Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[dc11786]

Thougths regarding Eden's multiple personality storyline...

I'm watching various points of the Dobsons' 1991 return which I know most people don't like. I find it fascinating in the way there was such a strong attempt to reincorporate elements of the show that had been abandoned for so long. I rewatched the Capwell dinner party episodes written by Patrick Mulcahey in the first month of the Dobsons return. There is a certain brilliance of having Eden completely losing it while C.C., Sophia, and Kelly deride Pamela for her mental health issues. Marcy Walker plays it all as very heart breaking. While watching this sequence, there are times that one of Eden's personalities is speaking to her about Sophia lying. We are suppose to assume this is Lisa, but, based on later points, I am curious if it isn't both Lisa and Channing, Jr. talking to Eden during various points of the dinner party. 

Also, regarding mental health, Mason Capwell is not a mentally stable character, but I appreciate that he isn't treated like a psychopath. He is a black sheep and a bit of a pariah at different points, but the fact that he is mentally unwell is treated with much more respect than I think I've seen bestowed to many other characters. The potential fear, is it even addressed on air?, that Mason may end up like Pamela is definitely a thread that I see playing out. 

The sequence where Eden as Channing decides to shoot Sophia is wild. I can only imagine what people thought watching this for the first time unspoiled. The crossdressing is definitely a call back to Sophia's own little stint as Dominic. 

The trigger being Eden watching Sophia "drown" was interesting. I think Eden returning after shooting Sophia to call for help was a nice way to wrap that part of the story, but I can see why fans of Eden and Cruz would be upset that this is how the story comes to a conclusion. 

[Keri]

I really enjoyed the storyline up until Eden as Suzanne started. It was just beyond belief that no one would recognize her, and I think A Martinez has said it was his least favourite storyline.

The reasons for it - that she saw Sophia and Lionel- are a bit farfetched but as soaps go not the worst I've seen for split personalities. 

The fact that she had lost time before - her time with Robert on the island- kind of supported the later story, which I thought was interesting even though I assume it was unintended. Also the stealing bc she got into that with Robert, too.

Not that I thought she was another personality when she met Robert but people with those issues can lose chunks of time.

The ending though yes was terrible.

Edited November 20, 2022 by Keri

[j swift]

I think the Dobsons' dinner party scene was memorably acted, but poorly timed due to the fact the Dobsons totally ignored everything that happened in their absence.  And they seemed to project their anger at New World and the fight over the casting of Pamela onto the plot, at time when it no longer fit the growth of the characters.

At the risk of repeating my self from 2019:

     Mason decides to put CC on trial for his "crimes" against the family, and in turn brings back Pamela and eviscerates Sophia.  However, CC and Mason had resolved their differences in a scene the prior year.  In fact, for most of Terry Lester's Mason, (in the year prior to the Dobson's return), he and CC did not have a lot of interactions because he was being plagued by Gina and his alternate Sonny personality.  Gordon Thompson's Mason arrived two months before the Dobson's and did not have the history with CC to carry those dinner party scenes.  

        Even the dinner party table was new and had never been in that place on the set, before or after that episode.  And Kelly is inexplicably living in the Capwell mansion which she had moved out of months prior.  Finally, it defies logic that Mason would still be angry at CC after a year when both he and Eden had near-death experiences resulting in a Christmas episode (a month before the dinner party) about how happy they were to be reunited as a family.

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by j swift

[dc11786]

@Keri Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've mostly been watching random episodes I've acquired on DVD over the last several years, but I did catch some clips on YouTube of Cruz and Eden from (I think) 1990 where Robert has been shot and Cruz is frustrated at Eden's need to be at Robert's bedside. They have a rather frank conversation where Cruz pontificates that Eden is two people: (1) the loving wife and mother who wants security and (2) a woman who deplores the monotony of domestic life and desires a need for adventure. I know that the previous writers had set up the split personality plot. I assumed that was there original philosophy. 

I've only seen small bits of Suzanne, but now it makes sense why A Martinez is doing the Grant Alexander I'm looking for my contact routine earlier in the episode where Cruz stumbles upon Suzanne/Eden. 

