Eldorado

In 1992 when Eldorado first aired on the BBC I watched it avidly. Yes, some of the characters seemed a little "outrageous" and maybe some of the acting could have been better. However, I was hooked, especially as we were off to Spain on holiday in the August. Sadly the BBC axed the show, which was a pity.

Three and half years ago, we retired to Spain and now live in a very mixed community of Europeans, ex-pats included. Oh brother! Believe me I have met virtually every character featured in Eldorado, as outrageous as some of them appeared. Whoever researched the program originally did a pretty good job, how sad that it wasn't appreciated at the time. So real is it that our community has now been re-titled Eldorado by our visiting family. Wish the episodes were available on DVD!

Not a bad soap. However, the BBC, in its wisdom, decided to pull the plug when it seemed to be getting off the ground. This decision has always seemed a puzzle when programmes of questionable quality are screened by the same organization. It was sad to lose this programme, and how much public money was thrown away?

Watching recent repeats of Eldorado on cable tv brings back great memories. How many of us looked forward to our twice weekly transportation to the sunshine of Los Barcos? I did. Yes, it had some teething problems. (Tho' looking back, it doesn't seem half as bad as at the time!). And it got better. The storylines and the characters were good, if not always entirely believable. But hey, this is soapland! The Beeb made a big mistake by listening too closely to those telling them that they had a made a big mistake comissioning the programme in the first place, (work that one out!). What say they get back to Los Barcos, pick up where they left off and give us our winter sunshine back?

With the terrible reviews and screaming front-page headlines it got at the time Eldorado didn't stand a chance. The series was launched in too much of a hurry with too great a fanfare, leading to very high hopes for its fairly poor first episodes. After a little while, with a few of the huge cast removed and a more definite sense of direction, Eldorado became the best soap on British TV. But the damage was done, and it never really gained the place in public affections that it needed. The Beeb pulled the plug after a year.

Eldorado, by the time it finished, was absolutely unique. It had found its place in the world, and knew its direction. It was expending a lot of energy exploring the nature of people who leave their motherland and o to live in the sun. So much was revealed about the true nature of ex-pats, and some characters who seemed a bit faceless at the beginning were revealed as far more complex once they were given a bit of screen time to themselves. In Freddie Martin, Eldorado gave us one of TV's greatest gay characters: his reunion with his longlost daughter, Natalie, and his silent grief at the death of his secret boyfriend, Javier, were immaculately written and performed.

Eldorado was able to give great depth and involvement to the idea of culture clash, and to highlight what life in the "new" Europe was really like (boo-hiss baddie Marcus Tandy calls German Dieter "Adolf" at one point). There were characters and relationships never seen on TV, before or since (the Leducs' open marriage, modern Spanish women breaking away from traditional Catholic families, gay parents), and plenty of imagination given to thoroughly original storylines.

After the dodgy beginning, Eldorado became the most unique TV show that the BBC had ever tried. Ten years on, I still think it's a shame they didn't have the confidence to carry it through. Mind you, the last episode was a corker.

I was never a fan of Eldorado but I can remember the blaze of publicity and hype that greeted the Beeb's flagship soap opera - Sean Connery, apparently, at one point, provided the voiceover (this was untrue).

Although it had a better hook than ITV's miserable 'Albion Market', Eldorado was beset by a legion of problems - technical, legal, logistical, administrative and financial - that overwhelmed an overstretched and vaguely defined production. Crucially, it had no central character - no Bet, Den, Charlene or even a Mandy for the viewer to root for.

The BBC were probably right to bring the axe down on an expensive, woodenly acted, muddled white elephant but as Britain totters towards a new phase in our fraught relationship with Europe it makes you wonder what storylines we would be watching today if Eldorado had managed to thrive and survive.