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Sunset Beach
The second title sequence of Sunset Beach
Genre	Soap opera
Created by	Josh Griffith, Robert Guza Jr. & Charles Pratt Jr.
Starring	see here
Opening theme	by Tim Truman
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	755 episodes
Production
Executive producer(s)	Gary Tomlin
Running time	60 minutes (with commercials) 45 minutes (without commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	January 6, 1997 – December 31, 1999
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Sunset Beach was an American short-running soap opera that aired on NBC from January 6, 1997 to December 31, 1999. It was co-produced by NBC and Aaron Spelling Productions, and co-created by Robert Guza Jr., Charles Pratt Jr. and Josh Griffith. It aired in over 70 countries around the world, and was especially popular in Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Norway, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Israel, Germany, Poland, Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Russia, Romania, Slovenia, Venezuela and Bulgaria.

In the very first episode, the legend of Sunset Beach ^[1] is introduced, and symbolizes the very first Sunset Beach supercouple, Meg and Ben:

“

When the moon rises early, just as the Santa Ana winds kicks up out of nowhere, and the sun is just dropping out of sight, whoever you meet at the far side of the pier, is who you're destined to be with.

”

Contents 1 Cast, characters and crew 2 Storylines 2.1 Outrageous storylines 2.2 Supernatural & Murder storylines 2.3 Cancellation 2.4 Episodes 3 References, Casting, Ratings and More 3.1 Satire and pop culture references 3.2 Stunt casting guest appearances 3.3 Ratings history 3.4 Miscellaneous 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Main article: List of Sunset Beach cast and characters

Main article: List of Sunset Beach minor characters

Main article: List of Sunset Beach crew members

Storylines in its nearly three year run ranged from the traditional to the supernatural. One of the first storylines concerned an Internet romance. Kansas farm girl Meg Cummings discovered her fiancé, Tim Truman, cheating on her on their wedding day. Meg had been talking online with SB, a man who lived in Sunset Beach, California, and after catching Tim with her maid of honor, Meg fled to Sunset Beach in search of SB, who turned out to be wealthy, widowed businessman Ben Evans. The first year of the show revolved around Meg's pursuit of Ben (including her briefly breaking into his house, stealing a journal she found there and dressing up in his late wife's clothes), who was initially not interested in her, and the gradual development of a romance between them. A side plot showed the antagonistic relationship between Meg and Annie Douglas, Ben's longtime best friend. Meg hated Annie for being close to Ben and wanted to cut her out of his life; Annie hated Meg out of jealousy for her developing romance with Ben. Their problems reached a head with a physical fight in a hot tub. Meg's ex-fiancé Tim Truman followed her to Sunset Beach to win her back, and ended up becoming Annie's ally and almost love interest. Once Meg and Annie had overcome their differences, Meg soon had a new problem when she began to suspect Ben was a murderer, although this plot line was developed to lead up to the Terror Island storyline, and contained some continuity errors. After the Terror Island/Derek storyline (see below) none of the things raised were ever mentioned again.

Meg and Ben became one of the show's first couples, along with reformed jewel thief Cole Deschanel and local heiress Caitlin Richards. Cole slept with and impregnated both Caitlin and Caitlin's unhappily married, alcoholic mother Olivia. Olivia and her fiendish husband, Gregory, planned to steal Caitlin's baby and pass it off as Olivia's (telling Caitlin her baby had died), in order to break up Caitlin's relationship with Cole, who her parents disapproved of because of his criminal past. Caitlin lost the child in a car accident when she found out about her parents' horrible plan, and planned to fake the rest of her pregnancy and adopt a baby to pass off as her own, as she was worried her inability to have children (caused by the accident) would cause problems in her marriage to Cole. She enlisted Annie Douglas -- secretly trying to break up Olivia and Gregory, due to a term in her father's will stating she would only get her inheritance if she wed Gregory (her father's way of breaking up his marriage to Olivia, who he had been having an affair with). Annie drugged Olivia and stole her baby, telling her the baby had been stillborn. Caitlin unknowingly raised her baby half-brother (who was also her stepson, having been fathered by her husband), until a grief-stricken Olivia discovered the truth. Olivia was eventually reunited with her son.

When the show began it was the only soap on the air featuring Asian American characters, though they were written off before the end of the first year. The show also had daytime television's only African American villainess, Virginia Harrison, who plotted and schemed to break up lifeguard Michael Bourne and reporter Vanessa Hart so she could have Michael for herself.

