Santa Barbara (TV series)

Santa Barbara
An image from the opening title sequence of Santa Barbara (introduced on July 30, 1984).
Genre	Soap opera
Created by	Bridget Dobson Jerome Dobson
Starring	Series cast
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	2137[1]
Production
Executive producer(s)	See here
Location(s)	NBC Studios
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	July 30, 1984 – January 15, 1993

Santa Barbara is an American television soap opera, first broadcast in the United States on NBC on July 30, 1984, and last aired on January 15, 1993. The show revolved around the eventful lives of the wealthy Capwell family of Santa Barbara, California. Around the Capwells there were several other families, from the rival Lockridge family to the more modest Andrade and Perkins families, whose lives know the same torments despite class differences.

It was co-produced by NBC and Dobson Productions (in February 1985, New World Pictures joined NBC and Dobson as a production partner and served as the distributor for the show, through their newly created New World Television division), and co-created by Bridget and Jerome Dobson. It aired at 3:00 PM ET/2:00 PM C on NBC, opposite the well-established General Hospital on ABC and Guiding Light on CBS, and right after Another World.

It aired in over 40 countries around the world.^[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]

In 1993, NBC replaced Santa Barbara with game shows Scrabble and Scattergories, which aired at 12:00 PM and 12:30 PM respectively. Santa Barbara's 3:00 PM timeslot was pre-empted and turned into local programming. 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.

Plot

Santa Barbara was notable for having a central plot around which many of the others revolved: the murder of Channing Capwell, Jr. 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 and renew his relationship with Kelly Capwell, sister of the victim.^[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.

Production

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 tightened the show's cast among a handful of popular characters and proceeded to kill off weaker links 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.

The supercouple, Eden Capwell (Marcy Walker) and Cruz Castillo (A Martinez).

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 Lockridge, Augusta Wainwright, 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 McCormick (Harley Jane Kozak) 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 Outstanding Drama Series. 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 the 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

Cast on Christmas 1990
Cruz Castillo, Mack Blake, Eden Capwell, Julia Wainwright, Mason Capwell, Sasha Schmidt, Augusta Lockridge, C.C. Capwell, Kelly Capwell

Following common daytime drama practice, over the years the producers of Santa Barbara recast original characters multiple times. By the end of the series, almost every original long-running character had been recast, excluding only Eden, Cruz, Lionel, and Augusta. Out of those four, not one stayed with the show during through the entire run. The characters of Kelly and C.C. had the highest number of recasts, four. Some recasts proved successful, most notably Jed Allan (C.C. Capwell #4), Judith McConnell (Sophia Capwell #2) and Robin Mattson (Gina Blake DeMott #2), but many were upsetting to fans.

The first notable departure happened when Robin Wright ended 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 of the original characters had either been recast a few times or written out, and new characters arrived on the scene, causing the ratings to continue collapsing, until the show was finally canceled. In the final episode there were no original actors from the pilot, although many of the original characters remained, including C.C., Sophia, Kelly, Mason, Ted, Warren Lockridge, Lionel, Rosa, Gina, and Minx.

Crew history

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's 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.

Executive Producers

Head Writers'

Ratings history

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, 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, the 1987-1988 television season also proved to be the best ratings performance of the 1980s for NBC's daytime soap lineup, which had been in ratings trouble since the late 1970s). This growth in popularity was not sustained, although Santa Barbara remained above Loving until it was canceled.

Santa Barbara's ratings dropped dramatically when Lane Davies left the show permanently in the summer of 1989. Terry Lester replaced Davies as Mason Capwell in September 1989.

Although NBC's timeslot for Santa Barbara officially remained 3:00 pm until its 1993 cancellation, some NBC affiliates tried airing the show in late morning timeslots in the early 1990s in an attempt to improve the declining ratings. NBC's flagship station, WNBC in New York City, moved the show from 3:00 pm to noon, where it aired during its remaining years.

Broadcasts outside the United States

The show's popularity in France spun off a storyline in which Eden Capwell (Marcy Walker), Cruz Castillo (A Martinez), Kelly Capwell (Carrington Garland) and Ric Castillo (Peter Love) went to Paris to search after Eden's and Cruz's child.

