Steffy, Oliver, Hope, Liam(?) Eric and Stephanie Ridge and Brooke Bill and Katie Justin, Marcus, and Donna

Sorry to cut into the Taylor/Hunter discussion, but just wondering if anyone has seen these before? I thought they were fun. Do you recognise all the characters on the lunch box?

OK, American Beachers, help me out please: during the reunion, several actors spoke about doing a live episode; Nick Kiriazis has said before in an interview the live episode aired in prime-time, but this is the first I have ever heard of this. 🤔 Did a live episode air in prime-time on NBC in 1998 or 1999? The only prime-time ep I know of is Shockwave, which was a compilation episode of the tsunami plot. Also, the reunion was awesome!

Thanks @DRW50. It’s been along time posting here. We used to have some great discussions. Re: Home and Away: I think it’s life of series deal protects it on Channel 5, who really can’t do much with it no matter how low the ratings slide. They seem to have stabilised around the 400k mark. In Australia, the TV landscape has changed so much. Aussie’s prefer watching scripted TV on streaming services, leaving only reality shows and the news as rating high on FTA TV. Home and Away is the #1 drama, but that’s not saying much when there is hardly any competition. It’s ratings have also fallen into the 400k-500k, with the occasional spike depending on the storyline of the moment. Like Ten, Seven also needs Home and Away to fill their local drama quota, and after the changes to the system last year, series with more than 65 episodes a year now qualify for a producer offshoot - they get money back. Ten was only contributing $20k to the Neighbours budget, with some help from Film Victoria, while the rest comes from the UK broadcaster. But the UK doesn’t have such funding available to broadcasters, solely relying on sponsorship and advertising revenue. Practically, I totally get the expense, but equally, it’s so sad when everything has to come down to money. One of the things to come to of this is the outpouring of love for Neighbours. It means so much to so many people, even those who have stopped watching. There’s been so many articles written and news reports generated, the petition has nearly 45,000 signatures! Where’s one of those billionaires looking to invest when you need it. 😂 Also, this is so freaking cool! Fans Push Neighbours Theme to The Top Of The Charts!

I doubt it. Extremely sad. As you know from cancelled US soaps, this whole situation has been a bit of a mess. I think it’s worse because it basically comes down to money; ratings are still healthy, the show is in the best shape it has been for a while, but money matters more. *sigh*

Just so there’s no confusion, Jason Herbison has confirmed in his email to the cast and crew that production will shutdown on June 10th. By all concerned, Neighbours was a co-production between Australia and the UK, so without Channel 5’s funding, there is no show. I’ve loved this show for 30 years, since o was a child, so it’s devastating to see it’s been axed. The writing was on the wall last year with all the scheduling changes in both countries, but it’s still shocking. Normally it’s roughly 3 months in advance, but since last year, 10Peach dropped to airing 4 episodes a week, which Channel 5 was supposed to also do this year, but they opted to air the show as usual at 5 episodes a week (likely in response to contract talks ending). This means the produced number of episodes this year is less, but due to the different airing patterns in both countries, it means the UK will end the show in August, and Australia will end in November-ish.

Thanks so much @MelAnnieD for the uploads! Love it. I’ll enjoy reading this. 🙏😁

If anyone is able to scan the 25th anniversary special in SOD for a UK fan, I would be eternally grateful. 😁🙏 And speaking of Tim Adams… https://www.instagram.com/sunsetbeachcentral/p/CSMfzUrjvSq/?utm_medium

Thank you. I was racking my brain trying to think. 😂 I love it when soaps do costume events.

Great set of photos @Marquise! But who’s the guy in the bushes?

Thanks so much @Marquise for the link. Much appreciated. I just want to take the time to say how amazing you guys are for uploading all of this awesome content. 😎❤️

That would be great. Could you send/post a link to the vault as I’ve lost it since the last time. 🙄

Hey guys! I was wondering if anyone has any HQ publicity photos from 1995-2002 without any watermarks? Specifically, anything with the characters of: - Amber/Rick/Becky/Deacon/Tawney (super grateful for any Italy photos) - Michael/Dylan/Enrique - Macy/Thorne/Claudia - Jasmine/Sly/Jessica/Dylan/Maggie - Maggie/James/Sheila. - Taylor/Ridge/Prince Omar in Morocco If anyone can help, I would be so, so appreciative. 🙂

