Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[dc11786]

I´ve rewatched the dinner party several times in the last couple years. I think there are some details we are getting wrong. Mason brings Pamela to the dinner party after she has been released from the hospital with the help of C.C., not Mason. This has all been done offscreen, but the revelation is suppose to establish the amount of power and control C.C. exerts on those in his circle. Part of the stipulation of Pamela´s release, which C.C. has Pamela recite after she has completely lost it again, is that she wasn´t suppose to contact Mason or the family. In the subsequent confrontation between Mason and C.C., Mason brings up the fact that they have had a ceasefire in their animosity in the past few years, and C.C. fails to recognize anything he has done as wrong. 

The dinner party is intriguing in that it pits parallel plots against each other. The ¨trial¨ forces Sophia to admit she, like Pamela, had spent many years away, much of it in a fugue state, and did something truly horrendous, killing her ¨son" Channing. Pamela and C.C.´s marriage sounds like hell and neither of them were capable of raising a child. This is all playing out while Eden has started her multiple personalities plot. And, also, Mason is a character who seems to suffer from untreated depression that manifests itself in his self-destructive behavior. 

I haven´t seen much of the good years between Mason and C.C., but Mason´s animosity with his father seems to be at the heart of who his character is. Maybe a longer arc to get them back to that state would have been better, but the truth is SB never did long arcs. 

I think the dinner party sets off a lot of loose plots that come together (and some that don´t). The trial seems to play well into the downfall of Eden with her assuming the role of Channing to execute her mother for her role in the crime. From what I´ve seen, this also leads to Sophia´s self-imposed banishment which allows C.C. to romance Santana, another person who suffers because C.C. ¨knows better" and has made sure she has stayed in the mental hospital. 

Also, Pamela´s comment about Ruben and Rosa´s land leads to the revelation that this was the land that the Oasis was built on, which should have meant the property belonged to the Andrades. I imagine that at one point there was consideration that this would have led to Santana assuming the property with C.C. and Mason both trying to vie for the property (and her affection). Something else that seems to arise from the dinner party is Rosa Andrade seems to express much more disdain for the Capwell clan. I thought this was a fascinating facet to the character that was never really utilized enough. 

With all that said, there definitely seems to be a sense of desperation in the Dobsons second run.

Carrington Garland was wonderful (in my opinion) as Kelly. The Kelly reset is not only unneeded, but wasteful. Davidson´s Kelly just sort of flutters around butting into people´s business in her first few months and I think might have a C-romance with Craig Hunt. 

 

[Keri]

I liked Carrington Garland as Kelly, but it seems like a completely different character to me. I'm the lone person that doesn't care much about Kelly either way, or Robin Wright. 

I also don't mind the later years as much as others, although even for me there is a limit, which comes sometime mid-1991. 

It didn't bother me that Mason and CC started being hostile again. Old patterns die hard, and old wounds can get reactivated. If something was going to do it, it would be Pamela. 

But as I probably said before, I first started watching in 1991, so I only caught the tail end of the soap live, and so it had the biggest impression on me. So that is also why I have a soft spot for it. 

 

[j swift]

Agreed that it was CC who got Pamela released, with the stipulation that she had no contact with Mason (I don't recall if Kelly is even mentioned in this plan, as it is even weirder that nobody seems to care that Pammie tried to kill her - leave it to Eden to once again make it all about herself - haha).

But, I assume you understand my point that Mason's attitude toward his mother, and using her as a cudgel against CC lacks story based motivation in 1991.

Don't get me wrong, I think the dinner party episode(s) in general is excellent. Sophia really shines.  I love the part about how she struggled to be a stepmother to Mason, and her performance alone allows me to overlook these issues.  But upon reflection, the Mason stuff feels unearned, given that it's played by re-cast at that moment in the story.

Edited October 22, 2023 by j swift

[dc11786]

@j swift I want to make sure I am interpreting what you are saying correctly. You are saying that you don´t feel Mason shouldn´t have welcomed Pamela back into his life because of what happened in 1988. If that is the case, I disagree. The sense I get from the two episodes of the dinner party is there is a very different take on mental illness than some of the previous years. The stance I felt Mason was taking was that his mother had committed all of those horrible crimes when she was mentally unwell, and that she should be exonerated the way that Sophia had been for murdering Channing, Jr. I would also suggest that Mason laid a lot of the blame for Pamela´s poor mental health on her treatment by C.C. The marriage, as recounted by Pamela during the episodes in question, sounds miserable and unbearable. Even as an adult, Mason appears to be a pawn in their game with one another. C.C. wants to maintain control over Mason, while Pamela hallucinates and imagines Mason as C.C. himself. 