In one of the most outrageous storylines on the show, Virginia drugged Vanessa and, using a turkey baster and some stolen sperm, impregnated her with the child of Dr. Tyus Robinson, to make it appear Vanessa had been unfaithful to Michael, who was sterile.

The show was known for other outrageous storylines, such Terror Island^[2] in which several of the show's main characters were stranded on an island with a masked serial killer intent on killing them, especially Meg. A handful of characters were killed by the maniac, mostly minor characters introduced as serial killer-fodder, but also one lead character, young runaway made good Mark Wolper. In his dying moments Mark pulled off the killer's mask and audiences were stunned to see Ben's face behind it. As it turned out, Ben had an evil twin, Derek, who plagued Ben and Meg's lives off and on for the rest of the run of the show. Derek was killed after being shot in a struggle with Ben during the show's final weeks, following a long storyline where Derek kidnapped and impersonated his twin for months, sleeping with Ben's wife Maria (having previously also slept with Meg).

Maria Torres-Evans, who had wed Ben when she was still a teenager and he was barely in his twenties, had disappeared and been presumed drowned after a boating accident that took place some years prior to the start of the show. Ben was haunted by the terrible secret that he had caught her in bed with Derek (it was later revealed that Derek -- who had impersonated Ben to Maria, who was unaware Ben had a twin -- had not slept with Maria, as she had stabbed him with scissors when he tried to rape her). Ben's guilt and grief over Maria caused a shadow over his relationship with Meg from the beginning, which worsened when an amnesiac Maria came back from the dead at Ben and Meg's October 1998 wedding. Ben and Maria grew closer while he helped her to regain her memory, and once she did, Ben flip flopped between the two women for much of the rest of the show's run. During the show's last year a strange woman, Tess, turned up on his doorstep with a son she claimed was Ben and Maria's. After a positive paternity test they raised the child, Benjy, together, causing even more problems for Meg, who left Ben and briefly started dating her sister's boyfriend, Casey. Derek (who was also wrongfully presumed dead) returned to kidnap Ben again, and it was revealed he and Tess were Benjy's parents.

Another outrageous storyline was the earthquake/tsunami^[3] story, in which Sunset Beach was struck by a massive earthquake, trapping many characters - most of them each other's rival - together in life and death situations. While half the cast battled the disaster on land, the rest of the cast was on a pleasure cruise aboard a ship that was overturned - a la The Poseidon Adventure - by a tsunami created by the earthquake. This storyline was nearly a carbon copy of The Poseidon Adventure.

The tsunami storyline proved so popular that two weeks' worth of episodes were compiled and turned into an hour-long show that was included on NBC's lineup for one night in August 1998.

The show took a supernatural turn for a while with some cursed jewels, stolen from a religious icon, that turned those who'd touched them into shriveled mummies. The story culminated on Christmas Eve with the return of the jewels to the Madonna just in time to prevent the deaths of several key characters.

The show also featured two murder mysteries in its run, the murder of Annie's father Del Douglas (by Cole's mother, Elaine Stevens - Del had kidnapped Cole as a baby and convinced Elaine the child was dead), and the murder of seductress Francesca Vargas, who just about everyone in town wanted dead. The surprise twist in the Who Shot Francesca storyline was that it was main character Gregory Richards.

The show was canceled just before the third anniversary of its original air date. Most of the main characters were given happy endings.^[4] Ben and Meg and Michael and Vanessa married in a double wedding. Casey and Sara got engaged, Cole and Caitlin were happy in their marriage, and Olivia was happily raising her children alone. Maria gave Ben a divorce so he could marry Meg and met a new man, Ross English. Maria also adopted Benjy, the little boy she had regarded as her own, and she and Ben planned to raise him together. The 'baddies' all got their just deserts. Derek was accidentally shot and killed by Ben, his accomplice Tess went to jail, as did Gregory Richards. Tim Truman, who though not a villain spent most of the three years causing problems for Ben and Meg, was murdered by Derek. Virginia remained languishing in a mental hospital, while reformed bad girl Annie also got a happy ending, finding love with relatively new character Jude.

