Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[sungrey]

Aw, I miss Robert Thaler. Pearl was such a joy and it's too bad they never really found anything for him to do.

[DRW50]

What was Pearl like?

[DRW50]

3/22/88 Digest. Christmas party photos, and in some other section, an oddly prescient photo selection.

[DRW50]

6/27/89 Digest

[Wendy]

To whoever asked about Pearl, he was...quirky, as many B characters (or even A characters) on SB were. I may be wrong, as it has been ages, but I believe the character was revealed to also have come from some wealthy family, but he chose to walk away from it all and marched to the beat of his own drum. There are some clips on YT where he is peripherally involved with the Tori/Mason/Julia arc when Pearl babysits Chip (I have no idea why - at the time, Chip was thought to be Tori and Mason's) and Julia comes to see one or the other (unusual triangle in that the women were sort of friends) and heard poor wet Chip screaming as poor Pearl is pretty clueless and Julia must take over.

[DRW50]

Thanks for letting me know more about Pearl.

12/89 Weekly

[Wendy]

This show seemed to have a fascination with nuns: Mary Duvall, Greta (the one with the article just posted - briefly recall her with Michael a bit), and Sister Sarah when Mason looks into Mark's death. Then there was SB's answer to the "Thorn Birds" with Father Michael the priest to round out the other side.

Too bad Michael was dull until (IMO) he hooked up with Flame (long gone from the priesthood and back to being a cop).

[safe]

TV GUIDE/ February 25, 1989

Lane Davies (Mason) - The Fast Lane

[DRW50]

That's interesting about all the nuns. Was Sarah the deaf nun? I posted an article on the deaf nun a while back. I got the feeling her story was supposed to go further than it did, based on a strike article later that year.

That's also interesting about Lane Davies. I think NLG may have said something about ad-libs...there was also an article about censorship or vulgarity. Robin Mattson wasn't thrilled with some close up shots of her ass in a teddy as she bent over.

Edited December 14, 2011 by CarlD2

[Wendy]

Actually, from something else I'd heard or read, Sarah was supposed to be yet another possible Mason and Julia foil/love interest. But then came the '88 Writers' strike, a deaf actress was cast, and it all changed from there.

Also in '91, Maria Ellingsen's Katrina was also supposed to catch Mason's eye per the Dobsons. Which, sorry, yuck. Mason looked like her father. And NBC canned the Dobsons again and that was that.

The Dobsons once said they always saw Mason as tragic. And while I get their show was taken away, he had changed in their absence, and doing the Mary thing again and again with the sweet women seemed pointless. (They had referred to Mason/Julia as star-crossed lovers, which implies sadness or whatever with that term, IMO.) But frankly, by the end, I thought M/J had fit and were one of the last prominent links to old SB that were left...which wasn't much. Sadly.

[DRW50]

It did seem like the show kind of ran out of ideas for Mason. Do you think they should have written him out when Lane left?

If there are any actors you'd like to see interviews of let me know, although it's mostly just Digest-related stuff I have at the moment.

[Wendy]

Actually, even if the writing was meh by then, I thought M/J competing for the judge position was a good idea in theory, and played to their competitive natures. But the writing was on fumes by then and it was about the time Pam Long started ramming the Walker drips down the audience's throat, etc.

And Mason/CC, at least, still seemed tenuous. That was, aside from Julia, Mason's "meat". His issues with his father.

Had the good writers still been there, I think a lot could have been done with Mason. His last GREAT stuff, IMO, was that disastrous Capwell Dinner in '91. Gordon Thomson was the closest to capturing Mason's real essence there since Lane Davies.

ETA: I do believe I have some old SOD/SOW (read: before SOD/SOW turned to [!@#$%^&*]) issues lying around someplace. Can't promise that, but I think so. If I do, if I ever find them, I could scan some things, too. And thanks for yours, Carl!

Edited December 14, 2011 by Wendy

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kjspmk0bYs

[Wendy]

Carrington Garland was an awesome Kelly Capwell. It still confounds me that she was fired for Eileen Davidson, who, while a decent actress, was all wrong for that role by a mile.

[DRW50]

Carrington and Marcy are so believable as sisters. I think that the people doing Santa Barbara at the end must have just seen it as a brand new show. Even the Dobsons seemed to feel that way when they returned.