Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Marissa Gallant]

Man, I still hate Maggie Ellis. I think Warren and Liz would have been interesting, but nope, the show went with Maggie, the most boring character to ever hit the show 

[j swift]

I was looking at a picture of Kerry Sherman (Amy Perkins) on a Facebook post about SB, and it struck me that the baby she had during the show would be around 37 today!

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[Ryan Mason]

Yep! And Samantha and Chip would be 36, Adriana coming up on 35, and Brandon would be 44! I feel like Brandon was a rarity for children on soaps in that he was on the show for just about the entire run and while he was recast several times, he never got prematurely aged; he didn't suddenly come back from summer camp or boarding school a senior in high school or anything!

Edited August 24, 2023 by Ryan Mason

[Jdee43]

Watching through episode 96 (12/11/84), the show is so over Joe. He hasn't appeared since episode 86 and is barely being mentioned. In the beginning, with Dane playing him, Joe was on every day. 

Mason is definitely more interesting now that everyone hates him. He has a good scene with CC in the beginning of episode 96, where he threatens CC with a broken bottle. Mason quotes Shakespeare in episode 96 too, for the first time I think. 

I was surprised that the writers went so far as to have Mason leave Peter to die back in episode 87. I never knew he was an attempted murderer. Since Peter later becomes a serial killer, this becomes no big deal or is dropped?

Episode 96 features Andrea Howard as Veronica. Like others in the cast, she's beautiful, but just can't act. She's supposed to be playing Mason at Lionel's behest, but you can hardly tell with her performance; she talks to Mason and Lionel in the same way; subtly and nuance was a little beyond her.  

 

 

[Carlos Abad]

Just watched this very recent interview of Robin Wright where they talk a little about Santa Barbara and her role as Kelly Capwell. 

 

 

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Edited August 31, 2023 by Carlos Abad

[Chris 2]

Robin is still a very beautiful woman.

[DRW50]

https://archive.org/details/wdsusoaps-541988

I was watching this episode earlier today (5/4/88) - I know this was a bit of a lull period as the Pamela story had recently wound down and Eden and Cruz were in one of their rare happy places, but I wonder how much was also on hold due to the strike. How much do you think was affected by the strike? (I can't remember if they were the reason Hayley was killed) 

This episode really makes me appreciate all the more the natural chemistry Lane Davies and Nancy Lee Grahn had and what a believable quality NLG brought to the pairing and the show. (although SB had a number of actors good at finding the everyday in absurdity) Their stuff here is absolutely beautiful. 

I had forgotten until today that Kristen Meadows said she left SB because of death threats from Cruz/Eden fans. That's horrible, but nothing I ever see of Tori suggests she fit into the show. She just seems so whiny and drab. I had no idea until today that the wonderful Susan Brown played her mother. Glad Susan got a paycheck, but what a waste.  On the positive (?) side, Warren Burton seems much less flaming here than he did on GL and to a lesser degree on AW. I was going to ask if Tori left town with him, but it looks like she didn't? I wonder if there was a dropped story here. 

Who is playing the older woman TJ (bleh) is paying off?

Judith McConnell and Jed Allan's chemistry tends to make me forget that I probably couldn't tolerate CC if I were her, even if Sophia wasn't a saint either. 

Ross Kettle really couldn't play anything beyond dream prince, could he?

I don't know what it is about the combo of JFP and Vincent Irizarry. I had no problem with him as Lujack, or David Hayward, but similar to his run as Nick, I wanted to dropkick him off the screen here every single time he appears. Endless sanctimony and sourness.

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by DRW50

[Wendy]

Never got why Celeste and Heather fought over him. (Of course, Signy Coleman [Celeste] married Vincent Irizarry [Scott] off screen, so life imitated art, if just for a while.) Or Gina, for that matter. Faking blindness to be close to Scott Clark?

[chrisml]

 Vincent Irizarry was good looking so I can see why we were meant to see him as irresistible. The writing just wasn't there. I watched during his time on the show, and I can't remember anything significant he did on the show. SB had a lot of male characters like that: "attractive" men who just existed on the show but never did much of interest. 

[Beach Climber]

It doesn’t surprise me that this happened since that fanbase was huge and very vocal but was that why she left? Tori was on the show for at least 2 years past being their interloper if not longer. I actually didn’t know she left by choice because it seemed like they were struggling for a place for her towards the end of her run and just mixing her up with other random supporting characters who were on the outskirts of the main SLs. That happened a lot with characters who were initially brought on as a foe of one of the Capwell family members and they almost all slowly faded away once that storyline wrapped up and they moved to the c storylines. I didn’t mind the exit because I think her character was flop. When she was getting focus, she wasn’t very likable and she didn’t have chemistry with anyone. 

[DRW50]

This seems to have been translated from the original language, so maybe she said something different initially, I'm not sure.

Article Kristen Meadows (santabarbara-online.com)

[j swift]

I would argue that this is one of the problems with establishing valid soap history.

Kristen's story about leaving SB becomes fact because she gave an interview.  But, since we don't know the production side of the story, we are left with the impressions of a disgruntled ex-employee.  It reminds me of an actor who was recently fired, and in his exit interview he said that there was going to be a "bloodbath" of layoffs at that soap.  Six months later, very few other actors were let go.  But, it is easy to infer that an agent who wants to soften the blow might tell an actor that their firing was not personal, it was just part of a larger trend.

I'm not saying that that Miss Meadows (who totally charmed me as Mimi on OLTL) was intentionally misinforming the audience, but I would caution the reminder that we are only getting a single perspective with no validation.

Edited September 5, 2023 by j swift

[Liberty City]

In an interview with Soap Hub, Doug Davidson revealed Paul Rauch approached him about joining Santa Barbara. Who do we think we could have been? David Raymond? Connor McCabe?

[Chris 2]

Warren Lockridge?

[j swift]

Today I learned - that Gina Gallego (Santana) has been married since 1983 to Joel Bailey, who played Channing's boyfriend, Lindsay Smith.  Not many couples can say that they both acted as the lover of a dead soap character.

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Edited September 20, 2023 by j swift