@j swift I find your thoughts on Mason intriguing. I have very little of 1990, but in most of the material I do have from late 1990 Mason (and Julia) are dealing with the environmental group, the Blue Sky Brigade, and the group's protest against the development of the Oasis as it was land they felt needed to be protected. Terry Lester's Mason has a rather nice scene where he tells Julia he has for the first time in his life gotten things together and he still wants her by his side. I know Julia, in what I have, joins the Blue Sky Brigade and then later, in stuff I don't, is raped by Dash Nichols. Lester's Mason still seemed like a character who was trying to work past his daddy issues without actively loathing C.C. 

I know I've heard people complain about how Mason and C.C. were getting along at that point, but wasn't Mason's animosity with his father crucial to his character? Similar to how fans struggle when Sami Brady isn't actively flailing about her mother and John Black. 

I would also argue that some of the Mason/Dobsons issues stemmed from the fact that Mason was a doppleganger for Bridget Hursley Dobson who had a very antagonistic relationship with her own parents. I'd be curious if the story of C.C.'s two wives had anything to do with how Frank Hursley left his own family by his first wife to build another with Doris.

I think Pamela's return as the catalyst for the animosity returning between C.C. and Mason makes sense, but maybe the big 'revelation' that C.C. knowing Pamela was released should have been knowledge to Mason before the return to form. Mason, privately, acknowledges to C.C. after the dinner party that they had gone some time where they had gotten along, but, in the end, Mason's perception of C.C.'s omnipotence is what kept them at odds. The final straw seems to be that C.C. not only helped Pamela get released, but made it contigent that she not speak to Mason as a stipulation of that release. I believe in the weeks leading up to the Dobsons arrival C.C. had voiced objections to Mason seeing Cassandra, which may have also been a part of Mason's state of mind during the dinner party. It would seem to me that C.C. was meddling a bit, but maybe not to the point to explain Mason's behavior prior to the party rather than afterwards.  

An underlying piece of the dinner party that often is overlooked is the story about Rosa and Ruben's land. I believe it is later revealed that the land in question is part of the Oasis, which was Mason's shining achievement that not only revitalized his belief in himself, but was a major source of pride for C.C. The Andrades coming into some of the profits of the Oasis is a very intriguing idea given the plans to bring back Santana and pair her with C.C. If Santana had come back and part of C.C.'s motivation to reconnect with Santana had to do with the land, I think that is something that would have strengthened C.C.'s point of view regarding his decision to rekindle a romance with Santana. It would have also been interesting to see if Rosa would have agreed with the Blue Sky and wanted the land protected. Finally, I would have loved to seen Ruben return to unsettle whatever deals were made between Santana, Rosa, and C.C.

[Marissa Gallant]

I'm not going to quote, but my next thoughts involve several posts. I think that the audience was left to piece the DID Eden storyline together. There were far too many changes at the top for any of the multiple personality to be an END GAME plan. I feel like we're trying to justify it. Weren't there 3 Exec producers between when Cruz says it's like she's 2 people and when she WAS 2 people? I *think* I remember reading that the Dobsons didn't want the multiple Eden, but were stuck with it. Was Marcy Walker already on her way out at that point? Honest question because I do not know. 

Multiple personalities have NEVER been one of my favorite storylines. Multiple Kristin's drove me from Days. The fact that I don’t like them aside, the retconning required for Eden's bothers me. The early year episodes were very clear that the kids were at home and too young to follow Sophia who met with Lionel to dump him. There's even dialogue about how they didn't know.

[j swift]

I'm never good at who wrote what and when, but here's what I know.

Marcy was on her way out because the year before the split personality story, she took time off from SB (Eden was in a coma for autumn 1990), then she signed a development contract with NBC in February 1991, and her exit from SB was announced, resulting in the ill-fated Palace Guard series that went nowhere, but she also got a couple of movies-of-the-week out of the deal. 

The whole plot starts off weird, because Eden wakes from her coma for a magical Christmas (weren't they all in Santa Barbara).  Then, Robert sends her a gift of a necklace with a big jewel.  At first, it seems like they're going to do a jewel thief story, similar to the plot of Marcy's new show Palace Guard.  Then, the Dobson's arrive and suddenly Eden doesn't recall being a jewel thief (which makes it seem cruel that Robert sent her the necklace, but I guess we forgive that detail because its a new set of writers).  

