Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[sungrey]

My God, Roberta Bizeau was dynamite to look at... not only that, Flame was just so unpredictable. She'd haul off and say something you didn't expect and it was just so jaw-droppingly stunning (and funny, at times... Flame's lines could be a hoot). Like other housecleanings, though, Flame was gone in the fall of 91 (I believe... it was the same time they wrote off Frank Runyeon, another one of the wasted actors who was so good on SB yet got jack squat to do).

ITA about Kerry Sherman, the actress that played Amy. She and Richard Eden had really good chemistry and Richard was a great actor when you gave him the right material to play (his scenes with Nick Coster and Jed Allan about finding out he was really Channing because Minx switched the babies were superb).

I must be a huge Santa Barbara fan because in my DRTV blog "Somerset", half of the actors are from Santa Barbara. I've got John Beck, Stacy Edwards, Lane Davies, Robin Mattson and Nick Coster in roles (Nick largely because he's reprising his Robert Delaney character... lol)

Edited October 21, 2010 by sungrey

[DRW50]

Do you think SB had a tough time with keeping or developing characters, or no more than any other soaps?

What do you think SB did best, what were its strengths?

[Sapounopera]

Love reading your SB posts people

Some thoughts:

* Judith McConnell was (and still is) one of the most beautiful actresses ever on a soap. She will always be my #1 SB beauty.

* Amy Perkins was involved in a rather big storyline when her infant son was kidnapped by an evil doctor and was given to a prince. It was 1984 or 1985.

* Victoria Lane was never a real threat to Mason and Julia, whom I adored as a couple.

* I never understood why this show wrote out promising characters so easily. The Lockridge kids, Keith Timmons, Hayley, Santana, Brick could have stayed around for years. Even Amy Perkins. Why did they have to change everything every six months? Maggie Wallace and Janice (the Lockridge driver) were both involved with Warren1. Who remembers them? SB was not even interested in keeping Tricia Cast around who played Christi. A Christi/Ted/Laken triangle could have gone on for years, but after a few months a lonely Ted was in search of a new storyline. Does anybody remember the story of an African American maid who was scheming against the Capwells? The actress later appeared on Generations as Adam's lover and her SB storyline was dropped VERY quickly.

[Urabamba]

Re Hayley: I agree that Stacy Edwards was a great actress. Other than the fact that SB seemed to have almost every female character raped (seriously - Kelly, Mary, Hayley, Eden, Julia, etc.), I never understood why SB ever did the rape storyline with Eden. I thought that Stacy did a great job with showing the horrors of rape and that doing the same thing with Eden was more than unnecessary. That said, though I liked Hayley, she wasn't one of my favorites. I thought she ended up being a little righteous for someone who killed someone (even if inadvertently), and tried to play innocent even though she was also culpable in the ending of her marriage to Ted. Plus I never bought her with Jake, though that had more to do with the fact that Rick Edwards as Jake was pretty but not a great actor. She had much more chemistry with Ted.

This. I loved the show, but it played revolving door with too many good characters. After some hits and misses to start, SB had a really good core of characters by early 1985, but it never seemed satisfied with them. The dumbest thing was when the original Lockridges were pretty much written out of the show (starting with Laken - she and Ted were good together, so I thought that was dumb - there could have been great awkward Capwell/Lockridge family scenes if they had kept them together; then Warren - never really got a good storyline, which was too bad b/c John Allen Nelson was a good actor; then Augusta - loved her and Lionel together, Louise Sorel was awesome - it was stupid to break them up). The show just wasn't the same without the Capwell/Lockridge feud. Instead they subjected us to too many random and annoying characters. Dylan Hartley comes to mind.

And this is an unpopular opinion, but I wasn't the biggest Cruz/Eden fan. Eden started out a strong female character on a show that had too few of them and kind of turned into a whiny, sometimes helpless shrew. And Cruz was just too damn perfect (seriously, were there any other cops in that town who could solve crimes) and had way too much storyline. It was difficult to watch the show when Lane Davies took summers off to do theater and they filled his time by making it the Cruz and Eden show.

[Urabamba]

Sorry, second post in a row, meant to address this in my last one. I think SB did a good job with developing a core cast of characters by early 1985 but for whatever reason didn't seem satisfied with that and ended up getting rid of good characters and introducing other ones that were annoying as hell. Granted, no soap can survive by being stagnant, but some of the character and storyline changes just seemed so arbitrary.

As for strengths, SB was easily the funniest soap ever.

