Santa Barbara

What was it about "Santa Barbara" that managed to get dedicated non-Soapists like me hooked? Humour, in a word. SB is the only soap I'm aware of that had an all-the-way-thru' sense of humour about itself. I discovered this , as so many do, while surfing the channels. Up came an incident in SB when a lawyer character is seen in a coma. He fantasises himself into an all-white version of his lawyer's office (i.e. Heaven) where he is seen arriving bedecked in white from head to toe. His first stop is his secretary's desk. "She", also a vision in white, is not his real secretary but one of SB's male characters who is also a transvestite. He/she is seated at his/her desk, filing his/her nails AND--here is the piece of resistance that made SB irresistable to me--watching the opening credits of his/her favourite soap on the office TV. The favourite soap being--what else?--"Santa Barbara! A nice little touch of post-modernism there, I think.

Then there was the murder of the lounge singer by the local District Attorney and her husband.(A very Santa Barbara reversal of the usual plotline!) They hide the body in a freezer which provides a superb full- face picture of the corpse for the closing credits. The make-up artist has done a superb job, ice crystals mixing with mascara and blusher to achieve that all-over "dead" effect. AND, forgoing the Santa Barbara theme music, the episode ends with the dear departed lounge singer's own voice singing the highly appropriate "AM I BLUE?"!!!

From then on I was hooked. Humour and a wonderfully anarchic script that had characters trapped in dungeons at the beginning of an episode and attending a" black tie 'n' frocks party" at the end, are what made Santa Barbara a soap like no other. And I daresay we shall not see its like ever again.

Santa Barbara got me through a tough period in the late 1980s. For a while there it was the only thing i really looked forward to. Mason's rich sarcasm, Gina I's uncontrollable facial expressions, Gina II's bone structure, Eden's dreamy egotism, Kelly's bad luck, the coincidences, the overheard conversations, the misunderstandings that went on for weeks at a time, the laughter, the tears, the sorrow and the pity, the daily dose of hyperbole, hysteria and melodrama, the little bit of insanity in a sanitized world, that was Santa Barbara. It's been gone from our screens for years, in Australia at least, where i used to watch it. But it lives on in the backwaters of my mind, often resurfacing, at odd times, giving me solace in times of extreme absurdity. Thank you, Santa Barbara, I will never forget you.

I have good memories of this daytime serial, which debuted in Australia in 1987, when I was in high school. Even though the later years of the show were unwatchable, when the head writers in the early years were Bridget and Jerome Dobson, it was simply magical. I remember well the beautiful romances of Kelly and Joe (Robin Wright and Dane Witherspoon), the high-camp aristocratic antics of Augusta and Lionel (Louise Sorel and Nicolas Coster) and, and best of all, the heavenly romance between ex-nun Mary and the hard-bitten, cynical Mason (Harley Kozak and Lane Davies). This storyline in particular was brilliantly acted, movingly written, and thoroughly touching. Mason's transformation into a more sympathetic character through his love affair with Mary was wonderfully handled.

It is a shame that the programme is no longer on the air, but if it had firmer handling, it may have caught on and built a substantial audience. All it needed was more story consistency, and some more appealing love stories to hook the audience. SANTA BARBARA's penchant for the quick fix, and inability to give its actors stable storylines may have contributed to its undoing. Anyway, I hope that the show one day either turns up again on TV, if not in its full run, but even in 'best of' shows. I rate it as one of the best shows on TV, then, now, and everafter.

Usually, I don't like soap operas, and I rarely watch them. But I was impressed by how enormously popular it was in Russia. It is a real cult there, and a big percentage of people watched it and talked about it. So, I watched it, too, when I was in Petersburg for some weeks, and I would say it was worth it. The stories are quite complex, and most of the various threads of the action are very interesting.

It is interesting how popular such a series can become abroad. In Russia, it is certainly much better-known than in the US. When I was in Russia, some liked it and others disliked it, but I don't think there is anyone who does not know it or has no opinion about it - which is just the more remarkable because the series is so sophisticated that watching several pieces is necessary for fully understanding it.

Truly the most innovative and unique soap to ever hit the small screen. With the powerful talents of Nancy Lee Grahn, Lane Davies, Jed Allen, A Martinez, Marcy Walker and Stephen Nichols, Santa Barbara dared to do what other soaps wouldn't and couldn't. This show brought new meaning to the word "fresh"! It's demise was extremely premature and it is sorely missed!