Here’s a Q&A with one of Sunset Beach’s scriptwriters (Lisa Seidman) that I have found. The interview was conducted by the fans at the forum an-eternal-sunset.heavenforum.org (all credit to them). 1. How do writers work? That depends on the writer and the show the writer is working on. If you mean specifically a show like Sunset Beach there were five writers who wrote outlines and five writers who wrote scripts. The outline writers worked with the head writers. They came into the office/studio once or twice a week. The script editors wrote at home. 2. Were there groups of writers assigned to specific characters/storylines? No. All the writers had to be able to write all the characters and all the storylines. 3. Was there a showrunner of some sorts who gave a global direction to the show? Yes. In daytime soaps the showrunner is called the head writer. We had several head writers, starting with Bob Guza/Meg Bennett, then Chris Whitesell/Meg, then finally Chris/Maggie de Priest. 4. What was the pace of work? How much time did you have before sending scripts to the actors? We had to write five or six episodes every week. The outline writers had about two and a half days to write their outlines and the scriptwriters had seven days to write the scripts. Then the scripts went to the script editor who took a week to edit five scripts (sometimes less). The actors didn’t get the scripts until close to taping: Usually a month after the scripts were turned in. 5. Did you have much freedom? How much did the execs meddle in with your writing? The outline writers had freedom to pitch ideas when they met with the head writers to discuss the week of stories. The head writers had the power to use the ideas or not. The scriptwriters had the freedom to create dialogue. For instance, when I was a scriptwriter, I received an outline. There was a scene that read, “Casey learns his mother has come for a visit.” That was it. As the scriptwriter I invented the scene, giving it substance: Casey sees suitcases by the stairs when he comes home, a woman comes downstairs, they talk and at the end of the scene I reveal that it’s Casey’s mother. The executives meddled A LOT with the outlines. It was very frustrating. Some weeks they’d throw out an entire week of outlines and the head writers would have to create new stories for that week. The executives also gave notes on each outline, so the outline writers would then have to rewrite their outlines according to the executives’ notes. 6. Were there specific ideas that got rejected by the execs? Can you give us some examples? There were specific ideas that were rejected but, unfortunately, I can’t give you specifics because I don’t remember what was rejected. 7. Which characters did you enjoy working on the most? Annie. 8. Did the actors know in advance what would happen to their character of did they just find out as they got the scripts? They just found out as they got the scripts. 9. Were the actors able to give ideas about the future of their characters ? Did some of them influence the storylines? Some examples? The actors were not allowed to give ideas, they were not allowed to influence their storylines. 10. Did you have a specific idea of where each storyline would go from the beginning of the show ? Not from the beginning of the show, no. Bob Guza, the original head writer really didn’t know where the stories were going. When Chris Whitesell took over, he had to write long story so we would know where the stories were going. I was hired to write long story as well. (Mine was about the gun stuffed into the Thanksgiving turkey by Bette and Olivia.) 11. How long in advance were the storylines planned before shooting and airing ? It differs from show to show. On Sunset Beach, we had three to four months I think. 12. What storylines ideas got rejected or dropped ? That I don’t remember. I only remember the stories that were approved. 13. Were you able to do everything as planned ? Not always–not if the network or the executive producer didn’t like something. 14. What were your favourite storylines ? The gun getting stuffed in the Thanksgiving turkey, obviously, since I came up with that idea! And anything having to do with Annie. Oh, I also loved Gabriella (I think that was her name) falling in love with Father Antonio, and he with her. And their getting trapped and making love, thinking they were going to die. But they were rescued. That was fun. 15. As a writer, did you get censored by yourself or the execs at some point because of the conservative viewers of the show ? What ideas got dropped because of that ? I was never censored and if the head writer [was] he never shared that with the writing team. 16. Was the writing process and the storylines influenced by the public’s reactions ? Which ones ? The writing