@DeeVee I'm pretty sure Acapulco Bay is on YouTube is nearly its entirety. There was also a website. There seems to be a bit of a cult following. I read Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros with my students a few years back and which watched a clip of Acapulco Bay and the same scene from Tu o Nadie so the kids could understand thereferences in the story. Acapulco Bay was very weak in terms of writing and acting from the clip we watched.
Morgan Fairchild was wasted as Sophia Blakely. The part was interesting and the setup of the story was potent for drama; she was the first wife of Maria's husband and her son, William, seduced Maria. Taylor Kinney was anattractive man, but he was hardly capable ofcarrying the dramatic story (even though they didn't really write much). I thought the Sophia / William / Maria / Luke / Michelle dynamic was interesting, but it never really popped the way it could have.
The stunt casting was always amixed bag. Bo Derek was rough. Robin Givens and Maria Conchita Alonso both played to the back of the house while Mel Harris was to tepid opposite Alonso. Alonso at least appeared to enjoy herself as much as Tatum O'Neal. Dayanara Torres (a Miss Universe I believe and Marc Anthony's ex-wife) was very bland as the lead of Watch Over Me, but I enjoyed the general story. I think Theresa Russell delivered the best performance finding the right mix of snark and dramatic flair. Russell's style though fit the material better, or so I remember.
I believe it was stated int he press that the target audience for the novelas were originally gay men which is why they went in heavy with the camp. The original intent came about because of the ratings final being tabulated for the Spanish stations and the relatI remember the original plan was a syndicated program, hence the title Desire. I can't remember if Secret Obsessions only came about because of the fold of UPN/WB or if they were going to always do two series at once. The stunt casting was definitely something that occured when MyNetworkTV arrived.
The other thing about the situation involving MyNetworkTV was that the ratings bottomed out in the final months of UPN (which was most of the affiliates that switched over). There was a preview night where they ran highlights from the first two novelas as well as a trailer for the remaining to be produced ones. And of course, originally there were the Saturday night recap shows. They dropped the recaps in episode by the end of the first round of novelas, but they still did the occasional recap episode up until the end (Saints and Sinners had a couple but seemed like less than Desire and Fashion House).
The slow death of the novelas was unfortunate. Originally Saints & Sinners and American Heiress aired 2 episodes a week on different nights, than by late April it was one episode a week. Then, it just stopped airing in June or July. I remember they originally said they would put the material on their website, but they never did.
They had bought several years worth of novelas for both series. None of the attempts to try a novela in that period panned out other than Ugly Betty. Lifetime tried Monarch Cove, but that was a bust. USA was considering a couple of properties. Rick Draughton was attached to one of them. I do think one of the big 3 networks was also considering something. MyNetworkTV's failure didn't help. Part of the MNT's issue was they were originally producing the shows with non-union writers claiming they were just "translators" when that clearly wasn't the case. The cost rose significantly when they actually had to pay people to write the shows.
By
dc11786 ·
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.