As I think about San Cristobel, there are pros and cons. I may have thought differently back in the day, if I were watching live. But hear out my random thoughts.
They needed a ratings story for the summer, and there was always pressure for all soaps to attract new audiences at the time. Doing a remote shoot, something foreign and sexy could work. I wonder if the popularity of Gillian on AMC, being a princess, or Princess Gina on DAYS, might have given them an idea to bring royalty into it?
I really love the idea of explaining the years where Reva was missing. It eventually had to be told, but it should have been told much earlier than 4 years being back from the "dead". They could have swapped out the clone story with this one. Instead of being on a deserted island with Sean, use the plane crash (thanks to Annie) to get Reva back to San Cristobel, because I thought living on an island south of Florida and having amnesia, makes sense for her missing years. Have Edmund find an injured Reva and keep her hidden from Richard and go down that path.
I'd have to go back through my notes to remember if they explained yet how she got from San Cristobel to amish-town Goshen, but it needs to be explained too.
It ultimately brought high stakes, adventure and mystery. I like this. It also became an umbrella story, which I normally love, when it brought in the Santos family storyline and other characters beyond just Reva/Josh in isolation with new characters.
The problems...
Speaking of the Santos family, they were still new and beginning to eat up the show as it is. Merging that with this new storyline was way too much 'new' in a short period of time.
San Cristobel ate up the show. Between July-September 1999, for 3 months, it was on 5 days a week (very few exceptions). Many days, it was probably two thirds of the show, because you had multiple scenes between commercial breaks of different San Cristobel events happening. When you add that to the Danny/Michelle/Carmen Santos mob storyline, along with Ben, who I think was polarizing, it was a different GL altogether. I get trying to attract a new audience, but you need to make the loyal non-Jeva GL fans happy too. Where is Vanessa, Billy, Ross, Blake, Holly, Rick... even the Spauldings were sort of backburnered generally.
I think Jonathan was a mistake. Giving Reva a son during those missing years made it too difficult to logically end the storyline without it seeming icky. There is no good ending for a scenario where a mother has to give up her child for a second time, against her true wishes.
And while I'm not to the end yet, from what I understand, San Cristobel doesn't really go away for a while. I'm curious what the ratings were and if they went up during this period, but if it didn't help ratings, they should have just ended it and moved on.
By
alwaysAMC ·
Create an account or sign in to comment