process/storylines were NOT influenced by the public, mainly because Twitter, the Internet, blogs, social media did not exist the way they do now. So we really didn’t know what the public wanted or didn’t want. 17. Why wasn’t the Kansas Dream the final scene after all? Aaron Spelling didn’t understand it, so the head writer came up with the final version. Everyone liked the new version, saw it as a twist on The Wizard of Oz. 18. Is it true that Virginia’s « Operation Insemination » almost got the show cancelled? No, that’s not true at all. 19. Did the cancellation of the show ruin some storylines plans? What would you have liked to happen? Actually, the headwriter was very burned out by then and really didn’t have any more story ideas so the cancellation didn’t ruin future storyline plans. 20. What were the last-minute changes made due to the cancellation of the show? There were no last minute changes made due to the cancellation because we were given enough notice about it and were able to simply wrap up the stories. 21. Why did Elaine and Paula disappear from the show so abruptuly? Especially right after the rape trial climax? Elaine and Paula disappeared so abruptly because the executive producer was very disappointed about how they acted (or rather didn’t act) during Gabi’s rape trial climax. 22. Why was the story about Virginia’s secret regarding her husband’s death (late season 1) dropped? The story about Virginia’s secret regarding her husband’s death was dropped because the executive producer thought we had a story about two nice women in a relationship with a nice man. Gary thought the story needed to be edgier, that Virginia should be evil instead of nice. Which meant her secret didn’t make sense anymore. 23. What about Cole’s hair sample storyline? Who was supposed to be behind this and why? Why was this just left aside after a while? The head writer doesn’t remember that Cole’s hair sample story line was set aside. He thought (as did I) that we had played it for as far as it could go. 24. What was planned for the Antonio/Gabi/Ricardo triangle if the show hadn’t been cancelled ? If the show hadn’t been cancelled, Ricardo would have found out about Gabi and Antonio’s love affair and would have turned evil. Antonio was going to either leave the priesthood or join a monastery where Ricardo would have disguised himself as a monk and tried to kill him. 25. Is it true you wanted to bring back Lisa Guerrero ? What were the plans for her ? There was some discussion about bring back Lisa Guerrero but the show was cancelled because anything definite could be set up. 26. What was the original storyline plan for Tess and Benjy ? We know that Benjy was actually supposed to be Maria’s son originally and that a lot of changes happened, mainly due to the cancellation. Can you please shed some light on this ? There wasn’t an original story plan for Tess and Benjy. We were making it up as we went along and there were no changes due to the cancellation. 27. Wasn’t Jude really supposed to be Ajay’s son originally ? What was the storyline you had planned about this? Jude was never supposed to be Ajay’s son and there was no story line planned for this. 28. Is it true that the idea of a romance between Annie and Francesca emerged at some point but got dropped ? Can you tell us about some other dropped couple ideas (gay or not) ? There was no idea of romance planned between Annie and Francesca. And there were no dropped couple ideas (gay or straight). 29. Don’t you think there was too much focus on Meg and her entourage as the show progressed ? Yes, we do think there was too much focus on Meg and her entourage as the show progressed. 30. Was Tobias planned from the beginning of the “whodunit” storyline about Francesca’s murder, or was it some sort of a last-minute thing ? How was this supposed to end before you knew the show was cancelled ? It was not planned from the beginning that Tobias would be involved in Francesca’s murder. It was a last minute thing. We didn’t have anything planned for the future. Chris, the head writer, admitted that he was burnt out and that he had no future stories for most of the characters when we got news that the show was being canceled. 31. Why did it never happen again between Cole and Olivia ? Was it considered at some point ? Cole and Olivia didn’t get together again because their first and only time was a plot point, not a relationship that the head writer wanted to develop further. 32. Who was playing the faceless Maria that appears in several flashbacks during season 1 ? No one famous played the faceless Maria in the flashbacks. It was just an actress/extra that casting hired. 