Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[j swift]

I would give them two possible, and logical, excuses for the mess of a story surrounding Eden's exit.

1.  As recently discussed, SB had a 50/50 track record of recasting key roles, so they may have felt that by not killing off Eden, there was always a chance that they could recast in the future.

2. It was not unlikely that Marcy's primetime show would fail (which it did), and they may have held out hope that she would return.

Either way, the writing was on the wall for a year that Marcy was leaving. And at the risk of repeating an oft said sentiment, Carrington Garland was well placed to take the thrown as the leading woman of SB, if they hadn't fired her in a lame attempt to get more ratings by hiring a "name" from another show.

Getting back to the article about SB's ratings, it is clear that their constant stress over the failure to attract a larger audience was the major motivation for story and casting, rather than trying to please their already devoted fan bases, which wound up alienating the viewership.

[amybrickwallace]

I still wonder why she didn't. 

[j swift]

She had a good contract with NBC for other primetime movies (according to IMDB after Palace Guard she starred in four NBC movies), so I think it was simply money.  I recall when she was later hired at GL, there was press about how much she was paid, and one assumes that SB did not have the budget to make her an offer she couldn't refuse.  Or, given all we now know about the mismanagement at SB, perhaps there wasn't enough money to make her want to go back.

Edited September 20, 2021 by j swift

[amybrickwallace]

Those are all good reasons. Thanks.

I wonder how SB would have been like if MW had stayed and A Martinez had left. What would SB have been like with an Cruz-less Eden? 

[j swift]

Woulda, coulda shoulda, but I imagine that if A. left rather than Marcy there was Robert Barr to take up the reins, except that the Dobsons didn't create that character so they were not motivated to write for him.

Going back to the money and recasts for a moment, a behind the scenes mismanagement story that I always recall about SB is that Terry Lester left because his agent called him to say that nobody in production had tried to renegotiate when his one year contract was set to expire.  As a result, Terry just packed up on a Friday and never returned to set.  One suspects that getting Gordan Thompson to start so quickly after Dynasty was cancelled cost a pretty penny.  One can also suspect that Eileen Davidson (and later Kim Zimmer) didn't come cheap.  So, despite the fact that they were loosing viewers 3:1 over GH, they were paying hefty fees to the actors with very little impact on the ratings.

Coupled with the reportedly large payout the Dobsons received from their lawsuit undoubtedly soured New World on wanting to continue spending money on a sinking ship.  Especially when most of their other projects were outside of daytime.

Edited September 20, 2021 by j swift

[Carlos Abad]

I've been reading during many years Cruz and Eden fan comments, well also Santa Barbara fan comments in general, on YouTube episodes, Facebook and insta fanpages, boards. And I have always felt the fans of this couple and also sb fans in general are really more Marcy Walker fans than A Martinez fans. They liked better Eden than Cruz. When they are separated (like in Utah, Robert Barr Nikki, Kirk Santana and other stories) they enjoy Eden by far.

This is also my opinion. I enjoy a lot more the Eden scenes than the Cruz scenes.

Cruz is more boring, righteous, and perfect and Eden is more "crazy", impulsive, troubled, irrational character like her mother Sophia, Mason or Kelly… So that makes Eden more interesting than Cruz.

All of this makes me think the show would have work a lot better with Eden sans Cruz that with Cruz sans Eden. Also Eden has better attachments with her family. Marcy scenes with Lane Davies, Todd McKee, Jed and Judith, Robin Wright, Carrington Garland…) are a lot better than A Martinez scenes with his people (either family or other characters like Pearl, Cain…)

But we will never know.

[amybrickwallace]

Didn't New World Productions (which owned SB) fold not too long after SB went off the air? Or was it bought out?

All things considered, it was a shame that MW and AM couldn't at least have come back for the finale. I don't even think they were approached about it.

[Marissa Gallant]

We did go through a lot of recasts. At least with CC, it was because the idiots in charge didn't want Jed and had to be proven wrong. With Santana, it was a bit different. I think they originally had it right, but then blew it. 

[amybrickwallace]

And then you had the people who chose to leave, like RW, LD and TM. Eden was the only Capwell kid to be played by only one performer. I'm not sure an Eden recast would have been successful. We'll never know.

[Beach Climber]

Some might disagree but I think Eden would have fared better. Cruz was the perfect SO and hero at all times so it was harder to see him move on. Eden was the soapier character who had flaws and I think there was more they could have done with her outside of that pairing. 

[amybrickwallace]

Well, Eden definitely had the advantage of having her family be a prominent part of the canvas, which Cruz never did. 

[Beach Climber]

I do recall a lot of relatives for both Cruz and Gina popping up throughout their time on the show but I don’t think I took to any of those characters. I saw the attempt to expand their circles outside of the Capwells but they weren’t very successful at it. In that respect, Julia fared better since she had ties to the Lockridges via Augusta so she almost always had 1 relative or pseudo relative on the canvas. 

[Joseph]

I don't know if the public would be happy at either Eden or Cruz moving on but if one of them was going to do that would be Eden, as I just saw the Elena Storyline it's easy to see he wouldn't be moving on for a considerable time, Eden on the other hand was more practical in those matters, anyway the worst mistake was pairing Cruz with Kelly, that was certainly an atrocious move

[amybrickwallace]

Cruz's parents and siblings (especially his mother) did pop up from time to time, but there was never a stable Castillo family presence at all times like there was for the Capwells. And, of course, having the Capwells be the only stable family on the canvas hurt the show in the long run.

[j swift]

I think if you look at Bo, Marlena, and Jennifer on DAYS, or Vicky, Matthew, and Cass on AW, it was always possible for a popular member of a super couple to move on with a new love interest.  However, in most of those cases, they moved on with a new character, in the context of a new storyline. 

Kelly was still helping Cruz get over Eden, they had never flirted in the past, and there was zero established motivation for them to hook up, except for the fact that they were both hot and single.