In a twist ending, Meg appeared to wake up in Kansas and realize that the entire three years in Sunset Beach had been a dream - and the characters from the show were actually her friends and family in Kansas (an obvious reference to The Wizard of Oz). However, at the last minute, Meg woke up in Sunset Beach and was in bed with Ben, the day after their wedding. Probably this was poking fun at how many writers use the sloppy ending of, "It was all a dream" to bring a story to a close, as was done in stories such as Alice in Wonderland.

• First season (January 6, 1997 - January 5, 1998) contained 247 episodes and 5 specials (July 28, 1997 - August 1, 1997). ^[5]
• Second season (January 6, 1998 - January 5, 1999) contained 255 episodes. ^[6]
• Third season (January 6, 1999 - December 31, 1999) contained 253 episodes. ^[7]

Sunset Beach remains highly popular in many countries years after its cancellation. It frequently referenced other television shows: many episodes featured characters fantasizing about their lives and dreams in sequences that show the cast dressed as Charlie's Angels or performing the opening from Friends.

Fantasies involving the character Annie Douglas-Richards^[8] included take offs of The Leeza Gibbons Show, The Jerry Springer Show (titled "Murderer of the Day"), guest starring the talk show hosts. Annie fantasized about being a superhero, had a play of the movie The Wizard of Oz, a play on Wheel of Fortune, she even had her own imaginary soap opera titled The Search for Dignity. Plus, the character of Annie was usually the one to deliver funny quotes.^[9]

What made Sunset Beach truly innovative was its satirizing of itself and the soap opera genre. Advice was sometimes given to characters by the show's dog and on one occasion, by God himself. One of the show's lighthearted traits would be to incorporate pop-up trivia occasionally, taking a cue from the VH1 show. A few of the characters were also known for breaking the fourth wall, most notably Bette Katzenkazrahi (Kathleen Noone) and Vanessa Hart (Sherri Saum) who were involved in a one-day special episode where they both had a dream of resolving the complicated storylines of Sunset Beach.

The show went in for stunt casting guest appearances - Jerry Springer played talk show host Jerry Feller, Marla Maples played socialite Barbara Birch, Judge Wapner played himself - and featured a ripped from the headline story about a Washington intern, Meg's sister Sara Cummings (Shawn Batten), who'd had an affair with a married politician. Her affair was exposed by her supposed friend - Melinda Fall (Elizabeth Alley), a take off on Linda Tripp. Sara went on to develop a relationship with local lifeguard Casey Mitchum, and their relationship and her sibling rivalry with her sister (who at one point started an affair with Casey) made up the bulk of Sara's storylines, although she was also famous for her TV show-inspired fantasy sequences, which included spoofs of the opening titles for Friends and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Other notable guest appearances include Finola Hughes as Cole's ex-fiancé Helena, Christopher Darden as Les Gordon, John O'Hurley as the Host of Wheel of Misfortune, Kim Alexis as a Hotel Maid, Jack Wagner as a thief Jacques Dumont and Barbara Mandrell as Casey's ill mother Alex Mitchum.

Through its short existence, Sunset Beach remained in the daytime ratings basement. However, during the "Shockwave" storyline of 1998 it received its best ratings and showed signs that it might move off the bottom. However, this proved to be a brief spike and was not sustained. ^[10]

• Tim Truman (Dax Griffin) was named for the show's musical director, Tim Truman.^[11]
• One of Bette Katzenkazrahi's (Kathleen Noone) seven ex-husbands was a man named Vincent Duke (named after the show producer), and portrayed by Aaron Spelling.^[12]
• The soap opera was named after the small beach community located at the northwest corner of Huntington Beach, California just south of Seal Beach, California and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.
• Olivia Blake (Lesley-Anne Down) was originally going to be named Sheila^[13], but this was changed prior to the premiere when the actress herself explained that the word is a derogatory Australian slang term for a woman. Also, character's maiden name was going to be Olivia Harrow^[14], but that was later changed to Olivia Blake.
• The role of Meg Cummings (Susan Ward) was originally named Susan^[15], but when Susan Ward got the role, they changed the name back to Meg. Also, the role was offered to Kristin Davis^[16], who rejected it.
• Vanessa Dorman's character was originally named Kayla^[17], but was later changed to Caitlin.

• Sunset Beach: for other articles on other Sunset Beach topics

• Sunset Beach at the Internet Movie Database
• Sunset Beach (TV series) at TV.com