Sunset Beach

[ReneBumsWombats]

Come and reminisce on the land of the mundane, where every plot happens daily in real life and couldn't be more plausible. From the guy who spent years tied to a chair behind a two-way mirror watching his evil twin seduce his wife who never noticed a thing until they shagged, while down the road a bitter ex broke into a hospital to tamper with skin samples to make her love rival believe she had a disfiguring illness. Where plots take three weeks to advance five minutes in story time and the blonde woman with the stolen baby got replaced by a completely different actress halfway through, but the whole narrative was so disjointed anyway that nobody even noticed. And more!

You know you loved it. Come and let's talk!

But am I dreaming or was there a ridiculous story of them building some monument and a dead body being hidden in it. But when they broke the bottle of champagne over it the bottle didn't break but the monument did revealing the hidden body!!

Ooh, I don't remember that super well but I think it was Tim, after he was murdered by Derek?

Admit it, @JemimaPuddlegoose , you were one of the scriptwriters, weren't you? You evil genius.
Ha, I wish! That would be my greatest dream.

I stopped watching it around the time a character got blisters, was it monkeypox?
What a time to be alive, they should definitely bring it back.

Omg I
Loved it

Remember it week, everyone at college watched it- we should campaign for reruns

Be and Cole ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Meg's original hair. The set shaking sometimes. The talking dog. Vanessa and and the crazy cereal illness! Pure escapism

I loved it. Should we all chip in to buy the rights to it?????

I forgot about that it was like a prehistoric fan blog

@JemimaPuddlegoose where can we get it on You Tube!?!?!?

I remember pretending to be sick to get the day off Uni to watch the final episode live

Sorry @JemimaPuddlegoose just realised your posted the link above.

It really was an awesome show! I remember wondering why people watched Eastenders instead of SB

The bikini made out of spray cream!

Loved that show.

Cole
And also the priest and the forbidden love?

I have found my people! I loved Sunset Beach!Perhaps controversially I absolutely hated Meg (I was on the channel 5 forum back in the day that nicknamed her Smeg), never understood why such an insipid character was supposedly the heroine of the story. I always wanted Ben & the "return from the dead" Maria to get back together.
But, so many beautiful ridiculous plot-lines.. Ben's evil twin, the turkey-baster, the possessed jewels, the earthquake, the baby swapping, the whole "denouement" at the end.
My favourite moments though were when they replaced an actor & literally announced it " the part of
Xxx is now being portrayed by Xxxx".
I was never quite sure whether the whole thing was meant to be a soap opera masquerading as a parody of a soap opera all along, but it was a wonderful thing

@GuiltyPleasure I'm another Meg hater. So bland, irritating and simpering. Everything about her was annoying.

I was just so confused by the ending. It was all a dream and Meg woke up in Kansas on the eve of her wedding to Tim. Then it wasn't a dream and that had been a dream and she was happily married to Ben.

The utter confusion probably sums up Sunset Beach right there

Another Meg hater here.
Poor Maria, wasn't she tied to a bed for 5 years and so traumatised she didn't know if she had given birth or not?

I used to love this so much. The story lines!!

Wasn't there one where they were all on cruise ship and it started to sink like the titanic? Was aired around the same time titanic was in cinemas

You really do have to have some huge balls/ovaries to come up with those plots and actually carry them out and broadcast them. And somehow it worked!

I liked when the actress who played Meg decided she wanted to segue into movies so came back from a break with massive fake tits, then her character was randomly played by someone else for a few weeks so she could go film a movie (I was involved in Sunset Beach online fandom at the time and there was just the biggest controversy because she did nude scenes and posed nude for men's magazines, because Meg was the virginal 'good girl' character).

It would be awesome if you could do that in normal jobs, just get someone to show up at your office and say "so and so is going to be Jemima for the next few weeks while she's on hols."

I didn't know that about the actress who played Meg. I'm certain I would have looked in the Geocities group at some point. I think 🤔

Would be interested to hear what the cast are doing now.

After I discovered that SB was on YouTube I went down a bit of a nostalgia wormhole, and now I follow a bunch of the actors on Insta. A bunch of them are still friends (Gabi, Maria, Francesca, Ricardo, Antonio, and some more) and it's adorable. I guess most of them do the occasional TV guest spot or indie film and then do other stuff like fitness or maybe writing or producing. I saw the actor who played Casey (the blond lifeguard) on an episode of Law and Order, with a shaved head and looking very dignified and mature.

The actors who played Ben and Meg (my personal faves) both had not great things happen and quit acting. The actress who played Meg survived some personal tragedy where she lost both her parents in an especially traumatic way, and dropped out of sight entirely. But she married a guy whose dad owns a movie studio - I remember their relationship starting with kind of a scandal but they're still married decades later and I think had a child, so she's probably set for life. The British actor who played Ben and Derek took a year off acting after the show ended to travel, his wife got pregnant with twins, he couldn't find work and ended up having to move to Canada to shoot some schlocky sci-fi show, and his marriage ended amongst rumours of infidelity, and I think roles dried up. I remember when the press was calling him a future James Bond!

Literally why do I know all this I could have become a world expert on particle physics or archaeology with the brain cells all this stuff is lodged in.

It really is a horrible industry, isn't it? Even the brightest stars, however much they may love the work itself, haven't got anything good to say about the industry. You can be incredibly beautiful and have a main role in a very successful, albeit loony, TV programme, and it doesn't mean a thing.

🎶 I am the entertainer, and I know just where I stand... 🎶

All I remember about it was fancying the priest 😆
impressed you all remember actual plots (sort of remember the Meg evil twin bit!).

@JemimaPuddlegoose That's a shame about the guy who played Ben...funny he ended up with twins himself though. You can imagine people asking him if one was more Ben or Derek!

I think it's really hard for actors who do these types of shows to come out and be taken seriously. I know some do but most just seem to become supporting characters on other similar shows or at best another main role on a soap. There's exceptions I'm sure but not many. Must be hard of you're offered a role to turn it down if you need the money at that point even if you know it could pigeon hole you.

JemimaPuddlegoose I think I may have been a frequent visitor to your Geocities fansite. 😁

My personal favourite was Annie - I was really rooting for her to find some sort of success. I was gutted that the show ended just as she and Jude were sorting things out. Also agree that Meg was too boring to be interesting - Ben and Maria reuniting would have been far more interesting.

Absolutely loved SB. It was mad wasn't it!!

I'm so impressed how people can recall the plots (and in such detail). My only detailed recollection was the turkey baster - but reading this thread has reminded me of the others.

I actually worked overseas for a full year, rudely interrupting my viewing, and when I came back I could easily pick up the plots due to how slowly they progressed 🤣

Does anyone remember the London episodes? I think they involved Cole and Uncle Tobias. There were red phone boxes, bobbies on the beat and fog everywhere!