Santa Barbara/Sunset Beach

[KMan101]

NBC never should of canceled Santa Barbara. I loved LOVED Sunset Beach, but could you imagine still having a three soap lineup of Days, Another World and Santa Barbara? I'd kill for that. NBC is run by morons. Plain and simple.

Sunset Beach should of been Fox's first foray into daytime soaps, IMO. It would of worked and I bet it would still be on the air. Or it would of been good in primetime. I'd kind of like to see a daily primetime soap. I dunno why but I've always wanted that.

[JER Soaps Fan]

Someone asked this some question but I don't believe it got answered. Was "Aremid" JER's baby? Or at least, his bible?

And also, I have a hard time believing this Aremid thing really existed -- and if it did, well, whatever. But here's the thing: we also heard rumors that the "dead" Salem residents from the SSK would get their own spin-off. That, of course, only lends evidence to the "rewrite" theory that plagued "Days" during JER's second tenure.

And I believe it. The rumors were deafening and "Days" ratings were on an upswing. It made perfect sense to do it. Kill 'em off but have 'em live in heaven or in an alternate Salem -- on another show. But they didn't, and now we see the budget problems.

[David V]

There are those who argue that Santa Barbara's demise was ultimately a bad thing for NBC Daytime. While ratings were never great, for most part they weren't that terrible either- they were always doing well enough, until its last few years at least, to stay above what I call "cancellation levels". There's a reason why the mid-to-late 80s was considered NBCD's "Silver Age"- because although they never reached the same heights of the 70s, they looked like they were getting it right with Days, AW and SB as one three-hour block.

Sunset Beach was entertaining at best, but was uneven and rather sensationalistic and OTT a lot of the time. I do maintain though that its production values were, for most part, very good- with some superb location shots.

I know this will be crossing to another topic altogether, but someone else here has said this- I think it's only NOW, once people get over the hype and ratings success of it all during the 90s, that we realise just how damaging JER's first stint on Days was to the entire soap genre.

[JER Soaps Fan]

Oh, nuh uh! I disagree with that last line!

OJ killed soaps, NOT JER!

[juniorz1]

WORD!

[JER Soaps Fan]

What word? I have yet to see any proof or evidence, shall we say, to support this argument. OJ, on the other hand, can be easily referenced as the beginning of the end.

JER rocked NBC to the core. Don't be a hatah!

[David V]

I love how people- especially Daytime IICs- use OJ as a cop-out for falling ratings. Because the reason ratings have fallen so drastically in the new Millennium has everything to do with deteriorating quality. Soap viewership, overall, peaked in the mid-1970s and went into a steady decline ever since with probably only the rise of ABC Daytime in the late 70s/early 80s disguising this to a degree. The rate of decline from c. 1980 to 2000 was fairly stable.

I am only being brutally honest in my appraisal of JER's work, and of how Daytime's younger demo obsession since the 1990s has ruined the integrity and viability of the genre, probably for good. And like it or not, the success of JER's first spell at Days- though hyped up because of its sensationalism and ratings success- DID prove very damaging to the well-being of soaps. Because soon enough, other soaps began to copy the same tricks and ideas to some degree or another, compromising their integrity and losing the loyalty of longtime fans in the process. Whether it's stupid storylines, or talentless models passing off as "actors" or whatever...

[bellcurve]

I had heard of PACIFIC LIVES, MANHATTEN LIVES, and the SALEM HIGH spinoffs, but never the Calliope one. That could have been fun!

Yes. It was created by Jimmy Reilly and would be produced by Corday Productions and NBC Studios.

Kristi McDaniel(who played Sarah, one of the Aremid townspeople) said in an exit interview that the plan was to use her character in a PROPOSED DAYS SPINOFF.

In the Missy Reeves lawsuit, I think the topic of the spinoff came into play there as well. It was common knowledge that AREMID was at least in the pre-production stage before Reeves left the show in December 1995.

