Alexis Enters SUNSET BEACH

[Ray&Donna]

Jason George was in an episode of Friends as a fireman and I was like there's Michael from sunset beach but I couldn't think of his name at that moment

 

[Alexis]

I'm getting seasick from reading this.

Imagine how I felt typing it. I had to try and recap two sittings worth of episodes. And the show feels rambling at the best of times.

Yes, things are inching closer to the Shockwave story--I recall bits and pieces of this, including Cam Haskin coming down the stairs and trying to pretend she'd been around for all this stuff with the baby. Talk about being tossed into the fire.

Ah, I thought her name was Kim. There was a voice over when she came down the stairs. I actually like her, I think she's an improvement on the last actress. Apparently the original actress left over a contract dispute. Shades of Catherine Oxenberg.

I think something is wrong with me, because the oddest part of this whole scenario to me was the idea that if Gregory is a pilot, why wasn't he flying his plane to begin with?

Well they were in his private jet. I could see him being a trained pilot, I mean if Monica Colby was! lol But he's a rich fancy millionaire type so he has his pilot take them there.

 

[Ray&Donna]

If you're piloting your own plane you can't have champagne sex in the passenger space

 

[Alexis]

Gaby has been talking an awful lot about cutting her hair. She is in prison with Fr Antonio for helping Ben escape and she keeps mentioning cutting her hair. I guess she must have asked Mr Spelling very nicely if she could cut her hair and he agreed. I don't think they often allow such drastic changes in image on a soap. I remember now that she does get a very short Mia Farrow style pixie crop very soon. They have justified this by having her say that her father never let her cut her hair, as he thought long hair was pretty. Since he was a creepy paedophile rapist, I'm all for this change.

We finally get to see Maria! Well from the back at first as Tim wakes up and a nurse is guiding her out of his room. Later we see her properly briefly. She wakes in the night screaming, terrified.

Just as this is happening Ben and Meg are now in the woods. Ben goes after Derek and Meg almost falls off a cliff. Where did this cliff set come from? Where did they find the money for this? Anyways more Ben and Derek fighting. Now Derek's black sweater has been torn off so they are both in white shirts and we, and Meg don't know who's who.
They both try to convince her who is Ben, Meg, instinctively goes to the real Ben and Derek calls her a bitch revealing himself. Then he runs a Ben and they fight and Derek tumbles off the cliff.... phew! That's the last of him. For now at least.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Another World did their "good person fights evil lookalike in identical clothes" in 1995, and from the sound of your description, the SuBe writers wanted to do their version.

The way Rachel's granddaughter Maggie sputters as she sees Rachel's lookalike in the doorway was comedy gold.

 

[Alexis]

Another World did their "good person fights evil lookalike in identical clothes" in 1995, and from the sound of your description, the SuBe writers wanted to do their version.

The way Rachel's granddaughter Maggie sputters as she sees Rachel's lookalike in the doorway was comedy gold.

Sooooo much going on here! Get me a soap channel now please!

 

[Alexis]

I can't believe how much Gordon Thompson seems to have aged in the less than ten years since he finished on DYNASTY and appeared on SUNSET BEACH. He finished DYNASTY in 1989 and appears on SUNSET BEACH in 1998.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Primetime lighting versus daytime lighting, dahhhling. Even though it's mostly for the ladies, us guys get the fringe benefits.

Sooooo much going on here! Get me a soap channel now please!

Evil Justine (who got hit by the train passing underneath) was the mother of both Grant and Ryan (the shooter and the shot, respectively). Grant claimed the shooting was an accident but no one believed him, especially Vicky (Grant's ex, Ryan's true love, and the baby's mother). The best/worst part was when presumed-dead Justine turned up alive with a hook for a hand and half her face torn off thanks to her run-in with the train, but that's another bat-s#it crazy moment for another time.

This sort of....um, departure for AW was just the sort of stuff that NBC wanted all three of their soaps to be doing every day, which is part of why SuBe had such a wide berth when it came to storytelling extremes. SuBe just wore it better, to coin a phrase. The general unwillingness of AW to do this kind of stuff day-to-day was likely what made SuBe the "network darling" in the late 1990s while AW was treated like the black sheep of the family.

