Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

Gina and Brandon were really sweet. I'll never forget his winning his Emmy & jumping straight up into the air before he began speaking! Everyone was so happy for him!

[j swift]

I agree that Gina and Brandon's relationship was refreshing for a soap mom and son duo.  It was certainly less oedipally creepy than Warren and Augusta's and more attentive than Sophia and Ted's relationship.  Gina's love for Brandon also made Santana untenable, because there was no way to sympathize with her when she essentially sold her baby and her maternal instinct mostly involved kidnapping attempts. 

 

That being said, I would have been there front and center for a SORASed Brandon who had many of Channing Jr's a-hole-Capwell-centric qualities which were conflicted by his relationship with Gina once she became a Lockridge.

 

For me the unanswered question of the Dobson's return is  - What was the outcome of their case against NBC and New World?  How much was their settlement?  It seemed to be enough that they never had to work again.  How did they win in the negotiation?  Did NBC or New World have to pay them off when they left the second time?  It couldn't have all really hinged on the casting of Pamela?  There had to be more in their initial contract that allowed them to regain their position.  BTW, these questions are rhetorical and I don't really expect anyone to know the answer (that means you DB).

 

Just to go back for a moment, imagine that NBC build a soundstage and set of offices just for them and then to be locked out of that very facility had to be heartbreaking.  I agree with the critiques of their second tenure, but I have a hard time getting my mind off of that detail.

Edited October 26, 2019 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

Now, you have covered just about everything! (1) No one really knows what the outcome was but we have to guess that the Dobsons won big-time. (2) I figure their settlement was huge. (3) They certainly seemed to be able to retire to thrie leisure. Bridget has been a painter ever since they moved to Atlanta. And, when they did move to Atlanta they built an enormous mansion. Driving around it required covering a block! And, yes, that had to be more than just Pamela! Personally I thought it was a great loss to the industry that they didn't get back in!

[amybrickwallace]

 

I think they were on the verge of SORASing Brandon when the show was cancelled. He had been sent off to school out of town a couple of months before the series finale. Agreed that the show never quite seemed to find the right balance in the Santana/Brandon parent/child dynamic.

[chrisml]

They should have just kept Gocke in the role because he had such a good rapport with Mattson, and Brandon grounded Gina. IF I recall, the Dobsons had Gina wanting to have her own child and that's why they had to get rid of Gocke. I'm never for network suits interfering but I really wish they had forced the Dobsons to respect the previous years of the show. 

[amybrickwallace]

 

Agreed! Why "fix" something that isn't broken?

[chrisml]

IT seems to be what every new EP does when they take on a soap job. They ruin what works and continue what doesn't work. Conboy's tenures had its problems, but a lot of it could be righted rather quickly. It's interesting to me that the Dobsons kept writing for Flame until she was fired because of the Rauch/Born thing.

[amybrickwallace]

 

It never fails! Interestingly enough, I think Phelps was a better fit as showrunner on SB than Conboy and Rauch.

[j swift]

My quibble with the notion of not ruining what works is that there is an argument to be made that focusing on Eden and Cruz for so long was part of the demise of the soap.  Because subsequent writers and producers were unable to grow new families and find new arenas for story-telling, once Eden and Cruz broke up there was an enormous void.  I am not discounting the evolution of Gina and Keith, Julia and Mason, and other couples that became popular, but the focus was always drawn back to Cruz and Eden.

 

Look at AMC and the Chandlers, Y&R and the Newmans, and OLTL and the Buchanans.  Each of those families were late entries into the story but they furthered the plot.  If each producer only kept what had been from prior regimes then a soap devolves into repetition and a lack of creativity (e.g. B&B).

[victoria foxton]

The over reliance on Eden & Cruz. Really hurt SB in the long run. They never invested in other characters. So many characters came and went in quick rapid succession. I'm currently watching SB from late summer, early fall 1987. By early 1988  Brick, Jane, Laken. Haley. Alex, Lionel, Carmen and Elena are all gone. These's mass exodus were a yearly thing. 

Edited October 27, 2019 by victoria foxton

[chrisml]

I think you can continue what works, but also fix what doesn't (the lack of non-Capwell stories and characters). I think the writers and producers had other storylines and characters, but they always went back to the Eden and Cruz storylines. I always hated that the Laura/Michael/Ethan storyline was truncated (currently rewatching SB from that time) and not given enough attention. Poor Michael never got much to do after that until they started to put him with Flame but then that abruptly ended. The show was constantly bringing on new characters and families, but the execs never followed through. You had the attempt to beef up Gina's family with her mother, brother and Bunny, but that didn't go anywhere substantial although Mack lasted longer than most non-Capwell characters. Of all the shows, I think SB was the easiest to fix but the Dobsons, Rauch and Long chose to make the show the easiest to cancel. 