Not sure if I believe that. What the hell would they give all the dead residents to do in a one-hour soap?! Haunt people in Salem and Harmony? That sounds stupid to me.

Not to mention the fact that that spinoff rumor was unconfirmed. AREMID was.

By who? Inept executives who refuse to think outside of the box?!

More like Reilly ROTTED NBC's Core.

It's okay to like someone or something, but you have to learn to reply to an intelligent response with something other than, "Don't be a hatah!"

[JER Soaps Fan]

Please, the similarity between SuBe and SB is there.

You say that SB was going for a primetime in daytime feel as one of the reasons why it's not like SuBe. But guess what? In NUMEROUS interviews, SuBe PTB said they, at first, had hoped to bring a primetime-like soap to daytime. Didn't they even have the "filmed look" for the first few months or so?

So um, yay-ah.

[Matt]

While I do agree that the rise of JER at Days proved to be a horrible bad thing in the long-run for soap operas, I feel that it is more a touch-point of the much larger problem rather than the exact problem itself. Soap ratings had begun to slide since the Luke/Laura heyday at GH in the early 1980s, the whole OJ mess just kinda sped up what was already occuring. Soaps have notiriously copied off one another (with headwriters even recycling their own hit stories on different series), but with the revitalization of GH that Gloria Monty pulled off (as well as the revolutionary story-telling/production aspects that she instilled), other soaps began to attempt to copy that formula. Nearly *everyone* began to go adventure/on-the-run/sci-fi. Days did it in the early '80s. ATWT did it in the early '80s. SFT did it in the early '80s. RH was forced to do it. OLTL did it. AW did it. Even The Doctors did it (hello, grave robbing and fountain of youth anyone?!). Only Days and (to a lesser degree) Search managed to do it well (SFT's ratings stayed strong until it was screwed out of a timeslot by the Y&R expansion). This is just like how Y&R's premiere and ratings success in the early '70s led to sweeping changes in daytime with more of a focus on younger, prettier people, sexually active storylines, and soft-pop orchestrated theme songs and background music. After Y&R's premiere, just look at the soaps that popped out headshot-styled openings (The Doctors & Love of Life to name 2. Hell, LoL was almost exact to Y&R's but had a black background and glossy headshots instead of a white background and sketched portrates).

The soaps even started trying to copy the huge successes of the prime-time soaps like Dallas, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest as soap characters got wealthier and wealthier and the middle-class (and lower middle class) almost got complete pushed off the canvas. Texas premiered as an AW spin0off, but was definitely pattered as the country-western style of Dallas (and was even planned to move to prime-time to go head-to-head against Dallas if the daytime ratings were successful). OLTL brought the cowboy Buchanans on. GL had the good-old Lewis boys (who even owned an oil company). The new soaps that premiered were glitzier and more glamourous (and wealthier) than any new soap before (Captol and its Washington DC politics; Santa Barbara with its Southern California glamour and pretty people; B&B with its glamourous fashion world). Meanwhile, the ratings on long-running soaps were dropping -- AW had gone from the #1 soap to the bottom half of the ratings; perenial #1 ATWT was running middle-of-the-road; LoL, SFT, DOC, & Edge all left the air. By the early 1990s, daytime was starting to show some cracks -- all soap ratings were down. B&B (which premiered in 1987) was the only new-soap debut that showed any kind of ratings success since Ryan's Hope premiered in 1975! And RH was cancelled in 1989. In fact, daytime has premiered a successful new soap *since* B&B --- 20 years ago.