 

[Ray&Donna]

The cliff of convenience. On General Hospital it's a footbridge

 

[Alexis]

So Ben and Meg return to Sunset Beach an it all gets a bit awkward for Meg as she now has to tell Ben that she slept with Derek. Only Ben already knows because he was tied up behind a two way mirror and watched the whole thing. Meg tries to tell him but cant, she ends up confiding in Sarah but she tells her just to not say anything as it could end up ruining things when there are three people in their bed. Not that Meg should be taking such advice from her sister as a tape has just leaked where Sarah confesses to sleeping with the congressman. Sarah doesn't know who would have recorded her private conversation with Melinda Fall, however Casey has an idea. Casey isn't as dumb as be looks.
There ends up being much over acting and screeching and hand wringing from Meg. She does this really weird way of delivering lines when she's playing upset. She has long pauses between words. Sometimes it looks like she's stalling until the line comes to her.
Anyway when she finally does manage to start to tell Ben, he tells her he knows, and that it's ok as she didn't know he had a twin brother. Ya know, maybe Ben is the real villain here. Why they hell wouldn't he tell Meg he had an identical twin who was a nutcase? It's so stupid! And ya know what else is stupid? This...

So after Ben and Meg clear the air he says he has to go see Ricardo and he meets him and starts to confess all about what really happened the night Maria died. None of this makes any sense! Ben says he came home and found Maria in her studio about to make love to Derek. He says Maria just stared at him with a look of shock. Ben interpreted this as shock at being caught having an affair with his brother. However Maria like Meg, also didn't know that Ben even had a twin. Nobody knew. Ben then says that Maria chased after him. Ben went to his boat and was about to set sail when Maria got on board. Maria was pleading with him screaming that she she didn't know. Ben says he was angry and wasn't listening to what she was saying and then a violent storm broke. Maria was swept overboard, Ben tried to save her, but couldn't manage to. He saw her swept away and then lost sight of her. And in the 5 or so years since Maria's disappearance Ben never once mentioned the real course of events. He never told anyone he had a twin. He says that years after that he caught Derek in his house, in Maria's studio and attacked him with a pair of scissors, Derek got away. I guess that bit was added so that Meg finding a box with a bloody sheet and scissors in a closet would make sense. There are plot holes all over this though. After how terribly things went when he didn't tell Maria about his twin why wouldn't he mention this to Meg?

Later Meg and Ben are at the hospital, Meg is visiting Tim. Tim and Ben sort of clear the air after he explains that it was Derek who did all those terrible things. Tim still thinks those things happened because of Ben. He's half right, as if Ben had have told people he had a whackjob twin brother a lot of people wouldn't have been traumatised. Ben goes to make a call or something and when Meg is leaving she hears a woman screaming in her room. Being the weirdo that she is, Meg just casually enters a woman's hospital room. It's Maria! Well I'm not supposed to know this yet but I do. And even if I didn't know a blind man could work it out. She's all nervous and handwringy an rocking back and fourth and it's a bit much really. Why is she so traumatised? Ok she almost drowned 5 years ago, but she's lost her memory so it's not like she's haunted by the past? Meg tries to calm her. Ben comes back and a nurse tells him her saw go into that room. A nurse let a strange woman just go into a patients room? Maria must be really annoying if the nurses let her cries be answered by passing strangers. Ben knocks at the door and is about to enter when Meg steps out and explains she heard the woman cry and wanted to see if she was alright. They leave... Phew.

