Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Efulton]

I loved her as Gomez! She was good as Santana but I was really hoping for a return with so many new characters and recasts at that point. 

[dc11786]

@Jdee43 I think the C.C. / Santana revisit in 1991 would have been effective if had been allowed to play out to what I imagine was the natural conclusion. When the Dobsons returned with the dinner party episodes, it was established that Ruben and Rosa Andrade had been tricked in some land deal with C.C. It was later revealed, before Santana arrived, that the land in question was the property that the Capwells had built the Oasis on. The setup for this would seem to be that the Andrades were going to come into some level of power in Santa Barbara.

Cue Santana's return, where Dr. Grant Jameson, on C.C.'s payroll, has kept Santana locked in a psychiatric facility against her will before she learns the truth about what was going on. When the trial occurred regarding the incident involving Santana's imprisonment, C.C. continued to wield his power before Jameson had a moment of consicousness and confessed all his sins, but not before admonishing C.C. for his behavior. While I don't think C.C. directly caused Santana to be kept locked away, he certainly wasn't willing to listen to Santana. His arrogance and hubris played a role in that story. 

Similarly, you could see the parallel plots being developed in two ways. Firstly, Santana had been locked away and kept from Brandon in a manner very similar to the way C.C. had kept Pamela from Mason in recent years. During the trial, Santana's biggest supporter was Warren Lockridge. Sliding Santana into the triangle with Warren/Mason/Cassandra would seem like the logical steps once the full arc of the Santana and C.C. story played out. Secondly, Gina, who had kept Brandon from Santana, was now pregnant via artificial insemination with C.C.'s child. To me, it was clear the Dobsons would have had Santana raising Gina's child via C.C. in order to atone for the sin of being kept from her own child. 

Part of the issue was that Paul Raunch was the producer. Production staged the C.C. and Santana relationship as romantic with a splashy montage of C.C. and Santana making love to Vanessa William's "Save the Best for Last." While I think the romantic element should have played to an extent, this was not a romance story. It was a story of power and revenge. Santana was playing C.C. Rosa makes that very clear in her confrontations with her daughter reminding Santana that she cannot turn C.C. into the late Channing while Santana leaned into the shared grief over Channing's murder. I don't think the Dobsons wanted us to root for Santana and C.C. to be an endgame couple. 

I imagine the story would have led to a small civil service between C.C. and Santana, who would marry because C.C. wanted to make a play for custody of Gina and his son and wanted to provide him with a stable mother figure. Once Santana and C.C. secured custody, I imagine Santana would have arranged a situation or have allowed Gina to have a situation where C.C. ended up locked away long enough for Santana to secure her birthright, the Oasis, which would have shifted her into the world of Cassandra and Mason. 

Of course, some of this played out and some of it didn't so I may just be overthinking all of this. 

[Liberty City]

Finally stepping back into Santa Barbara since the top of the year... I'm at episode 935.

[Jdee43]

I just watched episode 89 from 11/30/84. The show is finally trying to pick things up with Mason, by having him be accused of his brother's murder. It doesn't really make much sense as to why his sister and father would take the word of a lowlife that Mason was guilty, and why Mason would then suddenly start acting as if he were really guilty, but much about this show just doesn't make sense.

Episode 89 features the first knockdown verbal fight between Mason and his father. It would have been so much better if Peter Mark Richman were still in the role of CC. Charles Bateman just didn't have the gravitas or the menace. Richman I believe could punch his son and pull a gun on him; with Bateman, it all just comes off as pretty ridiculous, he's so not believable. 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Jdee43

[Liberty City]

Oh see, I love Charles Bateman, and loved his chemistry with his co-stars.

[Khan]

I don't think any actor (not even Jed Allan) who portrayed C.C. Capwell was all that effective.  It's possible that C.C. was just a hard part to cast for.

[chrisml]

I think the main problem with C.C. is that his personality and purpose was constantly changing depending on the writers/performers. I can't imagine any actor would be able to play any of those shifts convincingly. 

[Jdee43]

Watching the show, I think Mark Arnold was completely miscast as Joe.

How about Jack Wagner as Joe Perkins in 1984? Or Jack Wagner as Joe Perkins in 1991? That would have made much more sense in terms of the kind of character Wagner ended up playing. Joe would have had tons of reasons to be pissed off. I never bought Wagner as Warren or liked what they turned Warren into to fit Jaxk Wagner.

[Ryan Mason]

In 1984, Jack Wagner was pretty solidly ensconced and popular on General Hospital as Frisco, so unfortunately that wouldn't have worked. I do agree about Mark Arnold, though. I guess he had a pretty successful run on The Edge of Night for a few years before this, but here I feel like he basically turned Joe into Shouty McYellerson. It seemed like his Joe was just constantly yapping about something or other and it just got obnoxious after awhile. 

[chrisml]

I stumbled upon a Nicholas Coster interview where he mentions leaving Santa Barbara because of a certain producer. The link is here: https://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/09/coster3.html   I don't remember the insurance fraud/Lionel faking his own death story. When did this happen and who was the producer at the time? 

 

[Keri]

I've been watching that storyline right now- well parts of it, I skip a lot. It was like March/April 1990. I also thought it was dumb, although there are a couple of good scenes between CC and Sophia talking about Lionel and the past when they think he's dead.

I don't follow/know the production crews the way you guys do, but I thought the end credits said John Conboy but then he left somewhere during that time as well, bc I think now it's someone else (June/July 1990). 

I'm wondering about the Cassandra character. It was kind of odd when she just showed up but now she fits in a little better. I assume she was an unpopular character? 

ETA I was wrong, it still shows Conboy as Exec Producer at the end.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Keri

[j swift]

I think the actress, Karen Moncrieff, is very well-suited for soap operas.  She is beautiful, she looks great in gowns, and she has very expressive eyes.  She can embody an intriguing and charismatic character. 

However, the stories for Cassandra were preposterous.  From her convoluted backstory to her odd choice of romantic partners, she was a mess.  And, in order to make this mess into a leading character, they had to retcon both Minx and Warren's history.  I mean, between Brick, Channing, and Cassandra, Minx was a monster when it came to allowing babies to raised by their mothers.

The Lockridges were my favorite soap family, and the idea that Cassandra upended everything that we knew about them within six years of the soap's debut was a fatal mistake.

That being said, the four orphan storyline is one of the best examples of a great pitch/poor execution plot.  The mystery surrounding the connection of these four disparate characters.  Their vitriol toward Mason.  And, how they finagled their way into various parts of the Capwell family was so fun to watch.  But, the casting for the men was not great, and they couldn't stick the landing, in terms of telling a satisfying resolution.  

Edited June 25, 2023 by j swift

[chrisml]

Thanks Keri and J Swift for all the information. I was watching then but I have no knowledge of the storyline Coster hated. I must have blocked it from my memory.

As for Cassandra, I remember liking the character but I was annoyed by the plot. As J Swift points out, it was a mess and just felt cobbled together as they were going on. It was another SB storyline that just fizzled out. The Stephen/Sophia relationship part of the story went nowhere and it was aggravating. 

[Keri]

Yeah I thought the thing with the 4 orphans made no sense by the end, and I the stuff with the play and Sophia seemed like a waste of time.

The retcons don't bother me much, maybe bc I only started watching real time in late 1990 and 1991, so I didn't realize. 

Now I try not to think about it lol. 

[Marissa Gallant]

This makes me so very sad

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