I have started watching Sunset Beach and it is quite enjoyable, but the starting is SOOOOO long! I mean, is it really necessary to have all these people's pictures and names at the start. Some of the people just have one-line and that's it, or don't even feature at all.

It's a bit silly. I like having people's names at the start of shows, but only in the likes of Dallas and Knots Landing where it is only the principle charcacters, and the length of the intro is realistic with a really good theme tune - so it is enjoyable to watch.

It's also not a very exciting intro either, a bit boring actually and I feel it lets the show down a bit.

However, when it was on Channel 5 the last time round, I seem to remember a starting that didn't have names but just pictures of people, like a girl getting pushed on a swing by an old man and stuff I think - again really cheesy I seem to recall! lol!

I love the opening
Most US Soap openings show the characters and last quite a bit. This current SB opening doesn't last long though. It changes to the one you remember (without the swing etc as that was updated later on) with all the colours and the cast and new music before we get to the end of the first year.

If you watched the first episode, the opening was the American version, with no names to the pics and was quite fast.
Look: http://www.wost.org/sb97ov.ram
We are treated to the European opening with the actors' names (the second theme in Europe is also much longer) and so have more time to appreciate the beautiful faces and actors who bring these roles to life
The opening is changed in a few months to the more memorable theme with the beautiful colourful openings.

they changed the intro, in the 1998/99 season, i think......

Il ike the first theme better than the second

I don't think that the opening at the moment is particularly long. The second opening sequence is a lot longer in my opinion.

Eventually the second opening will split up in two, I think.

Yea but that only happens a few months before SB ends.

No they changed it in August 1997.

Really? So does that mean that characters like Rae, Elaine, Paula and Tiffany appeared in the second version of the opening credits?

Paula and Elaine did. Watch:

http://www.drewmurphy.com/promos/sb/opening-03.rm

By the time August 1997 had rolled around, Rae had already left the show (in July), and they had recast Tiffany in order to wrap up her storyline. The second actress to play Tiffany left in September I think, so they didn't appear in the opening.

They recast Tiffany?? Who was the second actress to play her?

Oh yeah, thanks so much for that! That opening sequence definitely rings a bell! Mark looks so different in it!

Thanks for that! I didn't realise that Rae and Tiffany left so soon into the series.

Jennifer Banko Stewart.

Yeah, TPTB thought that the original actress Adrienne Frantz was so horrible that they got rid of her in May 1997.

But don't feel sorry for her though, because less than two months later she got a job on B&B and has been there for seven years now.

Omg did TPTB really think that? I thought Adrienne was quite good as Tiffany - definitely not terrible. I always thought that Adrienne quit as she was offered the role of Amber in TB&TB.

Well i'm not sure the TPTB thought that she was truly terrible (I might have exaggerated) but Adrienne's performance was panned by critics and the audience and eventually TPTB let her go and replaced her with another actress in order to wrap up the storyline. This does suggest that the producers of Sunset Beach thought that Adrienne was terrible, because the second actress was never intended to be a permanent replacement and the TPTB only used her to wrap up the storyline, so it seems that they wanted to get rid of her quite quickly (otherwise they would have just used Adrienne in the role until Tiffany was written out).

Bradley Bell (Producer of B&B) has repeatedly been quoted as saying that he saw Adrienne's performance on Sunset Beach and that he knew that while she was quite "raw" as an actress, he thought that she had potential, so after Adrienne was let go from SB, he offered her the minor role of Amber (And it was very minor...all Amber did at first was babysit). Once Adrienne was on B&B, Bradley Bell let her develop as an actress for a year or so before throwing B&B's biggest and most controversial storyline in years at her which was of course the storyline of Amber's teenage pregnancy - (which had the extra complication of Amber not knowing whether the father was Raymond or Rick - which was controversial at the time because Raymond was black and even in 1998, American audiences were still not very accepting of Interracial romances), followed by the death of the baby, then the passing off of her cousin's baby as her own and since Adrienne had had the time to develop her craft, she was able to pull the storyline off.

How long was Sarah Buxton in B&B for?

She was in it for just over a year...from April 2000 - May 2001 I think

While her character, Morgan got off to a good start, they quickly wrote Morgan into a psychotic corner (Morgan stealing one of Ridge and Taylor's twins and then locking Taylor in her basement etc) so in the end they wrote her out.

I thought Adrienne Frantz's performance as Amber during the death of her child was simply superb! I remmber that episode very well at it is a very emotional one, and then where she is burying her baby as well.

many people complained that Morgan was a wannabe Sheila, which is true as she was written as a hammy kind of one note villain towards the end. However, I think there was a lot of potential there had they not gone the easy route, making Morgan psycho.
Her emotional torment was apparently because Stephanie had forced her to abort Ridge's child when she was 16.
Morgan actually teamed up with Dr Tim Reid, a character from Y&R (who had been in a duo with another devilish redhead on that soap, Phyllis) to gaslight the Forresters, she made it look like Ridge & Taylor's daughter had been killed, she had kidnapped the child with gormless Tim as her aide, and dressed her up in a red wig.
Then she kidnapped Taylor herself and was about to shoot her when Ridge saved the day, crashing his car into Morgan's living room.
Morgan exacted revenge by dressing up as a clown and stalking Stephanie after the Forrester pool BBQ, where they had a big confrontation (this was not the first time Steph had gone one on one with a psycho she had wronged, previously in 1997, Sheila had shot her before making her getaway). Stephanie managed to say the wrong thing AGAIN, and her and Morgan struggled.
Morgan tried to drown Stephanie but Eric saved the day and Morgs was last seen being dragged off by cops saying "All I wanted was for Ridge to love me!!". What a waste of a character

However, B&B got wise and got back the amazing Kimberlin brown to reprise her signature role as Sheila.
The story was a young lady called Erica befriended the Forresters and mentioned a mother she was trying to get away from. One episode, a dark and stormy night, Erica heard noises and got a torch. We hear a voice saying "You thought you were rid of me. Think again!" Erica shone it at the door and we saw the psycho face of Sheila staring back at her!!!

http://web.newsguy.com/sdn001/images...icamom0524.jpg

Therefore it transpires, Erica is really Sheila's daughter, Mary Warwick. This was all kept top secret by TPTB, and was a brilliant twist!!!

Yes, it was a brilliant twist! Even if Erica had to undergo more SORASing (Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome) than most US soap kids go through (Erica/Mary was born in 1997, but by 2002 she was 17 LOL...thats 12 years added onto her age...most US soap kids get only about 5 - 8 years added to their real ages.

And Back to the original topic (Well not really, but at least to do with Adrienne Frantz), yes Safra, most of Adrienne Frantz's performance on B&B has been superb, it just shows what happens when you allow an inexperienced actor some time to settle into a role before giving them a major storyline like that. I wish TPTB at all the other soaps would learn from this. (To be fair to Sunset Beach though, it was a new soap and they had to have all their characters thrust into major storylines from the get go, wheras B&B as an already established soap had more flexibility as their storylines were established and as such allowed for people to lurk around in the background).

Is B&B still on TV in the UK?