And now the best bit! Baby Trey's christening which has been going on for 6 episodes! Annie returned from Vegas married to Gregory and blackmailed Caitlyn into making her Trey's godmother. Olivia comes back from Silverado Canyon with AJ at this exact moment, after remembering more about her baby. She now remembers that it was a woman who took her son from her. Olivia is hurt and upset that Caitlyn would ask Annie to be godmother, and then almost dies on the spot when she realises that Annie is now Gregory's wife. Caitlyn does damage control by asking Olivia and Annie to be godmothers together. They all leave to go to the service. While there Annie overhears a conversation between Fr Antonio and Olivia where they discuss Cole possibly being the father of her dead son. Fr Antonio gives Caitlyn and Cole a gift of a music box that plays the tune that had previously made Oliva remember a little. She hears it and again has hazy flash backs to the cabin. Cailyn gives Trey to Olivia to hold and she has more flashbacks, she breaks down crying saying she remembers. Annie panics and snatches the baby from her and of course that makes her remember more. Olivia faints and Annie runs to the bathroom. When Olivia comes round, she goes to the bathroom to freshen up too. While there Annie and Olivia argue, in the middle of it Annie tells Olivia to shut up and put a cork in it. Which finally makes Olivia remember. At the Cabin when Olivia was about to give birth before Dr Brock showed up, Annie yelled at her that she better put a cork in it, the baby couldn't come yet. It all comes back to her and they argue and fight and Annie panics, she denies all. Olivia thinks Annie killed her baby, and becomes hysterical. Annie tells her that her son is alive and Olivia demands that she take her to him or she'll tell everyone right now. Annie attempts to black mail Olivia with exposing her and Cole's affair. Olivia doesn't care about that she wants her baby... Annie has no choice but to tell her she will take her to her baby...
They walk out of the bathroom and into the church, Olivia is confused but Annie points at Caitlyn holding Trey and says that's your son....
It's a lot! I'm not gonna lie, I was glued to all this. I think this was my favourite part of the show. The baby reveal, leading to the earthquake and shockwave and Maria return from the dead. SO MUCH PLOT!
Of course Annie explains the whole thing to Olivia, that Caitlyn lost her baby in the car crash, she even blames that on Olivia. That she wore a pad all through the pregnancy, that Cole doesn't know, that Caitlyn cant have any more children. That Caitlyn was desperate and broken... Olivia, broken and destroyed seems to resign her self to the fact that her child is Caitlyn's now.

After the christening everyone is talking about the charity cruise the next day. They are all getting their tuxs and gowns, it's a whole thing! Then we see a man from the back telling another man that Cole Deschannel better be on that boat! He's holding a nice head shot of Eddie Cibrian as he does this. The other man assures him he will be.
We then see that the man we couldn't see is Chip Roberts from Knots Landing.... What fun!

 

[Alexis]

And the Earthquake has hit! Well the first small one, which I guess is a warning shot.
At the time it hit, Olivia, AJ, Cole, Caitlyn, Gregory, Annie, Bette and Sean were at the Richards house and Ben and Meg were in bed making the earth move anyway.

I have missed out a fair bit of the Vanessa plot as I hate her. Anyways she thinks she's got Martins Syndrome and is living with Dr Tyus. Dr Tyus is working on a cure for the disease and has her try some drug he's working on. He takes it too for some stupid reason. It makes them hallucinate and she thinks she's cured and that he's Michael and he thinks she's his beautiful bride. They are both on the couch talking when Virginia approaches the apartment and hears them talk, she listens until they fall asleep and then goes in and stages photos of them passed out to make it look like they had slept together. I mean there is a lot more detail in this but I hate this stupid plot and want Vanessa to vamoose! Dr Tyus is working on the cure at the hospital when the quake hits and Vanessa is standing in the doorway of his apartment being sensible.

 

[Alexis]

Well f**k a duck! The second quake hit and they ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED just about every set! It feels like how you would end a show. I have to give it to them they went hard with this one. And the shockwave hasn't even hit the boat yet.
They have also done the classic soap thing of having two characters who are enemies being trapped and in peril together. Eastenders used to do this all the time and I loved it.
Here we have Annie and Olivia, trapped at Gregory's house. Annie had called Olivia a witch and told her to get out before a house fell on her. Then it literally did. Gregory and AJ were at the building site on the beach where they were building a resort. Now they are buried under rubble. Tim and Ben are at the hospital which has basically collapsed. They are trapped together and going to team up to find Meg. Meg is in Maria's room with her also trapped. Meg's parents were also at the hospital when it too. Michael and Dr Tyus were in his lab, and Michael had just injected himself with Martin's syndrome when the building collapsed on them. Virginia and Jimmy were outside Tyus's apartment and Vanessa was inside. Now everyone is buried under rubble, furniture, debris. It was really well done, I think, it looked really good for a daytime soap.

On the boat are, Sean, his new girlfriend Emily, Casey, Sarah, Ricardo, Antonio, Gabby, Cole, Caitlyn, Bette, annoying Brad and Amy. There is also Philip, who's really Chip from Knots Landing and Francesca Vargas, who seems to know Cole. And Melinda Fall and her reporter guy have sneaked on board in order to entrap Sarah. Weirdly in the episode previous Gaby had her long flowing hair. Then at the beginning of this one she had like one of those '90s Meg Ryan cuts but a bit more mullety, but she obviously had a haircut. Then the next scene she has a very very short pixie crop. I wonder what happened there?

