Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Ryan Mason]

What's also interesting is that unless I'm forgetting any one-off appearances later on, I think he only interacted with Margaret Michaels as Santana!

[dc11786]

IMDb has Joel Bailey's last airdate in August, 1985. Gina Gallego didn't join the show until after "Rituals" last aired in September, 1985. I think Gallego and Bailey may have been in episodes of "Flamingo Road" together, but I don't think they were ever in the same scene. 

I know it probably would have been a very bleak story, but I know NBC wanted "Santa Barbara" to do an AIDS plot. I would have had Lindsay Smith diagnosed with the disease and come to stay with the Capwells while he was living out his final days. I'm thinking a sort of "In the Gloaming" style story. Sophia would have liked to get to know the boy she raised as her own despite Minx 's deception and Lindsay would have given her insight into a part of her son she never knew. I think it would have also been a painful reminder that C.C.'s vision of Channing, Jr., was not the reality. In the aftermath, maybe even have Sophia become involved with an AIDS charity with possibly Sophia's involvement infuriating C.C. over Sophia wanting to share her connection to the disease through Lindsay which would make very public Lindsay and Channing, Jr.'s relationship. Maybe have Mason handle the legal end of the charity work with Mason siding with Sophia. 

[Ryan Mason]

I do remember something around the fall of 1988 where there was a patient in the hospital with AIDS and Tori helped him reconcile with his father. It was super backburner and around the time where she was also super-backburneredly seeing Heather & Michael's father Arthur Donnelly.

[Jdee43]

The end of episode 98 and the beginning of episode 99 have a classic soap opera production/continuity error. 98 ends with Peter in a hospital bed. 99 begins with Peter in the same bed, repeating the same scene, only this time sporting a new haircut and a shave. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Jdee43

[j swift]

It would have been odd because as I recall the reveal, CC got angry at Mason for outing Channing.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I think he yelled at Mason for thinking that he was humiliating Channing, but he affirmed that nothing could destroy the love that he felt for his son.  It was one of the few times that I enjoyed that version of CC because his response was so unexpected. 

I get that all social issues stories on soaps need an antagonist to portray the social implications of the cause.  However, it would've been unfair to CC to make him be the face of the bias toward the disease.

Edited September 28, 2023 by j swift

[Ryan Mason]

If I remember right, that was where both he and the confrontation with Mason ended up, but for him to get there, Sophia had to talk him out of his initially more homophobic reaction. I think he was on the verge of having Channing's belongings burned in disgust and she talked him out of it.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Ryan Mason

[dc11786]

C.C. always came across as a character who needed to control everything. I felt that the AIDS story could be used to dig at what should have been a much more deeper issue in the relationship between C.C. and Sophia than what it was: C.C.'s golden child was in fact Lionel's. The entire opening storyline deals with the deep pain that C.C. feels over the loss of Channing and how he, in the aftermath, controlled the life of Brandon, Channing's son. I don't get the sense that this was an ever present issue in C.C. and Sophia's relationship. 

Ultimately, I see the situation with Lindsay coming to stay with the Capwells and the aftermath as a chance to dig into the deep fissure that should have existed between C.C. and Sophia. C.C.'s reaction would be at face value homophobia, which was and still is deeply ingrained in society, but more about the fact that Channing wasn't C.C.'s child and Sophia openly deceived C.C. I would have had a nosey reporter (possibly working for Warren and dating Ted) wondering why Lindsay has come to stay with the Capwells and start digging around only to discover not only the connection to Channing, but also Sophia's role in Channing's murder and possibily Brandon's paternity. 

I don't think that Sophia's role as murderess was made public was it? Or that Channing was Brandon's father? People knew, but it wasn't like it was well known in Santa Barbara. Then again, with Brandon's custody, I imagine that the paternity became public, but maybe I am wrong.   

[j swift]

Sophia was still in her drag king era, and hadn't emerged when Mason outed Channing.

It's an excellent point because I don't even think that an issue was made of Sophia's return, in terms of publicity.  She was a society matron, and later we know she was a well regarded actress, but her return from the dead got no publicity as far as I recall.

