Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Please register in order to view this content

[DRW50]

Geez some of these scenes are so anguishing to watch. These Mason/Eden dynamics fascinate me. Were they saying the only reason she stuck up for him was because she was mentally ill?

I'd only ever seen Marcy and Lane Davies together but she and Gordon also work well.

Please register in order to view this content

Edited March 18, 2012 by CarlD2

[Wendy]

This is a wonderful, if heartbreaking, scene with Mason and Eden. They may have sniped at each other, but when the chips were down, they also had each other's backs. I think Mason and Eden's sibling relationship was the most interesting among the Capwell kids.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYwuSIXlSx0&feature=g-all-u&context=G29498bfFAAAAAAAAAAA

[DRW50]

9/1/92 Marlena de Lacoix column.

SB: It's Not Over Till It's Over

On or around Sept. 1, NBC is scheduled to announce whether it will cancel Santa Barbara. But as Yogi Berra said, it's not over till it's over.

As a soap-world observer, I've felt obligated to watch the show because it's the work of two longtime soap-world heavyweights, executive producer Paul Rauch and head writer Pam Long. And what a collection of major-league soap talents are also gathered here: Kim Zimmer (Jodie), Jack Wagner (Warren), Nicolas Coster (Lionel), Robin Mattson (Gina), Gordon Thomson (Mason), Nancy Lee Grahn (JUlia), Thaao Penghlis (Micah), Jed Allan (C.C.) and Judith McConnell (Sophia), among others). If SB is canceled, the casting directors of the remaining 10 soaps will be dancing in the streets.

In the last few months, the most important name in the whole equation has been Pam Long. Staying true to the strengths of her writing on Texas and Guiding Light, she pushed aside the wealthy, sophisticated Capwell family and brought to the forefront her own creation, the middle-class, emotion-filled Walker family. One soap critic has bitched loudly how out of sync with SB's past style Long's new material has been. No sh--, Sherlock! This is exactly why Long was hired: That old stuff wasn't working! Dying soaps always try outrageous measures when the cancellation notice is in the mail. Mating Long to SB is like grafting the head of a giraffe onto a horse. Despite all good intentions, you'll never get a thoroughbred.

Long hasn't had enough time to totally rework the show, but evidently she's trying. The only glimmer of what she and Rauch hope to achieve has been her sole success - the B.J. child-abuse storyline, which incorporated Jodie's confession to Cruz that B.J. is his natural daughter. This beautifully produced sequence was filled with Long's trademark emotional intensity. On dramatically half-lit sets, the characters got to spill their guts all over the screen. (Long's personal motto is "Go for it.") I couldn't help but notice, though, that much of the sequence's success was actors who were giving their all. Weren't Sydney Penny (B.J.) and molester Nicholas Walker (Frank) superb? The confession scenes showcased Zimmer and Martinez, a charismatic pair who could have been the show's future in Martinez were not leaving to join the cast of L.A. Law.

If Long could bring the emotional intensity of this sequence to her other stories, SB just might have a scintilla of a chance of survival. (And a last word about Martinez: He makes acting look so easy. Through eight years of good and bad on SB, no other actor has delivered as consistently. Wasn't the soap world lucky to have Martinez as long as we did? Now we've got to give him back to prime-time TV.)

But let's face it - the rest of Long's work has been abysmal. Long's worst crime is that she's forgotten that one of Zimmer's big selling points as Reva Shayne Lewis on GL and as Nola Dancy on The Doctors was her sex appeal. Policewoman Jodie is portrayed as a frump. Hey, 40 isn't fatal!

And as I've written before, SB's recent tries at "humor" are a travesty. Watching two favorite daytime actors, Mattson and Coster, as "jesters" Gina and Lionel doing everything but stand on their heads to get a laugh breaks my heart. Gina Jeans, indeed! By the way, Ballymoor was baloney. Grahn and Thomson should sue. Long (who on GL invented the "Dreaming Death" disease and cured Johnny Bauer of terminal cancer) should stay away from the occult or any topic that's more convincingly concocted in a supermarket tabloid.

I should really stop myself here, but, of course, I won't. I can write so much more about SB's weaknesses. All those boring summer teen stories...why doesn't Forry Smith's (Reese) acting live up to his hunky looks? Will Warren ever chuck his attitude?...SB is now nothing more than boring, average soap opera.

Marlena really hates to hit a soap while it's down. Colorful Rauch and Long have been two of my favorite soap-world personalities for more than a decade. They will resurface inevitably on other soaps. SB derailed long before either arrived on the show. If SB is canceled, you'll hear lots of chest-thumping as journalists scramble to explain the reasons why in print. As someone who has written extensively about the show for eight years, I'm not looking forward to its demise. Perhaps Sept. 1, California Gov. Pete Wilson will grant SB a stay of execution.

[Wendy]

The above video reminds me of just how non-SB-like SB was by this point. The cancellation was a mercy killing.

Anyway, I recently bought (or, rebought, as I had it waaaaay back when but got rid of it!), the SOD issue with Marcy Walker writing a diary of her time on-location in Paris back in '89. I had forgotten how funny MW could be in print. Nice pictures, too.

[DRW50]

Some of it is cheesy as hell, and some of the dialogue was pure LOL (like Walker randomly saying Cruz's "Indian spirit strength," or whatever, might have made him strong enough to kill Frank). The Lisa/Rafe stuff seems SO intense. Were they trying to recreate Cruz/Eden?

Eileen Davidson is just godawful in this. This is the worst work of her career, by far. I seriously wonder if she got some acting lessons after this. I mentioned this over at TWOP but she reminds me of this:

Please register in order to view this content

I do like Charles Grant's work in the episode.

Gina/Lionel as a couple are odd, although it could have been worse.

[Wendy]

Speaking of that Paris remote, I had forgotten that the closing credits were once done over a shot of Paris versus the usual California backdrop. Very cool:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HF1MnzkSA-4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Matt]

Brigette Wilson's Lisa Fenimore was, quite possibly, my FAVORITE part of this era of "Santa Barbara". I still believe that if the show had continued, she could've been the breakout star & character and I'm always surprised that she never turned up on another soap.

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

That big 80's hair. I saw Robin wearing that more on AMC, after the 80's, than I have in the Santa Barbara episodes.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzLb5KgSnFY

[DRW50]

I love these scenes. So rare to see a woman over 40 written as sexy, and not done in a desperate way.

Please register in order to view this content

[Wendy]

I have never personally dealt with this site, so take this as a disclaimer of sorts, but some of us were talking about that final commemorative SOW SB issue when the show ended, and this site has it if anyone is still looking for it:

Santa Barbara issue at Soap Opera World

ETA: Whoops! Just saw (in small print, naturally) it is out of stock. My apologies. But it seems to have a lot of different issues.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Wendy

[Cheap21]

I was going through the history of the show and it seems ALOT of the roles were recast. It seems the vast majority of the original cast was replaced at some point with new actors. How did fans feel about this? Did you feel overall the casting was good or did the replacements not compare to the actors they took over from? Mason, Kelly, CC, Ted, Gina, Santana, Joe, Sophia, Warren, Laken among many others were recasted at least once or multiple times.

I also noticed that this seemed to have a high turnover with many characters lasting like a year or less. Did that bother people? It seemed to be the case moreso in the late 80s. 89/90 seemed to be like a mass exodus for the show

Edited March 26, 2012 by Cheap21