Eldorado (1992–1993) User Reviews

The BBC's Quest For Fools Gold

[wilsonstuart-32346 · 4/10 · 11 October 2019]

I was never a fan of Eldorado but I can remember the blaze of publicity and hype that greeted the Beeb's flagship soap opera - Sean Connery, apparently, at one point, provided the voiceover (this was untrue).

Although it had a better hook than ITV's miserable 'Albion Market', Eldorado was beset by a legion of problems - technical, legal, logistical, administrative and financial - that overwhelmed an overstretched and vaguely defined production. Crucially, it had no central character - no Bet, Den, Charlene or even a Mandy for the viewer to root for.

The BBC were probably right to bring the axe down on an expensive, woodenly acted, muddled white elephant but as Britain totters towards a new phase in our fraught relationship with Europe it makes you wonder what storylines we would be watching today if Eldorado had managed to thrive and survive.

Not as bad as you might think!

[chuffnobbler · 10 August 2002]

With the terrible reviews and screaming front-page headlines it got at the time Eldorado didn't stand a chance. The series was launched in too much of a hurry with too great a fanfare, leading to very high hopes for its fairly poor first episodes. After a little while, with a few of the huge cast removed and a more definite sense of direction, Eldorado became the best soap on British TV. But the damage was done, and it never really gained the place in public affections that it needed. The Beeb pulled the plug after a year.

Eldorado, by the time it finished, was absolutely unique. It had found its place in the world, and knew its direction. It was expending a lot of energy exploring the nature of people who leave their motherland and o to live in the sun. So much was revealed about the true nature of ex-pats, and some characters who seemed a bit faceless at the beginning were revealed as far more complex once they were given a bit of screen time to themselves. In Freddie Martin, Eldorado gave us one of TV's greatest gay characters: his reunion with his longlost daughter, Natalie, and his silent grief at the death of his secret boyfriend, Javier, were immaculately written and performed.

Eldorado was able to give great depth and involvement to the idea of culture clash, and to highlight what life in the "new" Europe was really like (boo-hiss baddie Marcus Tandy calls German Dieter "Adolf" at one point). There were characters and relationships never seen on TV, before or since (the Leducs' open marriage, modern Spanish women breaking away from traditional Catholic families, gay parents), and plenty of imagination given to thoroughly original storylines.

After the dodgy beginning, Eldorado became the most unique TV show that the BBC had ever tried. Ten years on, I still think it's a shame they didn't have the confidence to carry it through. Mind you, the last episode was a corker.

How the B.B.C. caught a cold in the Spanish sunshine!

[Robsnide · 1/10 · 5 September 2010]

Was 'Eldorado' ever intended to be taken seriously, or was it just an elaborate stunt by the B.B.C. to get rid of Terry Wogan's thrice-weekly ego trip cum chat show? At one point the hype was so great it threatened to overshadow that of 'Star Wars'! Trailers interfaced every B.B.C. programme for what felt like months before its debut. The cast hogged Breakfast Time to brag about how great it was going to be. Even children's presenter Andi Peters plugged the new soap from the safety of his 'broom cupboard'. As a result viewers tired of the thing before they actually saw it. Created and produced by the 'Eastenders' ( itself not very good ) team of Julia Smith and Tony Holland, the Spanish soap cost licence-payers' a king's ransom with the building on location of a replica Spanish town.

The characters were stereotypes with absurd names like 'Bunny' and 'Fizz' ( speaking of which, whatever happened to Kathy Pitkin? She was heavily hyped as the new Catherine Zeta Jones but nothing became of her. Possibly stacking shelves in Asda somewhere ). The plots were the usual soap drivel about lust and adultery. The dialogue was risible. Roland Curram played a moustached gay character ( surprise, surprise! ), while Jesse Birdsall was a sub-'Dirty Den' figure. Comedy actress Patricia Brake was wasted. Polly Perkins was 'Trish' the Barbara Windsor-like barmaid.

After a respectable rating of seven million for the first episode, interest tapered off alarmingly ( 'Panorama' actually overtook it one Monday night! ), critics were hostile, and the tabloid press tore it to shreds the way it recently did with poor Gordon Brown's Government. 'El-Bore-Ado' and 'Helldorado' were nick-names the show could have done without. Yet B.B.C.-1 Controller Jonathan Powell refused to scrap it, arguing that the longer it was on air, the more chance it had of attracting an audience. 'Spitting Image' mocked his decision in a sketch in which a photograph of a turd was put on air, and Powell told the Board of B.B.C. Governors it would remain there until it eventually became a hit.