[juniorz1]

They certainly had a tough time keeping & developing characters and yes, certainly moreso than other soaps. Not to continue pimping my fanfic or anything, but one thing I did & am continuing to do with 'RTSB' is using the core characters that SB should have stuck with all along. Yes, we (mostly) always had the Capwells (CC, Sophia, Ted, Mason, Eden, Kelly, & Ted) and Cruz, Gina and Julia, but pretty much everyone else was interchangable & constantly in & out. Characters (that I'm using) like Keith, Mary, Mark McCormick, Augusta, Pamela, Elena, Warren, Santana, Kirk, Pearl and Lily should have been permanent fixtures. I'd also argue that Brick, Hayley, and Laken should have been kept around, but SB never quite knew what to do with them whenever they were there, which is probably why I haven't permanently been able to utitlize them.

Pamela & Elena were definitely the most glaring missed opportunities. Pamela was so built up by the time that she came on that there were TONS of things they could have done with her. Instead, they brought her on as a surprise witness in Cruz's trial, after having already killed off her wicked daughter Elena, and then threw her into the Who the hell Cares? Hal Clark (Scott's father) murder mystery. Y&R never would have made such a mistake- years of story could have been mined out of Pamela & Elena alone. Look no further than the 1991 dinner party sequence that I posted on youtube as proof of that- glorious episodes!!!

I'd make the same argument with Augusta, but Louise Sorel left of her own volition in 1986. She admittedly didn't understand daytime at that time (it was her first soap role) and when Augusta was backburnered, she took exception with it & decided to leave, not really realizing that the story would eventually come back to her. But I ended up LOVING all of Augusta's surprise reappearnces in town. I remember about pissing my pants when she was revealed as Anthony Tonnell's widow- the show really made you think it was just going to be some new character there for the purpose of a few weeks of story & that black veil came up & lo & behold- AUGUSTA!!! Back in the days when soaps still had the element of surprise.

Obviously humor was a strength- SB did sophisticated wit & banter like no other. But that's just it- the dialogue on the show was just brilliant, even in the most dramatic of scenes. I've always felt that SB won so many writing Emmys because of their knack for crisp dialogue. They even won in 1991, when the show was well past its prime. From Mason's drunken Shakespearean sonnets to Eden & Cruz's vivid & honest descriptions of feelings & love to the outrageous lines utterred by Gina, Augusta, Pearl, Keith, and Lionel to the brilliance of Julia Wainright, they did dialogue like no soap before or since. And the thing about SB's humor is this- they were laughing with their audience, not at them (RE:SUN, PAS, and the pathetic soaps of today).

Another MAJOR strength that is not often mentioned is their courtroom sequences. SB did trials like no other. Witness the youtube clips I've posted of Cruz's trial as proof of that. When you have lawyers as smart as Julia going against others as smart but equally outrageous as Keith and Mason, not only did you have intelligently argued cases, but two interesting and contrasting points of view. I don't think there was ever a trial on SB where I absolutely, positively knew the verdict after the closing arguments, which is unusual for a soap. They also didn't have cheap stunts like most soaps do- HUGE revelations on witness stands, pregnancy pads revealed in court, etc... I was glued to my set any time SB had a storyline set in the courtroom. They did courtroom drama & intrigue just as well as, if not better than, shows like "LA Law," "The Practice," and "Law & Order."

[DRW50]

Speaking of Flame, this is a few months old but I thought some who haven't watched Youtube as much recently might not have seen it. It's a short clip of Flame, early in her run I guess?

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[sungrey]

Circa late 1989/early 1990, I believe. SB pulled the same thing General Hospital did when Lucy Coe, the mousy librarian, was revealed to be a sexpot character. I knew Debra London wasn't plain looking underneath what she wore to the office.

[DRW50]

From the July 26, 1990 SOD. News America Publishing. Did this pilot ever air? I guess it wasn't picked up as a series.

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

From the October 6, 1987 Digest, a feature on the costume designer. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2

[juniorz1]

That pilot did air, yes. Funny thing was the show was cancelled before they even showed the pilot, I believe the morning of the day it was to air. Those were the days of networks airing pilots regardless of whether they bacame a series. As much as I didn't want Marcy to leave SB at the time & as relieved as I was, it's unfortunate that the show didn't get picked up. IMO, the pilot was quite good & it could have turned into a solid show, especially had it been placed on Monday nights as the article implies. Marcy's series that got picked up the following year, 'Palace Guard,' wasn't nearly as good and I didn't like how similar her character was to Eden, though I admit watching it every Friday it aired.

[juniorz1]

I thought it was on youtube & I indeed found it. Here, check it out. Joanna Cassidy also stars.

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Edited October 22, 2010 by juniorz1

[DRW50]

Thanks for finding that. I always liked Joanna Cassidy. It's a shame it didn't work out. Actually I think Marcy would have been a great fit on a show like Murphy Brown.

Every time I hear Bar Girls I think of that lesbian movie from the mid-90s, Bar Girls (with such great lyrics as "Bar girls, bar girls...reach for the stars, girls.")

[juniorz1]

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[DRW50]

From the September 24, 1985 Digest, interview with Robin Wright. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2