Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[amybrickwallace]

 

In all fairness, the cancellation was all but inevitable by the time she came in.

[pdm1974]

 

True...the writing was probably on the wall when she joined. While I took issues with a lot of what she wrote, especially how the Walkers suddenly ate the show, just curious as to what others think she wrote right...or stories that had potential if the show would have lasted.

[amybrickwallace]

She only wrote the show for less than a year. Does anyone exactly know how long?

[BetterForgotten]

Tonally, her work and her style just seemed all wrong for this show. The stunt casting towards the end also drives me mad. 

[Soaplovers]

I would she gave Santana a good exit..breaking free of the Capwells at last.  

 

Plus, she created Lisa...a great vixen in training.

 

 

[Capridge]

 

But Minx didn't know that Cassie was living in the orphanage. Cassie was adopted after birth, but what Minx didn't know is that Cassie's new family didn't keep her. So she was put in the orphanage again and was raised there until the Capwells adopted her.

 

LOL! She probably should have.

 

Lionel did feel betrayed though. He had a whole confrontation with Minx about it. In fact, when Nicolas Coster briefly left the show in early 1991, Lionel went to Macao to dig up damaging info on Cassie. Cassie did ask Minx who her father was & it was someone Pamela knew according to the dinner party episodes. Minx wouldn't tell Cassie.

 

But I totally agree that Warren not being a Lockridge was a bad move.

 

Agreed!

 

March 1992-January 1993.

[amybrickwallace]

 

That's true. Still, it would have had more resonance if Gina Gallego had still been playing Santana. WDJ was just all wrong for the part.

[Sapounopera]

 

I thought that WDJ's Santana was far better and a lot more interesting than GG and Margaret Michaels. The show never got Santana right after losing Ava Lazar.

[j swift]

I think the missed opportunity with Santana was making her the third wheel in the Eden/Cruz storyline.  By history, Santana was in love with Channing, and left Santa Barbara to study interior design in Europe, after giving birth to Brandon.  Making her into a whiny drug addict who developed a dependent relationship with Cruz really pinned her character into a corner.  

 

I would have preferred either an ongoing collusion with Mason, (who needed an ally), in order to take down CC.  Or, an ongoing rivalry with Gina. 

 

It felt like once Gina was recast with Robin Mattson, she made most of the storyline potential for Santana seem redundant.  Brandon was better suited to be raised by Gina, and Eden became too good to scrap with her housekeeper's daughter.  However, Santana should have been a Latinx version of Alexis Colby, (regal, snobby, and always on the come up for a richer husband).

Edited July 24, 2020 by j swift

[amybrickwallace]

 

I think that's what Ava Lazar's Santana was primed to be. I still don't know what the Dobsons were thinking when they let her go.

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[amybrickwallace]

I still can't believe the show only ran 8 1/2 years. They sure packed in a lot in such a short period of time.

[Faulkner]

Marcy Walker and Robin Mattson interviewed on Linda Dano’s Attitudes talk show in 1989:

 

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[j swift]

On Facebook someone just posted a picture of Jack Wagner as Warren #3 from 1991 (with his awful Caesar/Clooney haircut).  It got me thinking about the number of recasts that occurred during that period.  Warren, Mason, Kelly and Keith were all recast within months of each other and then Eden left the show.  I don't know if any soap could survive that degree of cast upheaval.  The cancellation of a soap is often attributed to creative issues,  but it seems an important lesson that soap habits are made on repetition and once that sense of normalcy is gone the habit is easy to replace; regardless of the popularity of using actors from other soaps.  

Edited September 9, 2020 by j swift

[amybrickwallace]

A few weeks ago, Mark Arnold (Joe Perkins #2, 1984-85) was part of one of many live chats with Alan Locher. Most of the episode was about EDGE and OLTL, but he was asked about SB and working with Robin Wright. I'll let him tell you the story. It's at about the 54:05 Mark:

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