When it became apparent 'Eldorado' was attracting no-one, Powell resigned and incoming B.B.C.-1 controller Alan Yentob read it the last rites - rightly so. Amazingly a few misguided souls protested as the plug was pulled ( is the Eldorado Appreciation Society Espana - T.E.A.S.E. - still in existence? ). On the night the last episode went out, a bus-load of angry fans stormed the B.B.C. Television Centre, shouting abuse at Yentob, while over in Spain, a cast member with a poor command of English blubbed on camera: "Mr.Yentob...you are a bad man and you have done a very terrible thing!". Actually, his decision to kill off 'Eldorado' was eminently sensible. Refusing to admit they'd failed, the B.B.C. issued episodes on a video-tape called 'Adios Eldorado' which became a surprise best seller! The sad thing about the debacle was it was one of the last series from the great Verity Lambert, and cast a pall over her otherwise glittering career.

What television would give for a soap of this quality now ...

[parry_na · 9/10 · 26 December 2020]

Are you ready for 'Eldorado'? That's what the Great British Public was asked in a flurry of publicity and promotion, way back in the early 1990s. Flushed with the huge success of 'EastEnders', the BBC and Julia Smith set up a thrice-weekly soap opera set in Spain, full of Brits abroad, sun, sea and Sandra Sandri (who played instant favourite Pilar).

When it arrived, 'Eldorado' wasn't very good. Some of the acting was wooden, some of the foreign actors were speaking in their own native tongue, and the revelation of middle-aged Bunny's new child-bride as the first episode's 'hook' was bizarre more than anything else. ITV, with their usual breath-taking originality and imagination, had their own soap 'Coronation Street' (itself having been regularly battered by the newer, cooler 'EastEnders') enjoy a double-length episode overlapping 'Eldorado' in a bid to 'strangle it at birth'. Ratings sank, Smith suffered a breakdown and was replaced, and inexperienced cast members were lynched by the press: smelling a failure, the UK media moved in for the kill.

It is fair to say those early episodes were nowhere near as bad as we have been lead to believe. Watch them on YouTube. They're not that bad - but they're not very good either.

Corinne Hollingworth moved in, axed a few characters, brought in some more well-defined new ones, encouraged more picturesque location filming, beefed up the storylines, and pretty quickly, 'Eldorado' became unmissable. What the BBC and ITV would do for a soap of this quality and originality now. People began talking, not of the show's problems, but of interesting storylines involving Joy, Blair, Freddie, Drew, Javier, Bunny, Ingrid and of course, Pilar and villainous Marcus Tandy.

Ratings improved, critical appraisal grudgingly recognised the progress that had been made - and so naturally, the new BBC Controller axed it: Jonathan Powell, continually promised a bright future, and his successor cancelled 'Eldorado'. That it was allowed a few weeks to wrap up its storylines and end 'properly' ensured it went out with several bangs; we see Marcus and Pilar sail off into the sunset, with Marcus saying "You can't trust anyone, can you?"

The name of their boat? Jonathan.

Bad early on, grew better as it went on, axed too soon

[malpasc-391-915380 · 7/10 · 20 July 2021]

Like Crossroads and Triangle, Eldorado became a byword in the 90s for bad TV programmes. In a way particularly early on this is probably true. The first episodes of the show were not good. A lot of the cast were inexperienced actors (or indeed non actors before this show) and there were issues with sound and video quality as they were shooting in real physical buildings and not indoor sets built inside a studio. This meant everything echoed a lot and quite often the lighting was a bit dark. As a British soap, albeit set and shot in Spain they also had the strange idea of the foreign characters speaking in their native language. Realistic - yes, but difficult for a show going out in an English speaking country, particularly as these bits of dialogue were also not subtitled!

Some of the early storylines were fairly awful to watch. That in particular of middle aged Bunny Charleson coming back to Spain with his 17 year old wife Fizz - it was just uncomfortable! Poor Kathy Pitkin who played Fizz bore the brunt of a lot of the criticism from the British press. True, she wasn't the best actress, but looking at it now she's no worse than a lot of current young British soap stars and given more of a chance I think she would have grown into the role and improved. Its very telling Eldorado is her one and only acting credit to this day.

