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Gina Blake DeMott Capwell Timmons Lockridge
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Santa Barbara was an American decade long and award-winning television soap opera, first broadcast in United States on NBC on July 30, 1984, and last aired on January 15, 1993. The show covered the exciting, eventful lives of the wealthy Capwell family of Santa Barbara, California. Around the Capwells there are several other families, from the rival Lockridge family to the more modest Andrade and Perkins families, whose lives know the same torments.
It was co-produced by NBC and Dobson Productions, and co-created by Bridget and Jerome Dobson. It aired at 3:00 PM ET/2:00 PM C on NBC the same time as General Hospital on ABC and Guiding Light on CBS and right after Another World.
It aired in over 40 countries around the world, and was especially popular in Australia, Canada, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and many others.[2] The show's popularity continued to rise, and it even had fans in the White House. In 1985, when character Augusta Lockridge was blinded following a tunnel collapse, Ronald Reagan sent actress Louise Sorel a letter saying he and Nancy were praying for her and hoped she recovered.[3]
Santa Barbara has won 24 Daytime Emmy Awards and was nominated 30 times for the same award. The show also won 18 Soap Opera Digest Awards, and won various other awards.[4]
Plot
Santa Barbara was notable for having a central plot around which many of the others revolved: the murder of Channing Capwell Junior. This killing takes place five years before the series actually begins, at which point Joe Perkins, jailed for the murder, is paroled and returns to Santa Barbara determined to prove his innocence[5]. Over the course of the soap, almost every major character would be accused of the murder of Channing Capwell Jr. or find their life involved in it one way or the other: from his illegitimate son to his mysterious, presumed dead, mother and his homosexual relationship.
Santa Barbara began on an uneven foot, with one reviewer deeming the series "the worst program on television... maybe ever." [6] However, creators and executive producers Bridget and Jerome Dobson proceeded to kill off most of the show's actors via natural disaster and a serial killer storyline. When a major earthquake hit Santa Barbara[7], core character Danny Andrade slept through the entire thing. Minx Lockridge was unfazed, saying that the 1984 Santa Barbara earthquake was nothing like 1925. She was later locked into an empty sarcophagus. Luckily, her grandchildren were around to let her out and she escaped with merely a bruised ego.
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We think of having succeeded since we are today the only soap whose ratings increase unceasingly. The others stagnate or lose televiewers. We just have now to gain the head of the group. We have to reach this objective in seven years. However, our first purpose remains to tell attractive stories with rich characters to give pleasure to our public. The only way to get it : to still work harder by saving this marvellous team spirit which already saved us. |
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—Bridget and Jerome Dobson [8]
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By concentrating on such popular characters as Eden Capwell and Cruz Castillo, C.C. Capwell and his wife Sophia, Mason Capwell and Julia Wainwright, Gina Blake Timmons, Augusta and Lionel Lockridge, the program managed to achieve critical acclaim as well as slowly but surely rising ratings. The show was famous for its comedic style and offbeat writing. For example, in July 14, 1986's episode, former nun Mary Duvall McCormack was killed by having a giant neon letter "C" (for "Capwell" atop the Capwell Hotel) land on her while she was standing on the hotel roof (this was later referenced in the American Dad! episode "Homeland Insecurity"), and despite an irate letter-writing campaign by the show's fans (and an offer from the soap to come back), Kozak was reported as saying that she had "no desire to return to SB", or in fact any other daytime soap.[9]
Controversy
In 1988 the Dobsons were locked out of NBC studios after repeated attempts to fire the head writer. They sued, and were eventually allowed to return to the program, but the magic was gone. Ratings never recovered, even as the show won 3 Daytime Emmys in a row for Best Daytime Drama. The first of those wins involved a mini-melodrama of its own as the extremely controversial Jill Farren Phelps (who had replaced Mary-Ellis Bunim as executive producer) shared the stage with Bridget Dobson, who raced on stage and captured the trophy a few seconds before Phelps could reach the podium.
Under Phelps' tenure most of the show revolved around Cruz and Eden. One controversial storyline involved Eden being brutally raped, and later discovering that her assailant was her gynecologist Zack Kelton, who had examined her after her rape. Leigh McCloskey, the actor that portrayed the role, himself stated that he was uncomfortable with the storyline, as he felt that women had enough concerns about visiting gynecologists. After Zack's death, McCloskey returned as a new character, cold DA Ethan Asher.
Phelps left the series in the early 1990s shortly after being demoted and replaced by John Conboy as executive producer. Finally Paul Rauch became the last executive producer (interestingly, all three would later be producers on long running daytime series Guiding Light). Many important actors had left the series for one reason or another (Robin Wright, Lane Davies, Marcy Walker, Justin Deas). Popular actress Louise Sorel was fired because she did not want to have a romance with Dash Nichols, the man who had raped Augusta's sister Julia. Eden, Cruz, and most of the Lockridges had been written out while new characters played by stars from other shows such as Kim Zimmer, Jack Wagner and Sydney Penny took up most of the airtime.
