Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Coster lived a very full life, even still working to his last years, but I'm sorry to hear he's gone. Such a wryly amusing, charismatic, restrained presence who added a touch of class to anything he appeared in...and he appeared in plenty. 

[Jdee43]

I only started watching Santa Barbara regularly as a kid in 1988. Then in 1990, it was moved to noon, and I lost touch. I never realized until watching the 1984 episodes how essential Nicholas Coster was to the spirit of the show, one of its pillars. It's a shame that they ever got away from that. I think Santa Barbara definitely was his best soap role; no where else did he play a character as humorous and multi-faceted as Lionel.

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Jdee43

[Contessa Donatella]

2 things, very different.

1. As the Dobsons neared the end of SB they were in talks with P&G to go to AW to HW there. Everyone seemed to be on board & it looked like it was going to happen when NBC blocked it & it fell apart, didn't happen. I just cringe to think of the Renaissance AW could have had starting in 1993! If only. Anyway the Dobsons thought it was NBC's thing where they were trying to run AW off the air. Could have been. But, I wonder if it wasn't leftover from the feud between Dobsons & NBC. Anyway. 

2. I am trying to find some YouTube with Joe Marinelli in drag as Bunny Tagliatti. Do you happen to know of any clip in particular with him in it? Thanks! 

[Carlos Abad]

After watching Santa Barbara during many years on YouTube, I left the show about one year ago because I was hating the 1988 episodes. I was in the episodes where Pamela poisons Kelly, Eden is in Paris and Mason is “dead” after the convent fire. I was not enjoying those episodes. So I decided to begin the series again, especially because someone told me that the first 200 episodes have been improved with better audios and many missing English scenes. So today I have watched the premiere!

I love the promos they have added in the first episode. It’s great to see how the series was presented. In one of the promos we can see Lloyd Buchner. I’m not familiar with his work, but it looks that he could be a great C.C. Capwell.

The premiere episode is great and huge. It has many locations and it reminds me of a primetime soap. Sure they spent a lot of money in this series premiere. And I like Peter Mark Richman as C.C. He has a presence.

Robin Wright always looks gorgeous, but I’m surprised of her bad hairstyle during the premiere. It’s not good at all. And Santana’s dress is so strange. Also I don’t understand Santana first scene in 1979. She is dressed as a maid and she’s very thin, but she’s supposed to be 8 months pregnant because Brandon was born on August 21, 1979.

But I love the premiere. It’s a great way to start the show!

Edited July 13, 2023 by Carlos Abad
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[Jdee43]

Peter Mark Richmond might be my favorite CC. I would have liked to have seen what Lloyd Bochner could have done in the role though.

The pilot was good, but it was not sustainable. Interesting to see how they were setting up Augusta in the pilot to be this big baddie, petting a dog while paying goons to shotgun Joe. That potential never materialized. She was never that evil again. When Lionel showed up 5 weeks later, her character was watered down even more. By then, how she acted in the pilot pretty much made no sense. 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Jdee43

[Jdee43]

Watching episode 90 (12/3/84), there were two confessions, Brick learning Amy's secret and Mason learning Santana's. 

The Brick and Amy stuff went over like a lead balloon. A more believable reaction from Brick would have been so much better. Brick and Amy have the potential to be the most likeable characters on the show. I don't understand why the writers would saddle them with this kind of story, her pregnant by another man, a man who just dumped her. So many other places they could have gone.

The Mason and Santana stuff was better. The next episode, 91, is probably Lane Davies's best on the show so far, as he tries to talk truth to Santana. Poor guy, in the course of two episodes, Santana goes from finally wanting to be with him to pulling a knife on him and never wanting to see him again! And this after his father just pulled a gun on him too, in episode 89! The writers at this point seem to really like portraying Mason as quite the loser!

Edited July 12, 2023 by Jdee43

[Carlos Abad]

Episode 2 is not as good as the series premiere.

-The presentation of Santana and Augusta feels like cheating. In this episode we see that Santana wants to kill Joe with her gun and in the previous one we saw Augusta ordering her goons to kill Joe. And this killer attitude is only for these 2 episodes because Santana and Augusta are not able to kill anybody during the rest of the show. They are not killers!

-I like Marissa. I know she doesn’t do anything remarkable during the show. But the actress is natural, just the opposite of her husband John who IMO, is a terrible actor and a bad written character.

-And speaking of acting talents, I don’t like to be hard with the actors because I know some of them are reading the posts here, on Facebook, Instagram, etc. But there are at least 4 actors whose acting is not very good. In fact I think they are sometimes bad and for this reason I cannot take some of their scenes very seriously.

-I love Philip the butler and Breeze the dog, but I know they don’t last on the show. Sad! ☹

-I like Mason later, but in these episodes he’s not very likeable.

-I love Augusta’s outfit. She’s one of the best actress/characters from the beginning.

-One of the best parts of Santa Barbara are the soundtracks. The music is amazing, except for the big Santana and Rosa scene where the soundtrack is terrible. Sorry!

-The fights between John and Joe are terrible scenes. Bad acting by both actors! The actress who plays Marissa in the only one who is acting well in those scenes.

-We don’t have as many locations (which I really love). I guess Sunset Beach was the soap with the most locations because they have locations in almost every episode. Still we have Peter and Kelly on the helicopter, island and yacht. By the way, Steven Meadows and Robin Wright work well together even if we don’t have to root them as a couple. We also have the exteriors of the Lockridge home with Ted.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Carlos Abad
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[Liberty City]

No offense but I would stop linking to the episodes... it's going to cause them to be copyright removed at a certain point. It's what happened before, and it took months for the user to return.

[Carlos Abad]

I didn’t think about that so thanks for telling me. I have removed the links

[Liberty City]

Yeah.  It's why the uploader doesn't always list the episodes publicly.

[chrisml]

I'm curious. What would people say are some of the best storylines the show did? I know the show isn't known for it's long-term plotting, but are there storylines you think deserve praise?

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't understand. Just posting links could cause some unwanted attention to the videos? How in the heck does that work? So instead just give the title of the video?

[Franko]

Don't even do that, either. Simply put, it's best just to say that you were watching a show from a period of time, but don't give an indication how.

[Carlos Abad]

Just watched Santa Barbara Episode 3.

 -Hot, Stormy, Breathtaking! I just love the promos. ❤

 -I will get a little shallow in this episode because we have a lot of shirtless for the girls and gay fans (Ted, Danny, Warren, they all look great) and also we have a lot of girls in bikini for the heterosexual fans (Laken, Jade, Kelly). Not a big deal, but this caught my attention. They all looked great and very young. They all were babies and gorgeous!

 -I really dislike John Perkins, but on the other side I really like his wife Marissa. I wish they have given her a proper storyline, but that never happened.

 -We can see in this episode that they were trying something between Warren and Jade. In fact, they had lots of promotional pictures together posing as a couple. I don’t know if a story between them would have worked. But it’s sad that we will never know, because this was a story that was dismissed without trying.

 -I also like the friendship between Ted and Jade. Todd and Melissa work very well together.

 -Mason is acting very creepy with Santana. He seems like a stalker. Sorry, but I cannot like him here.

 -One of the best scenes of this episode is the confrontation of Rosa and C. C. The ‘Who do you think you are?” scene is just amazing. Peter Mark Richman and Margarita Cordova are great in it, but sadly it leads to nothing.

 -One thing I don’t know: Santana had Brandon in Acapulco before or after Channing’s murder?

 -I love the song ‘If Ever You're in My Arms Again’. I don’t mind that it appears every 10 minutes.

[Contessa Donatella]

Okay, I like learning new things. Today? 

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