I also think it had been a well established element of Mason´s character that his separation from his mother and the coldness from his father were at the roots of Mason´s psyche. It is his mother after all. I think we will just disagree on this matter. 

In regards to Kelly, Pamela states that she is suppose to ¨stay away from the family - especially Mason.¨ So Kelly is lumped in with everyone else even though she had significant reason her out. 

[chrisml]

I think we can all agree that the dinner party scenes are phenomenal, but they also spell out what's wrong with Santa Barbara and the Dobsons' writing in general. They are fantastic at creating episodes, but they fall apart it when it comes to longterm story. I get that they wanted to reactivate the CC/Mason feud, but what was the end game? Was it just more fighting? I have read with the Dobsons where they seem personally invested in keeping Mason and C.C. at odds. 

[j swift]

That's an interesting thought that I hadn't considered.

My only counterargument would be the lack of groundwork laid for Mason's change of heart.  Certainly, by watching the hospital scene in 1988, Mason has lost sympathy for his mother's illness because she allowed him to take the blame for Mark's death, as well as being responsible for numerous other incidents with his family. If somewhere on the road to sobriety, Mason learned to have more empathy for Pamela than I would buy your take on the dinner party. 

However, my contention is not with Mason welcoming Pamela back, but whether his anger is properly justified at that moment in 1991.  Because, why are we suddenly re-adjudicating Sophia for Channing's murder?  It feels like the connection between the two women's history was a missed opportunity from when Pamela first returned for Elena's trial.  So, they shoe-horned it into the story in 1991.  It was an artful shoe-horn, but not earned in terms of establishing the motivation.

One other point need I need clarification on, because I rely on your excellent memory.  I had forgotten that Pamela knew that Cassandra was Minx's daughter before everyone else found out.  In the synopsis on the French site there's a mention that Pamela spoke to Cassandra's father.  But, that seems wrong, since I don't recall that we ever knew Cassandra's father.  And I doubt Minx would have told Pamela at the time of Cassandra's birth.  Do you think Cassandra was meant to be Scott's cousin (or sister)?  Which would be odd since the character bio said that Scott left in 1989

Episode 1658 (the reappearance of Pamela)

Pamela confides in Mason that she knows a secret concerning Cassandra. She tells him that she is the illegitimate daughter of Minx Lockridge...

Episode 1659

Mason is shocked by Pamela's revelation. She explains to him that she learnt this from Cassandra's father, who she was frequently seeing during this time.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by j swift

[Beach Climber]

Mason’s feuding with CC later in the series was fine. Even when they got along, they went back and forth. I wouldn’t say they completely buried the hatchet until the last year of the show. However, Mason was treating everyone like crap once the Dobson’s returned, not just CC. He had definitely graduated past town pariah well past then and I didn’t buy Pamela causing that regression.

[Liberty City]

YES! YES! YES!

[gimmetoo]

Anyone care to share opinions on the various Masons ?  Lane Davies was obviously chef's kiss...but how do GT and TL compare ?  

Edited October 25, 2023 by gimmetoo

[Contessa Donatella]

Totally subjective here! Lane is my favorite. I am a Lane Davies fan of the first order. Every year Lane would do pilot season & often he'd get a pilot & they would do 13 episodes & then get canceled & he loved that beccause in proportion he got many $$$ but wasn't tied down to a schedule for an ongoing series. I watched ALL of those pilots! And, the rest of the episodes if they were shown. One that stands out in my memory, FOX, The Crew, an airplane, pilot, co-pilot & the ones with most of the zingers for dialog the attendants, who used to be stewards & stewardesses. 

Terry Lester is a wonderful actor. I appreciated him on SB & I loved him on ATWT! 

Gordon Thomson, I dunno, he just never hit a homerun with me. Very nice looking fella. That's all I got. 

OH! I forgot. I lived in Lane Davies hometown awhile back, Dalton GA which at that time was known as the Carpet Capital of the World. It no longer is, known as it, or it. Lane is a favorite son there of course & his parents were still living there when I did. He also would frequently do a role in the state's Shakespeare Summer Festival, which was held in another city. 

[dc11786]

I see what your saying regarding the lack of connection to Pamela´s exit, though I´d counter that Mason´s reaction was more in the immediate aftermath of what had happened to him. To be fair, my concerns with the dinner party have always been on the lack of the complete follow through of the potential laid out.

I haven´t watched much of 1988; what I´ve seen (pre-strike) is a level of over the top that I don´t find appealing. I don´t get the sense though that Pamela´s mental health was treated with a level of seriousness in 1988 that I feel it is being treated in 1991, but I am willing to accept that I am wrong on. 

Since C.C. and Mason´s reversed reconcilliation is a level of contention, what was the story that led to them reconcilling?  

