Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Wendy]

Oh, bad does not BEGIN to cover this. By now, of course, ED was Kelly and this was off the heels of the disastrous Kelly/Cruz pairing. Think of an SNL parody of a soap and magnify it times ten. It was a stereotypical pearl-clutching shriekfest.

In short, basically another redux of "It's A Wonderful Life". I say redux since Cruz already did the same scenario in 1989.

And don't apologize. I like to fill in blanks if I can!

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtzfELx7SnU&feature=plcp&context=C3d116ebUDOEgsToPDskIrhwQeGCUjMFavGWJoznH1

This channel has a lot of other Cruz/Eden scenes.

[Wendy]

Merry Christmas!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5PFtF99Z4K8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DRW50]

August 89 Digest.

[Soapsuds]

How could great writers the Dobsons who pinned ATWT and GL to great success come up with such a shitty show with awful writing....lol....it boggles my mind how bad this soap was IMO.

[Wendy]

Wow, I disagree. And while the last year did have shitty writing, up until about '90/'91, SB had anything BUT. With the writing Emmys to show for it.

But as with everything, I guess it is tomato, tomahto.

[Soaplovers]

I cant help but disagree... SB was an awesome show.. even in it's final year, it was leaps and bounds above the dreck that shows present to us nowadays..

The only weakness SB might have had was a lack of a strong, long-term b-story... It was like the show was both traditional soap opera and a telenovela... if that makes sense. While Cruz/Eden, Mason/Julia, C.C/Sophia stories seemed to span several years... other stories like Brick/Amy, Flame, Cain/Andrea, Quinn/Robert, etc. seemed to last a year or so then vanish without leaving any trace of their existence...

Not to say that those b-stories were horrible because they were fantastic.. but perhaps these hybrid might have turned off traditional viewers. Just a thought.

[sungrey]

Soapsuds, did we watch the same show? lol

Holy crap, was this show fantastic... the thing it suffered from was too much turnover among the secondary characters, which in turn brought down the show in a long run. That and the battle between the Dobsons and NBC/New World Television. I have to wonder if the Dobsons had stayed if Lane, Nicolas and a few others wouldn't have departed.

[DRW50]

I wonder if they should have phased Eden and Cruz out as main characters when they knew A and Marcy were leaving.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9CjPPOcVU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mbjtO0zBjY

[~bl~]

While I loved watching SB back in the 80s, some of it doesn't translate well to today. SB was great, but it isn't everyone's cuppa. It was smart though sometimes they would attempt something far out and fail miserably. Some things that were common then were uncommon later, so things that were cool seem lame in comparison.

I'm coveting the old school Days and SB shirts...

[DRW50]

Which parts do you think don't translate well?

[Wendy]

I'm curious, too, since, besides the '80s clothes and hair, I think Santa Barbara was a soap that held up remarkably well!

[~bl~]

Some of the stories...the first one that popped into my head was Cruz's amnesia. At the time, I thought it was so romantic that even though he remembered nothing he still loved Eden. Now I'm horrified that anything happened between them...