33. Why is Maria so different from the Annie-like mischiever depicted in season 1 and the sweet and nurturing woman shown in seasons 2 and 3 ? The headwriter saw Maria as a free spirit–not like Annie at all. When Ben said he hated her it was because he hated her for dying–not because she was a bad person. 34. What about Sara and Meg’s brother, mentioned twice in season 1? Was he just forgotten ? There was no time to bring Sara and Meg’s brother to the show. 35. Ben mentions an older brother called Ted in the grotto in season 1, who never gets mentioned again. Forgotten as well ? The older brother Ben mentions in the grotto–Ted–eventually became his twin brother Derek. 36. When was the idea of Derek actually fledged out ? At the early writing stages of the show, was the whole Ben/Maria past supposed to be different than what we were shown later ? Was Ben actually supposed to be the psycho himself at some point ? The idea of Derek came up only a few weeks before you actually see him on air. Ben/Maria was also developed a few weeks before we introduced Maria. We were making things up as we went along. Ben was never supposed to be Derek, or psycho. The headwriter saw him as Laurence Olivier in Rebecca and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. 37. Why does Amy’s name changes between her Terror Island appearance (Amy Dreyer) and her Shockwave come-back (Amy Nielsen) ? Amy’s last name changed because we decided to make her the daughter of the ship’s captain, which was Nielsen. 38. During season 3, an old friend of Olivia’s, Barbie, shows up for a couple of scenes on the phone. They seemed to go as way back as Olivia and Bette, so why wasn’t this colourful lady brought back to shake things up a bit ? Barbie was merely a story device because Olivia needed someone to talk to. She was never going to be a major character because we already had too many characters on the show. 39. Why was Bette sort of left aside in seasons 2 and 3 ? She never had any real storyline and that’s really a shame given the potential of the character and how great Kathleen was in the role. Bette’s role was diminished because the executive producer grew very annoyed with the actress who always came to his office to ask for a bigger story. He decided to do the opposite. I agree it’s a shame because Kathleen is a friend of mine and I think she’s terrific. 40. Jack Wagner guest-starred as a former partner-in-crime of Cole’s in late season 1. Weren’t these two supposed to have shared a bit more than friendship, swindles and thefts? Jack Wagner was never supposed to share anything more with Cole than just a partner in crime. 41. Did you plan on keeping Spike along for the whole show or did you just find him cute ? Haha. We all found Spike cute but he never listened to direction. 42. Do you remember what were the general plans for season 4 of the show, character-wise and storyline-wise ? There was no plan for Season 4. The headwriter was tired and didn’t think any further than Season 3. 43. Were there plans to reunite Gregory and Olivia after his prison time ? Same answer as above. The head writer wasn’t thinking that far in advance. 44. Did you plan to make Antonio leave the Chruch ? Antonio would have left the church but not for a while. 45. Is it true that Annie’s mother was supposed to show up ? What were the ideas for other new characters ? Annie’s mother was not supposed to show up. There were no ideas for other new characters. 46. Is it true that an episode was shot and aired live ? What happened in this episode ? While we discussed doing a live episode it never happened. 47. Would you have like Sunset Beach to be less tame, more edgy ? The headwriter (Chris Whitesell) thinks the tone for the show was about right. 48. You worked too on “the young and the restless” and we wonder if you work in the same way for “Sunset Beach” and for “The young and the restless”? and if the atmosphere was the same? The atmosphere at “Young & the Restless” was toxic. I hated working on that show and was very happy when I was fired. “Days of our Lives” is more pleasant and similar to the atmosphere on “Sunset Beach.” Most of the writers are old friends of mine; in fact, I visited three of them when I was in New York. Or maybe you meant the working atmosphere. That was different from Sunset Beach. On Sunset Beach all the writers met at the studio and helped the headwriters with ideas and story each week. On Days and Y&R the headwriters work without the outline writers help–we don’t even go into the studio on Days. The headwriters email us our assignments, we speak on the phone the next day with out questions and then have three days to write our shows. ———— Something I would like to know from peeps in the know: Is it common practice for soaps to not plan in advance and work on the fly like this? This element really surprised me. I don’t know how they could have worked without knowing where storylines were going in 6 months time.