I guess I can see your point about whether Mason´s anger is justified. I would argue that part of the animosity between C.C. and Mason was that C.C. always saw Mason as the reminder of his problematic marriage to Pamela. Mason often felt that C.C. didn´t see him as enough; no one saw Mason as good enough in his own eyes. This was being played out well into 1990. I´ve seen a scene from September when Mason is on the verge of success with the Oasis and wants Julia by his side, but Julia is considering siding with Dash and the environmentalists. Lester played the hurt of that ongoing rejection well. I think C.C. playing God and dictating what happened to Pamela very easily sway Mason especially as I view Mason´s perspective through the lens of my belief that Mason is dealing with his own ongoing battles with mental health.  

Another thing I´ve considered in recent years regarding the dinner party is what role Frank Hursley´s passing in 1989 played in Bridget Dobson´s writing. As I am sure you are aware, Frank Hursley abandoned his wife and family to marry Doris and have two daughters. I suspect some of the C.C. / Pamela / Sophia / Mason dynamics are being lifted from the Hursley family tree. I think Bridget may have needed to work out some things through that sequence. 

To me, the bigger crime isn´t the timing of the Sophia/Pamela trials on motherhood but rather than Channing, Jr.´s murder was allowed to lay dormant for so many years (including the time that the Dobsons wrote). Channing´s death was a defining moment in the family´s history. To me, it´s the equivalent of Zach Brady´s death. I am also an apologist for the tension in Hope and Bo´s marriage several years later under Dena Higley even though that hadn´t been a focus in the inbetween. Events like that do not just die. 

Cassandra´s father comes up during the dinner party. When Pamela outs Cassandra as Minx´s daughter, she mentions she knows Cassandra´s father very well. Before departing for the hospital, Pamela is confronted by Cassandra about the identity of her father and Pamela is no longer aware of the connection only suggesting that the man must know Pamela´s own father.

Where they were going with Cassandra´s paternity I do not know. Ben or Hal Clark are possible. I also wonder if they considered David Raymond at some point especially as I think that David was tested with Julia early on. I think the Dobsons may have initially intended to give Minx a greater presence with Janis Paige in the role as Dame Judith Anderson´s age had prevented them from using Minx in a way that I imagined they intended. 

[j swift]

I wasn't aware of that, but it is one of the most impressive points that I've read on this board!

I recall an interview with a SB blog, recapped on We Love Soaps, with Bridget that mentioned her contentious relationship with her parents. 

Search led to General Hospital and to one of their two daughters (me) wanting a job working from her parents. I did not just want a job.  I was obsessed.  I was adamant.  I was furious.  I was outrageous.  I pleaded.  I begged.  I threatened.  I had trained for this.  They stonewalled me.  No.  No job.  We'll hire your sister.  Which they did.  Why not me?  “Because you're a party girl.”  Come on.  “Because you'll never meet the deadlines.”   What nonsense.  “Because Debby needs the money.” 

"My parents never accepted that I was a success on my own. (My mother apparently was furious to learn that our bosses at P&G were talking to Jerry and me about shows, not to them. This is according to my sister, who was visiting them at the time of an hysterical outburst.) They never watched any of my shows. When they were asked why not, they said, 'Because we want to be proud of Bridget. That's why we don't watch.'

So, it is intriguing to think of CC as the embodiment of their conflict.  And the sibling rivalry regarding who was the favorite child that threads throughout the history of SB as a reflection of Bridget and her sister.

And to your point about working things out, she finishes the story about her parents by mentioned that she went through psychoanalysis and was left with the opinion that if her parents weren't proud of her work that was their loss, not hers.

Totally agreed, and it makes me wonder how CC ever forgave Sophia.

Edited October 28, 2023 by j swift

[safe]

 From the new book Ryan's Hope: An Oral History of Daytime's Groundbreaking Soap

Roscoe Born said  his Santa Barbara character, Robert Barr, was the most prototypical soap character he ever played and it was  most prototypical soap triangle he was in. He said he did excellent work and earned an Emmy nomination. He also thought he was nominated because it was high profile--- he did more soap press than he had ever done before during Santa Barbara. The soap may have pushed for the nomination to get him to re-sign.

[chrisml]

He should have won the Emmy as well. As much as I liked Henry Darrow, it baffles me that he has an Emmy when other, better performances were snubbed or didn't win.

[Wendy]

So the Friends pilot is on now on Nick At Nite, and I completely forgot that John Allen Nelson (Warren Lockridge #1) played Paul the Wine Guy, a co-worker at the restaurant Monica worked at who she dated - then found out he was a player.

(Wonder if he ever got a piece of the show's residual pie for that role?)