Ratings continued to collapse as more and more affiliates canceled the program. The final episode aired in January 1993. In the finale, Sophia and C.C. Capwell moved towards a reconciliation, Kelly found love with Connor McCabe, and at Warren and BJ's wedding, unbalanced Andie Klein aimed a gun at the crowd. The final shot consisted of executive producer Paul Rauch standing in front of the camera, smashing a cigar under his shoe, and walking away. Some soap critics, such as Michael Logan, were deeply angered by what they saw as the crassness of the final shot.
Cast and characters
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Cast on Christmas 1990
Cruz Castillo, Mack Blake, Eden Capwell, Julia Wainwright, Mason Capwell, Sasha Schmidt, Augusta Lockridge, C.C. Capwell, Kelly Capwell
Over the years of running, Santa Barbara was known for recasting its original characters multiple times. By the end of the series, almost every original long-running character had been recast, excluding Eden Capwell, Cruz Castillo, Lionel Lockridge and Augusta Wainwright. Out of those four, none of them stayed with the show during its entire run. The characters of Kelly and C.C. Capwell had the highest number of recasts, four. Some recasts proved to be popular with the fans, most notably the fourth actor to play the role of C.C. Capwell, Jed Allan, or the second actress to play Sophia Capwell, Judith McConnell, or the second actress to play Gina Demott, Robin Mattson. Each of those actors made the role their own, but some recasts affected the show's ratings.
The first notable departure happened when Robin Wright exited her four-year run as the original Kelly Capwell, followed by the departure of Todd McKee as the original Ted Capwell, and the most shocking departure, the exit of Lane Davies as Mason Capwell. By 1992, most original character had either been recast a few times or written out, and new characters arrived at the scene, causing the ratings to continue collapsing, until the show was finally canceled. In the final episode there were no original actors/actresses from the pilot, but there were still various characters with a recast, including C.C., Sophia, Kelly, Mason, Ted, Warren, Lionel, Rosa, Gina and Minx.
Crew history
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During the first three years of the show, the main crew of SB stayed the same, with the Dobsons taking on a double duty as both head writers and executive producers. Jeffrey Hayden served as co-executive producer during the first year, and Mary-Ellis Bunim took over after him. In 1987, after the Dobsons were abruptly fired, the show's associate head writer Charles Pratt, Jr. received head writing status and Anne Howard Bailey joined him as the co-head writer until 1989, when Sheri Anderson took over that duty.
Jill Farren Phelps took over as the executive producer and kept the position until 1991. In 1990, Pratt was fired and replaced by another associate writer, Maralyn Thoma but her tenure, along with John Conboy's as the new EP was cut short the following year, when the Dobson finally settled in court and returned to the series. However, they were also fired a year later, in 1992, when Paul Rauch was hired as the executive producer, and writer Pam Long was hired as the final head writer of the show. Long's introduction of new characters only pushed the series to its cancellation.
Ratings history
- See also: List of US daytime soap opera ratings
Although Santa Barbara enjoyed considerable worldwide popularity, it never achieved the same heights in the United States. In its debut (1984–1985) season it finished in 11th place and 3.4, and edged up to 10th and 4.2 the next year. By 1987–1988 however it was beginning to generate respectable numbers: it was still in 10th place but achieved a 4.9 rating, the highest in the history of the show. (Incidentally, 1987–1988 also proved to be the best ratings performance for NBC's daytime soap lineup in the 1980s, which had been in ratings trouble since the late 1970s). Unfortunately, this growth in popularity was not sustained although Santa Barbara remained above Loving until it was canceled.
In the early 1990s, some NBC affiliates tried airing Santa Barbara late morning timeslots. NBC's flagship station WNBC in New York moved the show from 3pm to Noon where it aired in its remaining years on the air. NBC replaced Santa Barbara with game shows Scrabble and Scattergories before eventually adding a new soap, Sunset Beach, to its daytime lineup. Shortly before the program was canceled by NBC, New World Television (the distributor) tried to shop the show to other broadcast and cable networks but they failed to find a network that would air it.
Europe, 1990s
In Germany, the show ran under the title California Clan from January 4, 1989 to October 17, 1997 on RTL Television (former RTL plus) (2123 episodes, because some of the first episode and some Christmas shows were not broadcast). In France, it ran from October 14, 1985 to June 24, 1994 on TF1 (1044 episodes) and from December 19, 2000 to June 1, 2001 on TF6 (106 episodes). In Italy, it ran with all its 2137 episodes from April 3, 1989 to September, 1990 on Rai Uno and from June, 1991 to April 6, 1999 on Rai Due; it proved so popular that an Italian billionaire had his residence constructed after C.C. Capwell's mansion. However, because its bathroom was never shown on-camera, he flew the show's set designer in from the U.S. to help him get an idea of what Capwell's bathroom might look like.
The show was also a smash hit in Russia, being the first American program to air there after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Because it was the first soap opera of such length (Latin American soap operas aired earlier were not longer than 200 series), its name (Санта-Барбара) became ironical denominative of soap operas and, figuratively, of long stories about personal love that are full of weddings, divorces, intrigues, etc. Also, one of the tigers in Saint Petersburg's Zoo was named after Santa Barbara's character Mason Capwell (Lane Davies), who had many fans there.
