Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[amybrickwallace]

 

Thanks...I wasn't sure if it just folded or wound up being consolidated into a larger company.

[DRW50]

 

[DRW50]

A brief piece on soaps about 10 minutes in. Features comments from Marcy Walker and A Martinez.

 

 

[juniorz1]

 Thanks for the intel!
 

Look forward to watching this.  Interesting that the still is on Jean LeClerc (ex-Jeremy, AMC/LOV).  Who is the woman in the still?  Genie Francis?  Christine Tudor?

[DRW50]

 

Genie.

 

I also put a promo from 1984 I hadn't seen before.

[Wendy]

Today is 34 years to the day that Santa Barbara premiered. God, I'm old! I was only 11 (12 later that year) when it started.

[Khan]

You think that's something?  I was only five!

[juniorz1]

 

Same- and I was 6 when I started watching- Gina pulls the plug on CC!!!

 

RTSB is coming back as well............. stay tuned................

[John]

The 1984 Promo with Llyod Bochner as CC makes me wonder what could have been

 

[j swift]

 

I am enticed by it as an intro for Eden.  CC's focus is always on Kelly or Channing. I would have been thrilled if Eden's longing for CC's attention was more of a motivation for that character.  Although IRL I'm sure they just hadn't cast Eden when the promo was shot, this would have been an excellent jumping off point for an Eden who may have been more of an understanding ally to Mason, or at least more conflicted about her relationship with CC.  I feel like Sofia touches on these issues in the first year when CC is on life support but it didn't remain an issue for Eden.  It is as if latter on when she keeps getting kidnapped and victimized, the writers forgot that Eden was the one who jumped out of a plane as her entrance into town.

[Soaplovers]

I felt Eden's first several months had her being a daredevil, fiesty, stubborn, and defiant against authority.... and I always figured she left for Europe years before because she always felt like the odd child of the family.  

Within a year, they made her and Kelly almost interchangable with the victimization/kidnapping/emotional issues, etc.

[j swift]

That's why Robert Barr never worked for me. 

 

SB had never really played the tension between Kelly and Eden.  Kelly never seemed ambitious and Eden never liked any of Kelly's boyfriends, thus they both stayed in their lanes.  So, when Robert returns to SB and re-ignites this feud between the sisters it didn't hold water.  The timeline was weird of when he and Eden met, why Eden never knew he was a twin, why Kelly acted as if she had never met Robert, coupled with the extreme subtlety in difference between Robert and Quinn that made them impossible to tell them apart resulted in a story/character a dud for me.  Flame was good but couldn't save it for me.

 

Was Flame re-cast and at what point in the story was she re-cast?

Edited August 3, 2018 by j swift

[Wendy]

 

As awful as the story was, this ironically seemed to happen during the Eden/Lisa mess.

[j swift]

After reading the AMC critique from its early days on the AMC tribute thread it got me thinking about how much of our fandom is based on the soap press.  When a soap fan blames network executives, to me,  that always seems to be based on exit interviews of producers to the soap press where they blame network interference on inhibiting their creativity.  SB is a perfect example of this issue.  The Dobsons gave a couple of juicy interviews to SOD when they left and returned to SB and much the parlance in those interviews is repeated by fans when we despair over the loss of the show.

 

However, I've also been reading the Classic SOD Tumblr, and noting similarities between interviews, which may suggest that our collective understanding of the behind the scenes issues of SB may have been biased.  The Dobsons were also interviewed when they left GL and ATWT and they complained about the executives at P&G in very similar tones to their complaints with New World.  However, at some point don't we have to question whether or not the Dobsons were the common variable?  The first year of the show relayed on multiple recasts that changed the characterizations of both CC and Santana, so was it that outrageous that the network questioned their choice for Pamela Capwell?  Networks are asked to put up a lot of money, good producers learn how to get along with the network, perhaps their unwillingness to compromise created many of their own problems?

 

I'm just suggesting that in retrospect it is interesting to look for bias rather than allowing those with access to the press to dictate the narrative.

Edited September 21, 2018 by j swift

[Khan]

Here's an article on SB's co-creator, Jerome Dobson, and the book he published on Amazon back in August:

 

https://www.mdjonline.com/neighbor_newspapers/northside_sandy_springs/community/buckhead-man-known-for-soap-operas-finds-new-creative-avenue/article_9fede6d6-6a74-11e8-bec7-0b61bccb0ff8.html