By the time OJ rolled around, daytime was already hurting and the rise of JER wasn't helping anyone but Days. Desperate shows, awed by Days quick return to the top of the ratings began to copy his off-the-wall storylines. When Days managed to hold on to a large chunk of its audience post-OJ, other soaps began to scramble. AW was being pushed by NBC to be more like JER's Days . AW's Tomas almost had run ins with vampires (thankfully, that planned storyline was scrapped) and we got a 200 year old man terrorizing Bay City with Jordan Stark and Lumina. GL cloned Reva, sent her through a painting into the past, yadda yadda (side-note: why is it always Reva on GL who gets saddled with the dumbest plots?!). Passions didn't help matters any. JER went wilder and crazier than on Days and the show got loads of mainstream press. Wanting in on the act, other soaps began to follow suit. And as much as I dislike JER, I do have to give him credit that for what he does, he does well. There will never be another writer like JER (side note: thank god) and other writers on other soaps could NOT write JER-type stories like JER. As a result, the credibility of soap opera was severely hurt by the influx of stupidity. Meanwhile, characters were getting younger and younger as TPTB chomped at the bit to snag all the tweens into viewing (because they'd already given up on getting back all the adults that their stupid plots had driven away). Anyone remember the roughly 6 months period on Days where you didn't see anyone over the age of 17?! Soaps have always had teen storylines, but typically, it's only 3-5 teens and the bulk of their stories took place in the summers (when kids were off from school to watch). Now, viewers are subjected to year-round afterschool specials and Saved By the Bell hijinks.

All of this copying, zaniness, desperation, and scrambling have only lead to homogenation -- every single soap looks the same or is trying to look like the next soap above it in the ratings. There is *nothing* to set any soap opera apart from any other. Can another use one, brief sentence to state the theme of their particular show without "the lives of the residents of Podunk"? What the hell are all of these shows about anymore? I'll tell you -- randy teenagers and complete strangers no one cares about making bad choices and wondering why their lives are fucked up while having experiences that no one in their right mind would believe.

Maybe that's why I haven't regularly watched *any* soap opera since Thanksgiving. I'd rather listen to my mp3s of 'The Guiding Light' from radio in 1950 or my collection of a months worth of SFT eps from the summer of '66 (or read my old SOD synopses for any soap in the 1970s) than watch this stuff TIIC are trying to pass off as soap opera. From the looks of the ratings, I'm not so unsure that I'm not alone.

[David V]

SFT's ratings only really tanked when it moved to NBC. But you're right, the supercouple formula pioneered by GH has definitely played a role- resulting in rabid fanbases. And yet Y&R for years has remained on top by wisely avoiding the sort of things other soaps became known for from the 80s onwards.

B&B's success, IMO, is largely down to luck- a supportive network and (in 1987) being sandwiched in-between a Y&R which was climbing towards the top at the time and an ATWT being revitalised by Douglas Marland. Ryan's Hope had ratings which were steady for 6-7 years, and that was also helped by the rise of ABC Daytime in the late 70s- you can see the ratings for Luke & Laura wedding week in 1981, where AMC and OLTL also got HUGE ratings for the week, RH was strong and even the by then ailing EON was rating above every NBC soap!

ATWT's ratings had fallen to the middle of the pack in the mid-80s, but they were moving back up under Marland and were back in the top 5 by the end of the decade. AW's ratings improved mainly by playing off Days' resurgence, and were generally stable through the 80s. I think mid-1986 saw AW get their highest ratings of the decade, but I could be wrong.

ABC just played around with its lineup when Loving was introduced, and then changed timeslots with Ryan's Hope- which was effectively the end for RH, whilst Loving hung around for another decade as its ratings (like Santa Barbara) were just above "cancellation levels" most of the time.

[bellcurve]

Agree 100% Matt. Great Post.

[Philou]

this is an interesting article from sod in 1998 about similar ressemblance between SB and SUN

[All My Shadows]

I love Matt.

[angel]

SB's Bunny looked prettier than Sun's Eddie.

Brian Frons ad God? And I thought him running SOAPnet was scary.

Yup, i see some similarities. But I never really watched Santa Barbara. My sister kept asking about it.

One more thing, they both did Earthquakes. I saw the earthquake episode of Santa Barbara on WoST and thought both shows broke even as an. Although I had to go to GD (which stands for a curse word i rather not say) sports camp and almost missed Sunset's Earthquake storyline so in terms of working for it SuBe wins.