Ocean Ave.

[te.]

This Swedish/American production was produced in 120 hour or 240 half hour installments with the intention to partly replace the popular Sunset Beach and to be sold internationally. Of course, it bombed and I only think it ever got sold to some Scandinavian countries and some local stations in Florida (!). Well, it the majority of it has now been put online for everyone's enjoyment to see this mess:

 

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Among others it stars Jean Carol, a young Meghan Fox, future Pussycat Doll Jessica Sutta, Timothy Adams, Rebecca Ferguson and a couple of episodes stunt casted Victoria Silvstedt.

[te.]

This is odd, but there were scenes that were filmed in Swedish to (obviously) appeal to the Swedish audience but they were also filmed in English for a potential sale internationally. In this batch of episode the first 20 episodes they have the Swedish speaking scenes, but in the 21st episode they switch to the English speaking ones. This must've been uploaded by someone close to the show, but it's fascinating to see.

[te.]

Weirdly enough it jumps back to the Swedish speaking scenes in episode 22 and then 23 features those English speaking scenes in Swedish which makes it all just bizarre.

[DRW50]

Thanks! Wow. Sounds fascinating.

[dc11786]

Thanks @te. I've been looking for this one for a while, but haven't had any luck. I really do appreciate you posting the link to this. 

 

I've jumped around a bit, but watched a bit from the beginning and the end. The show is a mess and not even in a fun way. It's such a bizarre production. The Miami sequences are completely overplayed while the Swedish sequences are more emotionally cold and laid back. Maybe if I understood the Swedish conversation it wouldn't be that bad, but the scripts are pretty unremarkable. Its a jarring tonal shift. Victoria Jackson and Jean Carol have a bunch of super cringey moments and I don't know what they were thinking with the Italian fashion designer in the opener. To be fair to Carol, it seems she is trying to make sense of the script because she has several very strong moments. 

 

An online friend years ago posted about this when it aired. I believe there was a lot of production issues which is why the episode count jumps in the wiki article. I seem to recall either Joanna Coons (creator and producer who I believe was a script writer for many years for "All My Children") was fired or there was some major upheaval about half way through and a bunch of the older cast members were killed off. I think the last few episodes I watched (somewhere in the early 200s) were decent, but nothing remarkable. I always wondered how this never got a release with Megan Fox involved, but the teen storyline is meandering during its best moments. 

 

I think the strongest thing about the show seems to be the construction, but not necessarily the execution, of Bobby Devon's accident in the opening episodes. There seem to be several suspects (scheming older brother Macy Devon, the vindictive criminal Roberto Ortega, or some connection to his secret girlfriend). I thought the scene where Martin accused Lucas of being behind the accident (the idea that the notorious playboy and party boy was intoxicated at the wheel) was pretty strong. Jean Carol felt much more human as Catherine in the moments surrounding Bobby's death than any of the over the top introductory scenes involving her saying in the guest house.

 

I always have thought Marc Menard was nice to look at even if he didn't necessarily wow me. Tony Templeton seems to have potential to work as Macey. Timothy Adams is functional. The actress playing Elena is pretty strong for the younger set. The Erickson kids don't see too bad either. Some of the people look vaguely familiar (Rebecca Ferguson and the guy playing Will O'Keefe) but it seems like a lot of local Miami talent. 

 

I'll probably watch some more of this later this winter. I do remember being intrigued by the relationship Timothy Adams' cop character had with the British wife of Macey Devon when I was reading about the show. 

[soapfan770]

Thanks so much for sharing this I remember reading about years ago in some interview with Timothy Adams not long after his GL stint as the second Rob. 
 

I love Jean Carol so much as Nadine but Victoria Jackson is in this?

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[te.]

 

I mean, it outright bombed in Sweden - Sunset Beach had around 500k viewers daily (huge for a country with around 10 million + airing at 5PM). IIRC Ocean Ave debuted with around half of that and kept sinking down to around 100k viewers to give context of how badly it bombed, so I'm not surprised if they fired Coons to try and salvage it. Somehow I've managed to "watch" 100 episodes of this by just having it on in the background (it's not exactly hard to follow) and they start killing cast members around the 80-ish mark
(Ann Devon bites the dust first, after they reveal she had an affair with the twin brother that died, so it feels very anti-climactic; Stefan snuffs it around episode 100 and IIRC Kayla is another one that gets murdered).