As ratings went down and vitriol from the press continued the producer left and the replacement immediately set about removing many of the poorer actors, stopping the foreign language sections, rounding out characters better, adding better storylines and improving production techniques. These actions vastly improved the show and ratings began to go up.

The favourite and probably best characters and storylines came from those of playboy Marcus Tandy (with his enormous mobile phone and Renault Alpine) and his girlfriend, runaway stable hand Pilar. Washed up club singer Trish (Polly Perkins) and her good friend bar owner Joy had great chemistry and also got some quite dramatic and dark storylines for a 7pm soap opera.

For completeness of soap character archetypes you had the seemingly "cosy" Lockhead family, nosy neighbour Olive King, the very sophisticated Leduc family where the parents had their open marriage, as well as an actual Spanish family who had a few secrets of their own, including a very well done gay relationship storyline which was handled quite sensitively and was unusual for UK TV at the time.

Unfortunately all the improvements couldn't save the show as new BBC One director Alan Yentob made axing the show his first task in his then new role. The final episode sailed out into the sunset quite literally almost a year to the day the first episode was shown.

Looking back, yes the show had its problems early on but they were well on the way to being fixed, and towards the end Eldorado was getting what these days would be considered extremely healthy ratings - up to 10 million. I wonder if almost 30 years on if things had been different and the show had continued what would it be like now? I guess we will never know. I was a teenager when it was first on, and am now in my 40s. I enjoyed it then, and having re-watched it more recently I still enjoy it.

Great

[hairylegs-34263 · 10/10 · 3 August 2019]

Brilliant TV show of course it started off a little bit bad but that's what happens when you're rushing things no matter what your doing in life everybody will tell you to take your time. The show itself was a nice slice of Spain a half an hour every week , it took people away from the bad weather and we got to sit down and enjoy the picturesque background of Spain with the dramatics of people that we knew and loved. But it was destined to fail even with high ratings. Because politics intervened.

And it doesn't take a maths degree to work that out so here we go England didn't take the euro money nor were they going too, England left the EU and they knew they were going too a very long time ago they knew even before Eldorado was created.

A soap opera that is getting higher ratings than brookside, Emmerdale, and coronation Street, EastEnders at the time and its Cancelled.

The soap opera to bring Europe together as one, together as a whole we had German, French, English, Icelandic , Irish characters all living together as one :) all them cultures in one place getting on as one big happy community. Look at England now wanting to kick them out enough said, a brilliant piece of artistic work had to end because of people higher up. it was difficult to understand some of the characters but of course they finally disappeared and and they kept most of the characters that could speak English full on, but in saying that it wasn't the European people that were bad actors you just couldn't understand them it's was the English characters that were terrible well 3 to be exact. The characters were vibrant lively full of life especially the older characters which was a great thing. It did have a good ending though. But it ended and that's the sad pa Part it makes England come across as mean to its counterparts. Say there was a war England is pretty much turning its back on everyone, England thinks that it's America but it's not it's a small little island.

Not a bad soap

[gwilym49 · 8 September 2001]

Not a bad soap. However, the BBC, in its wisdom, decided to pull the plug when it seemed to be getting off the ground. This decision has always seemed a puzzle when programmes of questionable quality are screened by the same organization. It was sad to lose this programme, and how much public money was thrown away?

Eldorado was more real than anyone can guess!

[bunnies4 · 20 July 2007]

In 1992 when Eldorado first aired on the BBC I watched it avidly. Yes, some of the characters seemed a little "outrageous" and maybe some of the acting could have been better. However, I was hooked, especially as we were off to Spain on holiday in the August. Sadly the BBC axed the show, which was a pity.

Three and half years ago, we retired to Spain and now live in a very mixed community of Europeans, ex-pats included. Oh brother! Believe me I have met virtually every character featured in Eldorado, as outrageous as some of them appeared. Whoever researched the program originally did a pretty good job, how sad that it wasn't appreciated at the time. So real is it that our community has now been re-titled Eldorado by our visiting family. Wish the episodes were available on DVD!

The Stupid BBC!!