Bette mentioned at Trey's christening that she had a daughter that she doesn't see as she lives with her father. I guess she's coming soon, Bette has now mentioned a few times she's no mother of the year.
Terrible quality but you get the idea...

 

[GillesDenver]

I can't believe how much Gordon Thompson seems to have aged in the less than ten years since he finished on DYNASTY and appeared on SUNSET BEACH. He finished DYNASTY in 1989 and appears on SUNSET BEACH in 1998.

I think he looked fine for a 53-old-years man.

 

[Alexis]

I think he looked fine for a 53-old-years man.

Oh he does, I just think it's aged a lot in, say 8 years. I guess they probably coloured his hair on DYNASTY and I am forgetting he played younger than he was there. He's a very good looking man but you can see a lot of aging in a short period.

I just realised today that James Healy was also on Santa Barbara at the same time as Thompson. I wonder did they work together?

 

[Alexis]

This earthquake stuff is brilliant! I remember I has taped all these episodes back in the day and watched them over. I love that even though the big quake has happened there are still some big set pieces that add drama.
After the earthquake a guy shows up at the building site, and helps Gregory and then helps AJ, at first it seems AJ is dead, but the handsome stranger revives him. He turns out to AJ's son Leo.
Annie and Olivia are almost killed by a falling chandelier but Annie manages to pry Olivia free seconds before it smashes to to the ground. They start attempting to go up the stairs clearing debris, to save Trey. They get there at the same time as Gregory, AJ and Leo make it to the house. Baby Trey's cot is overturned, Lourdes the maid is knocked out and the baby is nowhere to be seen. They panic and search, Gregory and co race up the stairs to help. When they get there they hear the baby cry. Annie dashes to get him and he's fine, she goes to step across the room and the floor caves in! She's left standing on a tiny ledge with the baby... Everyone is HYSTERICAL.
Gregory tries to get Annie to hold over the baby to him, but she wont give up the baby in case they don't try to save her too. I am gripped! It's brilliant.

While trying to rescue Jimmy from under the rubble the roof caves in and traps Virginia. Vanessa manages to rescue Jimmy and gets him to paramedics. Virginia tells them to go, she thinks she being punished for all the bad things she's done. Vanessa gets Jimmy out and comes back to help Virginia.

Meg and Maria talk while they are trapped. Meg mentions Ben and Maria explains what the name Ben means. Son of my right hand, Meg says she must know a Ben... Maria doesn't remember. Meg also mentions Ben's twin and the trouble he caused and Maria becomes upset. She says she feels like there is a twin in her life somehow as well.
I call bullshit writing... But it's still great!

Tim and Ben manage to rescue Meg's parents and they all go off to find Meg. Meanwhile Michael and Tyus free themselves from the rubble but Michael's already feeling the effects of Martins Syndrome. They make their way to Tyus's apartment to find Virginia. Vanessa is afraid of Michael seeing her face, Michael doesn't care... because TRUE LOVE CONQUERS ALL!!!!!! I am eating this up with a spoon!

 

[Daniel Avery]

I have missed out a fair bit of the Vanessa plot as I hate her.

Yes, that's my summation of the plot as well.

Remember how you kept recognizing certain sets (like restaurants or people's homes) being re-dressed to be other people's homes or businesses? Perhaps they knew months ahead that they were going to do this plot where everything would be trashed--so rather than build a new set for a character's home, they just re-dressed what was there while they waited for the wrecking ball.

 

[Alexis]

Hold up! There's another earthquake! I forgot there was another one! This is so good!

 

[Mermaid]

I've just rediscovered all the episodes of this brilliant soap on YouTube and am watching them back to back.... It really is so addictive... The bad acting... The unbelievable plots and... Oh yes... Of course... The gorgeous Gregory Richards!

 

[Alexis]

I somehow... Managed to stop my watch of this, in the middle of the Earthquake storyline! I have been getting my DVDs out of storage and have located both Sunset Beach and Dark Shadows again!
They are still on hold as I am deeply intrenched in vintage The Bold and The Beautiful.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Your break from the show lasted roughly the same period of time as the earthquake played out onscreen, so you're actually right on schedule.