• In Australia, the show aired from 1987 to 1994 on Channel 10.
• In Austria, the show aired on ORF from 1996 to 1997.
• In Bulgaria, the show aired from 1994-1997.
• In Cameroon, the show aired in both French and English from 1990 to 1993, on CRTV. A neighbourhood in the capital city is named after the series.
• In Canada, the show aired all episodes from 1984 to 1993, but only in the regions served by NBC affiliates that supported the show until its end. In addition, the whole series aired in French on TVA for broadcast in Quebec. Since TVA did not air the show during summertime, the French translation in Quebec lasted 12 years instead of the original 8 1/2 year span on NBC.
• In China, Hong Kong, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and South Korea, all episodes aired on Star Plus from 1990 to 1999.
• In Croatia the show aired from 1990 to 1998 on HRT1.
• In Cyprus Santa Barbara aired in 1992 on LOGOS tv, and in 1993 on ANT1 until 2002 when it was completed.
• In the Czech Republic, it was the first American soap opera to air on television. It aired on Premiera TV.
• In Egypt, the show aired on M-NET from 1996 to 1998.
• In Estonia, Santa Barbara aired on Kanal 2 and basically kept the channel on the air. It ended in 1999.
• In Finland, the show aired from 1994 to 1999 on Nelonen.
• In France, the show ran 1044 episodes from 1985 to 1994 on TF1, and from 2000 to 2001 for 106 episodes on TF6.
• In Germany, the show aired 2123 episodes under the title California Clan from 1989 to 1997 on RTLplus (as of 1992: RTL Television). It also aired repeats from 1998 to 2000 on TM3.
• In Greece, the show aired on MEGA Channel from 1990 to 1996.
• In Holland, the show aired on RTL4 from 1990 to 1991, and from 1992 to 1999.
• In India, the series was aired on Hong-Kong based satellite TV channel Star World from 1993 to 1997.
• In Ireland, the show aired on RTE One from 1984 to 1993.
• In Israel, the show aired briefly from 1995 to 1996 on Channel 2.
• In Italy, the show ran all 2137 episodes from 1989 to 1990 on Rai Uno and from 1991 to 1999 on Rai Due.
• In Japan, the show aired entirely on Star World from 1990 to 1999, and also aired on SkyPerfecTV from 1991 to 1999.
• In New Zealand, the show aired from 1988 to 1995 on TVNZ.
• In Norway, the show aired almost all episodes (except for the last two years) on TVNorge, from 1988 to 1998. The last 4 years the show ran the episodes were split in two half-hour episodes instead of the original hour long episodes.
• In the Philippines, the show aired on GMA Network.
• In Poland, the show first aired from 1990 to 1992 on TVP1, and was later bought by ATV1, aired from 1997 to 1999.
• In Romania, the show aired from 1994 to 2000 on TVR2.
• In Russia, the show was the first American program to air there after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It aired on RTR from 1992 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2002.
• In Slovenia, the show aired on POP TV from 1995 to 1998.
• In South Africa, the show aired entirely on SABC3 from 1987 to 1998.
• In Spain, TVE1 aired 520 episodes of the show from 1989 to 1991 when they refused to buy more episodes even though the show was very popular. However, Antena 3TV bought the rights to the show and continued airing it right after it concluded on TVE1 in 1991. It aired until 1996 with several breaks in between. The show never concluded due to failing ratings attributed to constant timeslot changes.
• In Sweden, the show first aired on TV5 Nordic from 1991 to 1995, and briefly in 2000 on TV4.
• In the United Kingdom, the show's episodes were split in two half-hour episodes instead of the original hour long episodes. It aired from 1987 to 1990 on the ITV network, usually at 10:00, although some regions showed it at 12:30 before the lunchtime news. When ITV dropped the series, Sky Television picked it up and it aired on Sky One from 1991 to 1993^[10] in an afternoon slot, before briefly switching to the Sky Soap channel in 1994. Santa Barbara was always shown in the half-hour format in the UK.
• In Zimbabwe, the show aired on ZBC TV1 from 1991 to 1997.

Awards

See also

References

External links

• Santa Barbara at the Internet Movie Database
• Santa Barbara at TV.com
• Santa Barbara on TV.com