 

Joanna Coons was also a co-head writer for The Catlins and associate headwriter on Tribes, so it seems like she somehow got to be on board for these odd syndicated/cable soaps.

[te.]

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Also, wtf at the horny coroner in episode 111

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Edited November 13, 2020 by te.

[te.]

So, I've reached episode 130, which would be episode 65 if you take into account it was filmed as an hour long show but cut into half hours, and I guess the "end" of the first 13 week cycle they filmed. You can definitively feel that this is supposed to act as a "season" finale. I guess it'll be interesting what changes through the next cycle.

[te.]

Oh wow

 

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[!@#$%^&*] has sort of started getting weird.

 

Edit: Episode 141 is something else - it starts with Victoria Jackson's reporter character talking directly to the camera.

 

BTW, I think there was "only" 230 episodes, not 260. I assume they ordered 65+65 (or 130+130 half hours), but once it bombed and didn't improve they just cut their losses.

 

Around episode 150 they're starting to attempt their own "Terror Island" storyline. OH DEAR.

Edited November 14, 2020 by te.

[te.]

Ok, what I thought was the start of a Terror Island storyline just ended up being a particularly lame ghost story at camp with the teen cast (among those Jessica Sutta) playing dual parts. The odd thing with it is that nothing is seemingly resolved.

 

Victoria Silvstedt's gig starts around episode 160.

 

Honestly, the show does get better from those initial clunky episodes, but it never seems to rise above "basic soap". I probably wouldn't watch this if I wasn't so fascinated by the production history of this. I think the Macy / Sage relationship is the most interesting at this point (particularly him trying to kill her by drugging her and sending her off in a car).

 

Also, Rape For Redemption storylines are always awful.

Edited November 15, 2020 by te.

[dc11786]

Thanks for sharing your journey through these episodes @te. I know the show is a lameduck, but I find badly written shows fascinating sometimes. My perspective tends to be, "How could this be better?"

 

The hardest thing I found in what I've seen so far is the gap between the teen stuff and the adult stuff. The opening episodes framed Dylan O'Keefe and Lyndy Maddox as some couple we should care about, but both seemed super obnoxious. I imagine they were suppose to tie in with the Erickson kids as I assume one or both of them hooked up with one of the siblings while they both were in Sweden for the summer. I imagine Lyndy's modeling career tied her to the Devon business story, but the teen model angle seems out of place among the high school basketball set. I liked Elena, and I thought, initially, that maybe Elena liked Dylan and they were going with a two friends like the same dude story. I don't think that's the case. There was just too many random teens who I didn't care about. 

 

I'm glad to hear Natalie improves. As I think I said, I jumped around. I liked Natalie and Lucas. They seemed to work for me. In those early episodes, I liked Natalie as a female Hamlet type who hated her social climbing mother. The actress seemed really green, and all I could focus on was her Ken doll boyfriend trying to keep his towel on. 

 

I think the idea of Ann as an ambiguous character was intriguing, but I don't think Lombardi, or the scripts to be fair, embrace that enough. The acting is definitely rough, but man, I really am amazed at how dull or over the top the scripting is.

 

I think there was potential in the initial Ann / Catherine rivalry, but I don't think they had enough to work with. I guess the later revelation regarding Bobby was suppose to fuel that. 

 

Again thanks for sharing. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts about this. 

 

 

 

[te.]

 

Re: teen set / adults:

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As I said, as a production I find it interesting - they had pretty lofty expectations of not only replacing what was a huge hit in Sunset Beach, but also to sell it to international markets AND to syndication in the US. I remember there being a huge thing about who was going to be cast as "Alex Eriksson" and a lot of hype about this being a Swedish collaboration with these big time la-di-da American producers and then... this is what they came up with. Comparing it to Swedish soaps that had aired at the time it makes no sense that this is what they considered passable, but I guess they were just lost in the whole American dream thing, because it's the only way I can explain it. It never should've been greenlit, at least with the poor pilot episode.

 

I might end up watching the rest of the episodes this weekend to see if it's the complete set or not.