Presumably, the Dobson's would not have known when they returned in January that Marcy would announce her departure in February.  If, as @Marissa Gallant recalls, the Dobson's didn't want a DID plot is correct, I could see both sides of the tale because Eden had a strange reaction to the jewel prior to the Dobson's arrival, but the first signs of Eden's personality split occur during the infamous dinner party.  So, who knows when the idea started and why they felt that they couldn't course correct that plot, when they torpedoed so many events that occurred during their time away from the show?

Then, we see the flashback of Sophia falling off of the Lochridge yacht, which becomes a retcon that Channing and Eden were on Lionel's boat, and they found out that Lionel was Channing's father, then saw Sophia fall off of the boat.  Which is different that the original tale that Marcello (the German psychiatrist whose family was saved by CC in WWII and then was "adopted" as an adult by Count Armonti) told Eden.  He said that he saw her on the beach when they both watched Sophia fall off of the boat, then he rescued Sophia and took her to Italy. 

Either way, it never really stood to reason why Channing knew he was Lionel's son but chose not to discuss it for eight years until the day of his murder.  Or, why Eden's split personalities would blame Sophia rather than Lionel (except I don't think Nik Coster was on the show during the Eden DID story) and in the end it has nothing to do with jewels, but for some reason Eden is still pissed that Sophia killed Channing.

Edited November 21, 2022 by j swift

[Beach Climber]

I didn’t think Mason and CC had completely buried the hatchet during the time Terry Lester played him. Mason getting involved with Capwell Industries on the Oasis project did involve some conflict between them and part of Julia’s early reservations at Mason getting involved with the business was due in part to how things always blow up between them and it causes Mason to self destruct.

However, when GT took over, they started leaning into Mason lashing out at the entire family and most of the town, not just CC. He got pretty insufferable and regressed. All of the conflict also seemed to vanish as soon as Mason and Julia reunited. All of a sudden, he got along with everyone again and was able to take over the company with no issues and he and CC got along until the show wrapped. 

[Ryan Mason]

I remember Rosa saying she didn't want to talk about it when the land got brought up at the dinner party, and later remember thinking, "Well, I guess the writers didn't either, because I don't remember ever hearing much more about it!" Along those same lines, Pamela said she knew who Cassandra's father was, but *we* never found out who it was...or who Warren's was either, for that matter.

[Wendy]

Well, the show was canceled before it happened, but I recall pretty clearly that a sort of inverse scenario was being set up where, like Sophia and Lionel had Channing, the groundwork being laid was that C.C. fathered Warren with Augusta.

And considering the acrimony with Warren and Mason already, the writers probably wanted to egg it on.

So, as much as I loved the show ('til around early '92, before it went to hell!), I was glad to see this left unresolved. It was revisionist, dumb "history", and I was glad it fell by the wayside.

[Joseph]

 

[John]

A discusses how the show was failing in its first three months and blamed it on the show's lead, Dane Witerspoon who was playing lead role of Joe. The show recast the role with Mark Arnold

 

[Jdee43]

A's quote: "But what happened is that it wasn't working, so they started looking for, like, a scapegoat. And they decided to blame the guy who was playing the main alpha lead guy, um, Dane. You know, to this day, I think it was a terrible mistake to blame him. He didn't deserve to be blamed for the show being, having faltered." 

[John]

Dane & Robin were dating and she hated he was fired which made it difficult for Mark Arnold. Then we he quit because of Teen Wolf (1985) success, they killed Joe off. A waste of potential on a character

Edited December 6, 2022 by John

[Jdee43]

A's a stand up guy. Dane's firing was his big break on the show; otherwise, A might never have become the lead.

Didn't A try to keep in touch with Dane? A was the one who announced Dane's passing on Facebook back in 2014.

It seemed like Santa Barbara always wanted to do a story of a Hispanic man and a blonde girl. In the very beginning, they kept this story in the youth set; it seemed to be the direction they were going with Danny and Jade. When they decided to go with Cruz and Eden and make this kind of story their lead one, it also meant giving the youth set and the characters of Jade and Danny the shaft. It was probably just as well as those characters were not that strong and those actors were a bit green. Overall, the youth set on early Santa Barbara was a part of the reason the show wasn't working.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Jdee43

[kalbir]

Nancy Lee Grahn, Lane Davies, Marcy Walker, A Martinez appear in this promo for NBC's Fall 1988 lineup.