Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[juniorz1]

It may have actually been before the divorce papers- I was just saying Marcy had one final appearance. But the stuff with stand-in Eden leading the Capwells to Ted was after the divorce,I'm pretty sure.

[juniorz1]

I did not like the split personality storyline, but I did enjoy the half that the Dobsons wrote of it. The ONLY problem I had with their writing was having Marcy come back (after Eden's "death") as painter Suzanne, wearing only a brown wig and glasses as a disguise. It was CLEARLY just Eden with brown hair, yet none of the characters that encountered her even remotely recognized her, including the usually-smart Cruz & Sophia, her own mother.

I DID like the climax with her shooting Sophia, but it definitely hurt that we never got a glimpse of the real Eden at the end and knowing she was fleeing with her DID still completely intact, with not even a hint she'd be getting help. I'd rather they'd have caught her and sent her to a mental hospital at that point, since we'd know she'd be getting help and the audience knew that Eden would never want Cruz to see her like that and therefore, she believably wouldn't want him there as a part of her recovery. The divorce would have seemed much more unselfish had that happen.

While that glimpse in the window didn't really solve all that, it did give Marcy and her fans one last glimpse of Eden as Eden. It was probably the best they could do at the time with her already filming 'Palace Guard' and I'm grateful to the Dobsons and Marcy for giving us the little nugget they could.

The Dobsons later said that they didn't start the story and were stuck with it when they arrived. The ONLY reason they finished it out was because it was mid-stream and they wanted it to make sense for the character and the history they built. Tying the climax to the very first major storyline the show ever had (Sophia's shooting of Channing) was brilliant and pretty much the only way to salvage the story they were handed. BUT, had they come back earlier, they said it never would have been written and NO WAY would they have written Marcy and Eden off like that.

Edited April 15, 2012 by juniorz1

[DRW50]

I was never sure as to whether the Dobsons did the whole story. Some of the Channing stuff does work - I guess they wrote those flashbacks/nightmares of Eden and CC "killing" Sophia and burying her?

I wonder if the Dobsons wrote that birdbrain therapist played by Victoria Mallory.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb42wau8L-E

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJkZggqPydU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFdiWJu3SXU&feature=channel&list=UL

I'm not sure if any soap story about super secret vaccines or formulas have ever worked.

Who is that woman with Keith in the June clip?

Edited April 22, 2012 by CarlD2

[Khan]

IMO, stories about secret vaccines, formulas and the like don't work, because the story soon becomes more about the formula than about the human emotions that must go on as it is being hidden, located, and/or exposed to the public.

[DRW50]

I love all the Paris clips Wendy is uploading! In my head I sometimes think, "When you're looking for your dead child is it time to dance at the Eiffel Tower?" but with location and chemistry like that, why not.

I saw a cast list which called Cruz "Cal Castillo." Was that a misprint or was he ever known as Cal? This was around late 1984.

[DRW50]

The following articles are chopped up because I have a hard time scanning Weeklys. Sorry!

July 23, 1991 Weekly.

[DRW50]

August 4, 1992 Weekly.

[DRW50]

August 18, 1992 Weekly

[Wendy]

That Julia/Dash fan column was fabulous. God, as a Julia fan to the nth degree, I HATED that storyline.

[DRW50]

That quote about how Dash was not as bad because he did not jump out of the bushes says so much about rape stories on soaps and why they have helped kill the genre.

I wonder how much of this story was even about Julia.

That type of letter would never have been printed in a soap magazine of the last ten or fifteen years.

[Urabamba]

Definitely. Laken #1, Julie Ronnie, was basically Ted's girlfriend; she didn't have much more development than that. That said, I thought they were a good couple - they had nice chemistry and were believable together. But it made sense to write her out - the only way Ted was going to develop as a character was to break them up, and she wasn't a strong enough character on her own to keep her around. (Although they got rid of her before coming up with a clear plan for Ted, which pissed me off because they basically had him doing nothing for 6 or 7 months). Laken #2, Susan Marie Snyder, was the strongest actress of the 3, but they brought her back in a completely wrong way -- they turned her into a bitch, which was just 180 degrees different from how Laken was. If they had done a better job of making her a more well-rounded character she probably would have stuck around. I had basically stopped watching by the time Laken #3 rolled around, but she seemed okay enough, but there was nothing that really stood out.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Urabamba

[DRW50]

Great to see you post here again!

[DRW50]

I was wondering if you could help any with these questions. I always have a lot, as I only see snippets of most of the episodes, and it's always nice to have more people to talk to the show about (although I end up wanting to write my Brick fanfic even more as a result...).

There was a scene before Hayley's rape where Ted gave her a horse, and she got upset. Do you know what that was about? Did she have bad memories or horses?

Kelly was on the run for a while, and then she was arrested in February 1987. Only a few weeks later, she was apparently cleared of everything and able to attend her parents' wedding. What made the charges drop so fast? I wonder why they didn't drag the trial portion out longer.

Watching some of this I just wonder why they split Hayley/Ted up so abruptly. It's almost as if they had hired a new hunk, Rick Edwards, hoping to make viewers love him, and when it didn't work, they punished Stacy Edwards by firing her.