Days: All the gifts Stefano left in his will to many characters in 2002. Much prominence was placed in these items and the ominous messages that accompanied them. Particular interest to Celeste’s paper dolls, a plot point that seemed connected to Caprice knowing Celeste from the past. Lots of setup that never went anywhere. I can’t remember if this was due to a change in head writers? Sunset Beach: AJ’s secret regarding Leo. He stopped Leo from donating blood and had it analysed; he hired someone to steal a lock of Cole’s hair... It all seemed to be leading to some kind of genetic disorder or something, but then it was never mentioned again.

You might be thinking about the time Annie stood on the window ledge of the Sunset Beach Inn and threatened to jump if Gregory didn’t prove that he loved her by signing over her stock (she always did confuse money with love). Ironically, Olivia didn’t give a f*ck and slammed the window shut, causing Annie to lose her balance just as Gregory talked her down. She fell, but she was wearing a harness. There was also the time Annie hung herself in jail so she could escape. She was wrongfully the prime suspect for Del’s murder. That scene was quite graphic as you saw her hanging from the prison bars. Or, you might be thinking about when Annie jumped off of the Lifeguard Tower after she fled the police. She was jealous of Ben fawning over Meg, so she jumped, pretending she had fallen, just to get his attention.

Olivia on Sunset Beach attempted suicide twice. After believing her baby had died, and learning that she had his remains cremated but couldn’t remember doing it, she blamed herself for his death, convinced by Gregory that she must have been drinking at the time. Gregory made it clear that he believed Olivia had killed their baby, so she took a bottle of champagne and some pills to the Grotto intent on ending her life as the grief and guilt was too much. But Cole showed up in time and talked her out of it. Olivia took some time out on a cruise to regroup (in real life this covered Lesley-Anne Down’s maternity leave), and when we saw her next, she was on the boat, contemplating jumping overboard. This time AJ (Cole’s estranged father) stopped her, pulling her back from the railings. He got her to open up, giving her hope that they would figure out what really happened to her son. As for her baby: Annie had stolen him and given him to Olivia’s daughter to raise as her own; she planted the seed in Gregory’s mind that Olivia was drinking on the night she gave birth.

When you have Micha Collins confirming that it was a romantic declaration of love, then it’s understandable that fans would want more. I know the showrunners said Destiel wasn’t happening, but they had to expect there would be a backlash when they did a u-turn like this. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this ending would be unsatisfactory to many. I’m not defending the hardcore shippers, because these things always get taken too far, and people will see what they want to see, and deny anything that challenges that perspective. But I do think there is a valid point here. Sure it’s always been the Sam and Dean show, but I do feel like it evolved into something more than that, so for them to strip all that away at the denouement is deeply unsatisfactory to me. There are ways of writing an ending that keeps S&D the main focus without decimating the supporting cast and the new ethos that they themselves had woven into the show. They had Sam and Dean develop relationships, friendships, and redefine the meaning of family, so to kill them all off just to say: ‘actually, the only thing that matters is each other - the brotherhood’ was disappointing and unnecessary. It didn’t need to be that way.

I think I understand some of the criticism, and not just the Destiel criticism, but the wider criticism as a whole regarding the final and the season as a whole. I’ve been a regular viewer for a long time (which has been difficult due to the show being dropped and picked up by different channels/networks in the UK), probably since season 4, although I think I missed a couple seasons after season 5 due losing track of the show. I can say that the show had evolved past the first two seasons of being quite misogynistic, homophobic, stereotypically masculine, and blood being thicker than water, into a show that redefined what family was to Sam and Dean, that it was more than just about their brotherly bond. The show even evolved to include Castiel as a main player in later seasons; I think the shift started to occur from season 12, and I could see how the show was investing in him more, investing in his relationships to Dean, Sam, and Jack. I never really saw those charged moments that many Destiel fans say existed, but in later seasons I do think the writing changed to incorporate something. The relationship between Cas and Dean was different to Cas and Sam, and given they went out there way to have Cas declare his love for Dean, only for Dean’s response to be, basically, nothing, and for Cas to be killed off, it does play heavily on the bury your gays troupe. I do understand why many are upset about that. But this is a wider issue. The show killed off all of its supporting characters. I still don’t get why they killed Mary off the way they did at the end of season 14. All of the diversity they brought into the show was swiftly thrown away. What became of Eileen felt unnecessary. The whole final season was quite miserable, and the final took the show back to the first season where things became all about Sam and Dean, as if all those that had changed them for the better were secondary and unimportant. I think they could have given Destiel a better ending, something that explored Dean’s character. Maybe it would have been better to not to do anything at all, but they chose to have Cas utter those words and do what he did, so they should have had more conviction to take that all the way. I found the final season disappointing with many of the choices they made. I think the show runner even said that only 30% of fans would be happy with the ending, and Jensen was also very skeptical about it, too, but I’m not sure what either of them were specifically referring to. I think that if you were a lapsed viewer and only tuned into the final, you might not get what all the fuss is about.