As Good As It Gets

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This series was shown on ITV from the start, as part of a new network daytime package on ITV, as opposed to regionally shown films and Sesame Street (and schools programmes, during term time).It was shown daily (the first episode was repeated in the afternoon) at 10 am.It was quite unusual for any terrestrial channel to screen US daytime soaps - they were a mainstay of cable TV, which was still in its infancy - the best the BBC could manage at the time was re-runs of Dallas. ITV relied on Australia for most of its daytime soap output by the mid 80s - other than Take The High Road, all the daytime soaps were Australian (Emmerdale was now on in the evenings and other shows were no longer being made).Santa Barbara was networked (unusually for ITV - all imported programmes and even UK reruns tended to be shown round the regions) to begin with and shown five days a week (most soaps - UK or imported - were rarely on more than twice or three times a week).It was subsequently split around the regions - but ultimately discontinued and has never been shown subsequently - we never found out who killed Channing or how it progressed after a Christmas episode (not properly, anyway).There were so many cast changes - at least three (I've later learnt that it was four) actors have played CC Capwell - Peter Mark Richman (billed as such in Santa Barbara, but as Mark Richman in earlier roles), Paul Burke and Charles Bateman have played the Capwell patriarch - two actors have played Joe Perkins (Dane Witherspoon and Mark Arnold) and two actors - should it be "actresses", as he was later revealed to be a woman, and even later to have been the supposedly-deceased Sophia - that was the last episode I saw - when Lionel showed CC Sophia in that one way window, which they mistakenly called a "two-way mirror" - have played "Dominic" - Rosemary Forsyth (originally credited as "M Forsyth" - perhaps to hide the fact he was a woman) and, once "his" identity was discovered, Judith McConnell.The cast changes often occurred partway through an episode - an announcer would say "The part of CC Capwell is now being played by Paul Burke" and, in another episode, "The part of CC Capwell is now being played by Charles Bateman".# As for the Joe Perkins switcheroony, the announcer said "The part of Joe Perkins is now being played by Mark Arnold".

Santa Barbara came on with the hopes of changing the daytime industry and it did to many respects. THe Dobsons should be applauded for their soap. Sadly, Santa Barbara was on NBC which does not care for it's daytime audience. As an Another WOrld fan, I can say that network does not show the respect of daytime drama audiences by canceling one of it's soaps. Santa Barbara tried to be like other soaps just when it came out but it didn't work. Then, they brought together Cruz and Eden played by A Martinez and Marcy Walker. They were very good together. The casting was beyond to describe. The cast included Dame Judith Anderson, Janis Paige, Nicolas Coaster (a soap vet to say the least), Sydney Penney, Nancy Lee Grahn, Louise Sorel, Jed Allan, Jane McConnell, and the list just goes on. When you are a favorite of Jill Farren Phelps, you become quite active on the show. Just to say that Grahn and Allan both joined General HOspital since Santa Barbara. The writing was witty and weird, brilliant and sometimes sloppy at the height of Santa Barbara's fame. But sadly, this show became a casualty of daytime's losing audience. Most people don't stay at home during the days like they used too. There are daytime audiences like me willing to tape while at work. I'll just wonder what it might have been if Santa Barbara had been allowed to grow old and gracefully. Santa Barbara won't be forgotten anytime soon. We still have a bit of it on General HOspital.

"Santa Barbara" was unique in its wonderful wit and humor. One of the show's creators, Bridget Dobson, commented in an interview before the show originally aired that soaps should be "fun" to watch. She and her husband, Jerome, definitely created a show that was FUN to watch over its original U.S. run, 1984 to 1993.From a sardonic, Shakespeare-quoting less-favored eldest son, to a killer neon letter "C" sign, to a "Carnation Killer" and much more, "Santa Barbara" played things quirky in the world of daytime soaps. This was a cleverly written show that did not insult the intelligence of its viewer, and often seemed to even poke fun at itself. Thankfully, it hits its stride with Emmy Awards and quite a lot of attention.We mourn the loss of a great show, but thankfully, it has aired in other countries since its U.S. cancellation. (I would have never believed I would turn on the TV in my hotel room in Amman, Jordan, in 1996 and find a "SB" episode from the mid-1980s! Beautiful!) SoapNet, please take note ... the fans are out there ... Air it, and they will come!!!!

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.