Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Marissa Gallant]

Thank you 

[Marissa Gallant]

Second Keith had all of the nuance of a sledgehammer breaking apart a brick wall! 

Edit: I forgot about the second Keith, so I'm actually on the third Keith. Sorry Novak, you can't fill Deas' shoes.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Marissa Gallant

[j swift]

Both Robin Strand (Keith #2) and John Novak (Keith #3) are such weird recasts because somehow they cast two men who both seemed younger and less intelligent than the original.  SB was uniquely bad at recasting (with the possible exception of Gina).  Producers seemed to grab whomever was available, rather than trying to retain the qualities of the character.  And, far too often, the actor's charisma outweighed the writing, so characters like Warren, Kelly, and Santana totally morphed their personalities depending upon who was portraying them .

They could never recapture the magic of a character that is both malicious toward the show's heroine and lovable at the same time.  Novak was handsome and capable, but perhaps if they had just made him the new DA, rather than saddling him with the name Keith, he could have been more successful.

Edited January 25, 2023 by j swift

[Marissa Gallant]

SB was also FABULOUS at recasts. Judith McConnell and Jed Allan were pretty good.

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I agree about giving the dude a different name though. I don’t hate the actor, he just isn't working as Keith.

I also feel that the Minx story should have changed. Instead of Janis Paige playing Minx who had a midlife baby, what if Minx had a baby before she met Tiger. And JP was Lionel's older half-sister. Minx died off screen and Lionel and Augusta find out about the baby from the Will. It's just too insane to me that Minx could keep tabs on Brick,but not her own daughter. 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Marissa Gallant
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[Keri]

Was JM a recast?

[Wendy]

Yes.

Rosemary Forsyth, known as one of the handful of actresses to play Dr. Laura Horton on Days, had the role of Sophia before Judith McConnell. But she - if I recall - was disguised as Dominic throughout her short tenure.

[chrisml]

I never got the feeling that the Dobsons cared about practicalities like consistency, history, common sense, etc. They just wrote whatever came into their minds in a given day. That's why so much of their second return is brilliant and ridiculous in equal measure. I wonder if they had a different exec producer if their second stint would have been more successful--one who would have stopped them from some of their more ridiculous moments (Augusta's fantasies about rapist Dash for ex.). 

[Marissa Gallant]

Was that the Dobsons? I thought Augusta's fantasies were Rausch. But I was not watching at that point. It does get difficult to keep track during the later years.

[Keri]

Thanks @Wendy I'm not sure if I ever knew that. 

That Augusta/Dash stuff was awful. Quite a shift from show that a couple years earlier was criticizing GH for romanticizing rape and the rapist.

[j swift]

OK, but for every Judith McConnell, Jed Allen, and Terry Lester, we also got what I will refer to as the "curse of #2s", that list would include Warren #2 - Scott Jenkins, Santana #2 - Margaret Michaels, Keith #2 - Robin Strand, Flame #2 - Marguerite Hickey, Kelly #2 - Kimberly McArthur, and of course CC #2 - Paul Burke.

So, I would beg to differ on the term FABULOUS (all in good humor, I trust).

[Marissa Gallant]

I say fabulous some of the time, terrible some of the time. #2 on screen CC is also quite awful. I also feel that Kimberly McArthur could have been better if she wasn't given such awful material. No one could have pulled off TJ and Kelly. 

[Marissa Gallant]

I didn't watch a lot of soaps in the day, but I think Eden's coma has got to be the busiest coma in soapdom. Lol! Time traveling to keep Sophia and Lionel from sleeping together, flitting in and out of the mansion, reliving her whole history with Cruz, solving a mystery. Whew! That would wear anyone out.

[Ryan Mason]

I feel like character exits were handled in much the same way. Unless something really definitive happened, like they were killed or went to jail, half the times I feel like we just...simply never saw them again with no actual explanation, and then eventually we'd see the character had been removed from the end credits. Sometimes down the road Soap Opera Digest would give the generic explanation the character "left town"...but we'd never actually be told that onscreen.

(And I definitely agree with you on Who Killed Madeline. There was that scene of Sheila telling David "Well, if *I* didn't kill her...and YOU didn't kill her..." and Julia snapping, "WHO DID?!?"...and I think something about Cruz saying they didn't have enough to hold them...and then nothing until about three months later Courtney suddenly starts having nightmares about blood on her hands from out of the clear blue sky.)

Edited January 27, 2023 by Ryan Mason

[Sapounopera]

Ain't that the truth. I can't believe they are the same people who wrote Guiding Light.

 

BTW, I can't remember Robin Strand at all.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Sapounopera

[j swift]

Given that Cruz's friends Pearl Bradford, Cain Garver, and Nick Hartley, as well as his brother Ric, (and all of his kids) just "disappeared" from Santa Barbara without a trace it might have been fun if his exit story was going on the run for fear of finally being caught as a serial killer.

Unless it was Kelly all along (which would explain her long history of boyfriends either dying or exiting without a trace)...

Edited January 27, 2023 by j swift