[Wendy]

I think - against Cruz and Eden - that Mason/Julia, all three versions - were underrated. They were a very different animal from the fantasy ideal of Cruz/Eden, being more cerebral and with a lot more warts, yet they managed to be almost as popular, even with two Mason recasts.

 

And I agree, as far as Gina/JD's Keith are concerned, that a somewhat villainous, yet humorous pairing, also brought an important element to the show. Of course, it was Justin Deas' choice to leave, just as it was Marcy Walker's later, and John Novak's version of Keith didn't work. So I think the show was very hit/miss in terms of what worked outsode of Cruz/Eden. Once C/E were done, I think the familiarity and the stability of Mason/Julia - again, even recast - allowed them to take up the slack, if just a little.

 

I still believe firing Carrington Garland was a huge mistake and one the show never came back from. Because, without Eden, I think CG's Kelly would/could have easily helped fill the void, since she had sparks with practically everyone. Too bad the Robert/Quinn story devolved into a massive mess and killed Robert.

 

Because IMO? I think CG's Kelly and Robert proved to be just as popular as Eden/Robert, to TPTB's surprise, and with Cruz/Eden no more, I think Kelly/Robert and Mason/Julia (along with CC/Sophia, etc.) could have weathered that loss much better. And, as much as I hated that Karen Moncrieff's Cassie never really paid for sabotaging Mason/Julia, I think she could have worked with Warren had the dumb writers not made her a long-lost kid of too-young Minx. Or hey, if not them, keep Warren with Angela. They also sparked.

 

Instead, we got Warren and drippy BJ.

 

In other words, there were many opportunities the show could have used to weather the loss of Cruz/Eden, but TPTB - and I include the Dobsons - sabotaged those very chances/opportunities at every turn, to the point where cancellation became inevitable.

[Soaplovers]

I think Rauch/Long came in too late to really damage (that had been done long before they arrived) or save the show.

 

I get why Long had to introduce a new family (the Walkers) and tying them to Cruz was a good idea... but I do agree breaking up Angela/Warren to pair him with BJ was a bad move.  I'd rather Warren/BJ been a mentor type of interaction than a romantic one.. and maybe paired BJ with a love interest of her own age.  And I actually liked Kim Zimmer on the show.. she made a believable cop... and she paired well with the actor that played her husband.   It just that it seemed they didn't really interact with the Capwells as much so it seemed like two different shows.

 

And I would have written Cruz off as going to be with Eden.. than on the run for a crime he didn't commit. 

[pdm1974]

Besides the Capwells (and to a lesser extent) the Lockridges, SB was never able to establish another family that really clicked. There were sooo many attempts to start a new core family. Just off the top of my head, I remember...

 

Cruz's extended family

Gina's extended family

The Donnleys

The DiNapoli sisters

The Richards

The four "orphan boys and Cassie"- an attempt at a "different kind of family"

The Walkers (at the end)

The DeAngelis family (at the end)

 

Not to mention the Perkins and Andrade families which started the show but were soon gone.

 

Out of all these unsuccessful attempts, which family group do you think had the most potential if maybe handled better?

 

[j swift]

I don't know, (or probably just can't recall) what the story was with Roscoe Born and the production.  Can someone fill me in?  Also, what was up with the two week recast of Flame?

 

The only details that I am aware of are from the 90-91 SOD news recaps we covered from Tumblr in another thread.  SOD reported that Roscoe was initially brought in for a short term story as a spanner for Cruz and Eden when the mob was trying to take over Capwell Industries.  He later left to do pilot season.  However, he proved to be so popular that the production brought him back, re-paired him with Kelly, and created the Quinn storyline.  Then, the Dobson's returned and did not seem to understand Robert's appeal as a character as he lost some of his charm and became a full-time bad guy.

 

However, all of the discussion of Born walking off the set has been completely forgotten and I would appreciate any details that one can recall.  I've muted those who can't seem to stay on topic so, I look forward to responses from people who can remember the facts.

 

One other thought - The Walkers are emblematic to me of a pendulum swing on soaps after the glitz of 1980's met the stock market crash of the 1990's.  Except, (IMO), soap audiences don't want gritty realism.  We want escape, ladies who wear hats to lunch, and shirtless stable boys.  And we certainly don't want a middle class family fronted by the woman who made Reva Shayne into one of the most glitzy gals in daytime.  

 

Final/final thought (of the night), I wonder if Laura Asher, Micah DeAngelis, and Jodie Walker all suffered from the old soap disease of relying too often on hiring actors who had been hits on others shows?  Each of those characters were a distinct shift from the actor's prior roles and the audience may have been more welcoming if they had been played by an actor who had not been so closely associated with a prior role on another soap.

 

OK, final/final/final thought - What was the primary source of income for Capwell Industries?  I thought they were primarily commercial real estate developers with restaurants, hotels, casinos, and country clubs.  But at other times weren't they involved in tech and medicine?

Edited October 28, 2019 by j swift