Talk:Eldorado (TV series)

Pilar
who played Pilar? Remember the horse riding scene well...
 * According to the IMDb, it was Sandra Sandri. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0762260/ Angmering 13:58, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

More refs needed
This article is festooned with unsourced statements. No citations given to the multitude of sentences that need at least one, or many, citations. The "problems and criticism" section is particularly woeful. VonBlade 00:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add references. The JPS talk to me  00:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I am abysmal at editing things (truly), and know nothing about this program other than I appeared at it via another page. But it was so badly written, and without hide nor hair of a citation, I hoped someone better equipped than I might mark it as needing a cleanup or needing sources. VonBlade 00:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with Eldorado set
Can someone find references to the controversy over the set. I gather that it was specially built, at huge expense, with the added problem that it had not been properly plumbed into the water mains etc, so that when the series finished, it couldn't be sold as a development. --MacRusgail 14:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Cancellation
I am concerned about this bit: "It is widely thought that the failure of Eldorado is the reason why the BBC has not attempted to launch a brand new soap from scratch since; the corporation opting instead to move established series Casualty and Holby City to year-round production" - because Eldorado was cancelled in 1993, and Holby City didn't launch until 1999 - so, presumably, they DID launch a new soap then?
 * Holby City was not marketed as a soap. It began life as a drama, and adopted the more soapish elements. The JPS talk to me  15:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Unsuccessful?
"At the end of its run, the show was typically receiving 9-10 million viewers."

BBC top brass would kill for such high viewing figures today. Not bad for a supposedly "unsuccessful" soap! Meanwhile, "Two pints of lager and... oooh, look at these huge breasts!" gets approximately 900 viewers on BBC Three. 217.155.20.163 (talk) 00:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It was a different era though. Overall viewing figures for series have generally declined over the decades, due to a growing number of channels, other activities and also changing compilation methods. Chart positions are often considered more important than raw numbers. And comparing a prime time soap on the BBC's flagship analogue channel with the umpteenth repeat of a show on a minority interest digital only channel is hardly like for like. Timrollpickering (talk) 14:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly - when the BBC didn't have dozens of digital and satellite channels (satellite was a luxury in those days) and the internet to compete with, Eldorado's viewing figures were woeful. The 9 - 10 million (which I'm dubious about; reports at the time said 8m) came towards the end, at a time when the show was recovering, albeit too late - and that was still around 7m behind the cheaper to make EastEnders. Smurfmeister (talk) 11:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Eldorado.jpg
Image:Eldorado.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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Inexperienced actors
The article mentions that many of the cast members were inexperienced. Looking at the clips on Youtube I have no doubt that this is true. Why was it so? Was it a deliberate attempt to make the series seem more true-to-life; was it an attempt to build up a new generation of stars; or had the money run out when they came to hire the actors? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * God knows - I just remember so much of the programme as being amateurish. It really was a missed opportunity to make something really exportable, with sun, sea, and sand and with exotic, photogenic, locations, and with a less depressing outlook than other UK 'soaps'. The fact that so much money was spent on it and they still managed to make crap illustrates some of the sort of people who had drifted into BBC Television and who were being listened-to by BBC Controllers back then.


 * The sort of output the BBC and the other TV companies produce nowadays is one of the reasons I no longer have a television set - why pay whatever-it-is-a-year for the Licence Fee when all that's made nowadays is similar amateurish shite. What's changed is that prior to say the early 1990s ALL UK TV was made to similar reasonably high standards, both technical and in content, so that even programmes on subjects that didn't interest me were at least watchable. Nowadays the technical standard is so low that even programmes on subjects that DO interest me are almost laughable, in poorly-lit indoor scenes, inaudible dialogue, period dialogue that contains inappropriate slang, e.g., later Poirot productions using contemporary figures of speech when they are set in the 1950s, and using younger actors who have no feel for the period being portrayed. (the earlier Poirot episodes however, were among some of the best TV ever made) and in intrusive directing, that distracts the viewer from the scene just because the new Director is trying to get him/herself noticed. The current TV programming is abysmal compared to what it was a few years ago, and I suppose that in Eldorado we were just being given a foretaste of what was to come, in that a lot of really talentless people were involved in its production.


 * As regards some of the actors in Eldorado the less experienced ones were really badly served by whoever was managing them, they really shouldn't have been thrown in at the deep end like that, and it may well have discouraged some of them from continuing with an acting career when all that they may have needed was some sympathetic guidance, something that almost certainly wasn't going to be possible in the shooting schedule of a soap. The only good thing that came out of Eldorardo was that Jesse Birdsall managed to live down the series' poor reputation and continue his career as a fine actor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.70.155 (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Conceived by?
Eldorado was conceived by EastEnders creators Julia Smith and Tony Holland - not true. It was conceived by a rather well-known creator (whose name unfortunately I cannot remember ATM), however his idea of the programme was for it to be a glamorous programme rather like Dallas or Dynasty, in that it was set around a cast of wealthy British ex-pats who lived in the sun, and was set aboard yachts, etc, as well as the village that was eventually built for the programme. The BBC 'creators' mentioned however thought it was too upmarket and proceeded to downgrade the idea into what Eldorado was eventually to become. The disgusted writer distanced himself from the series as he saw what was happening to his brainchild and the two BBC 'creators' mentioned took over. I remember this from a subsequent documentary about the failure of the programme in which the original creator was interviewed sometime around 1993-4. It may have been Tony Warren but I'm not sure, it was definitely someone with a good record in programme ideas. With the sad destruction of his original idea I'm not surprised he disowned the programme, it was dire. Not the cast's fault, but many of the newcomers appeared out of their depth, and much of the storyline was banal and uninteresting, a common problem with UK soaps. The whole series is a fine example of how the BBC had started to lose the plot in the early 1990s and which paved the way for the arrival of John Birt. Funny thing is that if the creator's original idea had been followed Eldorado might well have been a global success, but unfortunately the BBC gave it to their 'soap' department rather than to BBC Drama. UK soaps are best described as being like Till Death Us Do Part or Bread without the redeeming feature of the comedy.

BTW, the comment about the custom-built village not being able to be sold because it had no plumbing is true. No-one thought to have any toilets or water pipes installed when it was being built, an illustration of the sort of people involved in planning in the BBC back then - only the BBC could spend so much money on a programme and come up with something so widely regarded as amateurish crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.70.155 (talk) 18:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * There's a 2002 documentary about the series on YouTube entitled Eldorado - the Rise & Fall here: for anyone who wants to see what the programme was like.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 12:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)