It was also the first American soap opera to appear on TV in the Czech Republic after the fall of the Communist regime. The show aired on Premiera TV (recent Prima TV), and the Czech Republic was the first among other former Communist countries to air it. Santa Barbara was also the most popular show in Croatia and one of the most popular shows in Slovenia during the 1990s. So popular was the show that, much like in Russia, the term Santa Barbara is used in everyday life for any soap-opera-like real life situation in the three countries, as well as in Estonia, where Santa Barbara was also the first American soap shown there; it aired on Kanal 2 and basically kept the channel on the air.
Santa Barbara was also screened in the UK and was the first country in the world to screen it as half-hour episodes instead of the usual hour long format. Furthermore, it was the first US daytime soap to be networked on a UK terrestrial channel, launching in July 1987 on the ITV network, which aired it at 10am. Santa Barbara was eventually shown regionally, before being dropped in February 1989 when ITV bought the rights to the Australian soap Home and Away. It was then picked up by cable and satellite broadcaster Sky Television who also chose the screen it in a half-hour format from 1991 to 1993 in varying timeslots, however, the final episodes have never been aired in the UK.
On the 2nd May 1989 at 11.10am, Spanish State broadcaster TVE1 premiered "Santa Barbara" which came to form part of their morning macro magazine show "Por la mañana" hosted by Jesus Hermida. In anticipation to the soap´s premiere, TVE1 run interviews with the cast during its morning show, taking advantage of the fact that part of the cast was in Europe, specifically filming episodes in Paris. Initially TVE1 bought the rights to 520 episodes, and a few months into its run, delayed the soap´s start time to 12 noon. On May 9th 1991, TVE1 screens the final episode of the batch of 520 that they had bought. Despite its immense popularity and deep penetration into Spanish popular culture, the State broadcaster had announced previously, that they did not intend to buy further episodes. However that same day, fans welcomed the surprise announcement by commercial broadcaster Antena 3TV that they had secured the rights to a new batch of episodes (596 episodes) and would begin screening them immediately. Four days after the run ended on TVE1, on 13th May 1991, Antena3TV begin the run of new episodes, keeping to the noon time slot. In 1992, Antena 3 start changing the time slot for the soap, moving it to 1230h and then 13h. The new slot proves to be a good move with ratings increasing and the soap enjoying its best moment. On 3rd May 1993 and due to a restructuring of their Daytime grid, Antena3TV reschedule Santa Barbara to the earlier time slot of 1100hrs. The time change coincides with the announcement that the channel have secured a further 1000 episodes of Santa Barbara.
In July 1993 and due to new changes in the Daytime grid brought about by children´s programming, Antena 3TV start playing with the soap´s time slot, some days starting it at 11am, others at 1030am and others at 13hrs. Viewership starts to decline as a result of the changes. Furthermore, Antena3TV announce to viewers via the medium of an on screen info ticker that "Santa Barbara" will go off air during August and will return in September. This was the first time the run of the soap had been interrupted other than the four days in between the change of channels, and specific holidays such as Christmas Day. September 1993 came and "Santa Barbara" didn´t. The channel in its place scheduled a Latin American telenovela that would run for 220 episodes instead giving viewers the impression that SB would not return. However, due to viewer demand, A3 make changes in their schedules, and on November 13th resume the soap´s run in a new time slot, 1015am. Despite the changes, viewers return to the soap, which manages to remain on air through to July 1, 1994 when the series concluded and "would return after the Summer hiatus".
On October 1st 1994 the soap returns ina 1015am slot where it would remain on air until late June 1995 when again it went off air for the Summer. On September 25th 1995 Santa Barbara returns to A3TV in a 11hrs slot. The soap returns with no publicity - to the point that A3TV had released their schedules for the day with another Latin American novella occupying the slot! For the next few weeks, the soap´s timeslot changes a number of times, with start times varying between 1015am and 1130am. In December 1995 the soap goes off air for Christmas.
April 1996 sees the return of Santa Barbara to A3TV but only after fans bombarded the station with complaints and demands for it to return. But the constant change of start time, and the long hiatus resulted in a smaller fan base returning to watch the soap in its new 1040am slot. One month later, Santa Barbara was taken off air un-announced, never ever to return to Spanish TV screens. Spanish viewers never saw the final approx. 1000 episodes of Santa Barbara.
Spanish TV never screened the first few episodes of Santa Barbara opting instead to pick up the soap from episode 76.
Awards
See also
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Main article: Supercouple
References
- ^ "[1]", NBC. URL last accessed 2008-06-16.
- ^ "[2], Fan site, last accessed 2008-06-16"
- ^ "[3], Popularity, last accessed 2008-06-16"
- ^ "Emmy Awards" NBC, URL last accessed 2008-06-16
- ^ Joe leaves prison, Joe released
- ^ Uneven show, Video Link
- ^ SB hit by an earthquake, Earthquake
- ^ Santa Barbara : le site Francais
- ^ Mary's death, C Falls on Mary
- ^ "Awards for Santa Barbara", IMDb. URL last accessed 2008-06-16
External links
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