Well, certainly by the time of Brandon's kidnapping, it was public knowledge that he wasn't Gina's biological son.  But, I still think his paternity was not common knowledge outside the family.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that Ted never knew that Channing was Brandon's father.  But, then again, Ted didn't know a lot of things about his family.

Edited September 28, 2023 by j swift

[chrisml]

This made me laugh because the writers never knew what to do with Ted. Todd McKee was so attractive and charismatic, but pretty much an afterthought in terms of storylines. 

Re: social issues. I don't remember SB doing social issue stories. Perhaps, they did a few and I'm just not remembering them. My first thought was Eden's rape with the PSAs, but that was muddied by the identity of the rapist as that scared some female viewers. 

[Ryan Mason]

I did remember for sure that it was the summer of 1985, so she was long past that period. I looked it up here and it was episode 276 on August 26th that I'm thinking of:

http://santabarbara-online.com/Calendar1985.htm

276
Mason tells CC Channing was gay & Santana confirms it, Lionel sends CC Sophia's old audition tape, Gina learns from Augusta that Channing is Lionel's son, Steve & Mary look for Christie, Sophia convinces CC it doesn't matter if Channing was gay, Frank reads Lionel's eulogy, Christie warns Ted her rapist may be after him

[j swift]

I went back and watched the episode, and you are correct @Ryan Mason, thanks for the information.  It was so interesting to recall that Santana knew about Channing.  Yet, Mason's incriminating Polaroid was very tame in retrospect (Channing just has his arm around Lindsay).  And the way in which they dance around the topic is almost comical. (e.g. CC: but he fathered a child? Mason: He was homosexual, not impotent.)

It is a reminder that we live in amazing times when we can immediately watch so much content, any time we please.

And, boy, they burned through a lot of stories in those first few years. My bias has always been that SB didn't start in earnest until Jed Allen took over as CC, but in hindsight, it is hard to believe that happened 2 1/2 years into the run of the show.

Edited September 29, 2023 by j swift

[Ryan Mason]

You're welcome! And what was interesting for me too is that I just vaguely remembered that it was sometime in the summer of 1985 because that's when I started saving episodes on tape (we didn't even get a VCR until March 1985 so most of that first year was lost to me as soon as I went back to school) and I knew I'd seen it, but until I saw the summaries laid out like that, I'd forgotten that it was the one-two-three punch all within the span of a few days of finding out that Channing was gay AND Lionel's son and then finally Gina yanking the revised will and divorce papers away from him that he was desperately trying to sign that made his aneurysm burst and caused the long coma that Jed Allan woke up from in January!

[j swift]

The criticism that sticks out like a sore thumb on re-watch is how poor the writing was at differentiating the voices of the characters.  Sophia, Santana, and Gina's dialogue is all interchangeable.  You get no sense of the fact that these women are different ages, different classes, or different ethnicities. 

Sophia gets in some great zingers toward Mason when insulting him for sleeping with Gina.  But, all three women use the same vocabulary, they all have the same attitude, and they all play the scene with the same amount of heightened emotion. 

Augusta is a unique character, and yet so much of that relies on Louise Sorrel's tremendous charisma, the costuming, and the fact that she had Nicholas Coster as a scene partner.

Which is probably why the rest of them were re-castible, but there was only one Augusta and Lionel.

[Jdee43]

I'm up to episode 100. At the moment, it seems like Nicholas Coster is now the star of the show. He's in every storyline, appearing everyday. Joe is an afterthought; he hasn't been on in 14 shows, almost 3 weeks. 

Episode 100 features another pretty blonde in a skimpy bikini. It also features location footage with Lionel on his boat and then in the water, diving with the blonde. The episode gives Nicholas Coster an additional credit as "underwater consultant." Was that one of his hobbys? 

[Ryan Mason]

He was a scuba instructor and maintained a foundation that made scuba diving accessible for the disabled. I also seem to remember reading an article years ago that he taught John Allen Nelson how to dive.