[daveinfinland · 21 October 2005]

The axing of this show was purely a political decision. The show was doomed from the offset. The BBC pumped loads of money into the show and expected to make immediate profits which was not going to happen no matter how good the show was. As for the show itself. I loved it. It was a little slow to start with but it was a soap opera and for anyone to be able to get to know the characters right away was asking a bit too much. It was to take time and the BBC were not prepared to give it this required time. The most memorable character was of course Marcus (Jesse Birdsall) who fitted the "bad boy" image perfectly. The man with a hard exterior but a soft centre. Most of the actors played their parts magnificently but there were a few exceptions at the start but those actors were soon axed. I'd love to see the whole series again as I can now find myself in a similar position as most of the characters in the show - I'm an expat myself now and socialise with an expat community. It's a pity it was axed just as the show was becoming popular and the plots were becoming more interesting. Thank you BBC :(

Are You Ready for Eldorado?

[myles-campbell · 10 April 2006]

"Are you ready for Eldorado?" This was the immortal line used by the BBC to herald their new thrice-weekly Spanish sunshine soap 'Eldorado' back in 1992. And much-heralded it was! 'Eldorado' was everywhere back in early 1992, in the papers, on TV trailers and in magazines. It was to be set in the purpose-built fictional Spanish resort of Los Barcos and would feature the "hedonism, heartbreak and deep-dark secrets" of a group of ex-pats and their fellow Europeans and would be the BBC's crowning glory, a sun, sea and sangria "supersoap". Were we ready for Eldorado? After enormous trumpeting, it looked like although 7 million of us were indeed ready for 'Eldorado', the show itself clearly wasn't ready for us. The flaws were unmistakable. Firstly, producer Julia Smith (who gave the BBC the hugely successful 'Eastenders' in 1985) had agreed to bring the start date forward from September to July. This created numerous problems. For a start the beautiful multi-million pound set would not be fully finished and it seemed foolish to have spent so many millions on such a great set design by Keith Harris, only to hurry ahead without allowing for it to be finished to the standard that such investment warranted. Not only this but summer viewing figures are always lower than those in winter so it seemed strange to launch a sunshine soap at a time when it would have the least appeal-in the summer! Julia Smith hired many unknown actors in a bid to make them stars but most were wooden and had to be axed after only a few months, notably the notorious Kathy Pitkin as Fizz. Writers were not allowed to see each others scripts which made continuity extremely difficult, another rule of Smith's, and because the set wasn't complete, sound in areas such as the Centro Commercial was awful. To top it all many scenes were conducted in foreign languages, which alienated viewers, story lines were poor and with the BBC ordering 3 episodes per week instead of the initial 2, the show simply couldn't cope. With no time for rehearsals, read-through's or help with acting, 'Eldorado' was not the "supersoap" promised by the BBC. Only 3 weeks in and it was in crisis, viewing figures were tumbling to 3 million, the papers slated it daily and it was fast becoming a £10 million failure. Something had to give. After only a few months, Julia Smith was axed from her post as producer and replaced by Corinne Hollingworth. Almost immediately the show began to turn around. Characters such as Dieter, Allan, Gavin and Snowy were axed in a cast cull while Marchell Betak was replaced as Trine Svendsen by Clare Wilkie. Exciting story lines such as the secret life and subsequent death of Javier, the attack on bar owner Joy and the difficulties of alcoholic Drew, were introduced. Scripts improved enormously, the sound was perfected and there was more focus on the experienced actors. New characters such as Natalie and 'Razor' proved a hit and by late 1992, 'Eldorado' was quickly becoming the hit that the BBC had promised. It had begun to find a direction, an identity, it wasn't too serious or too light-hearted but a mixture of both. It was becoming a quality production dealing with the highs and lows and emotions of people who no longer belonged in the UK and who had to build a new sense of who they were in an alien European community. It was relevant, very different and a soap that was giving us a new perspective. It was an experiment with the genre of soap opera that was starting to pay off. 'Eldorado' was being networked in several European countries, public opinion was changing and viewing figures were growing rapidly, ultimately matching those of 'EastEnders'. 'Eldorado' was finding its feet. However, just as things were on the up, Jonathan Powell was replaced by Alan Yentob as director of BBC1 and within a week of his appointment, he made the shock announcement that 'Eldorado' was to be axed. Yentob disliked the show and was largely unaware of its recent improvements. It seems he felt that it hadn't achieved the success expected of it after 8 months. Indeed it hadn't, but that was because the BBC had expected far too much; an instant hit. Soaps need time to grow and develop and no soap is an immediate success. Like 'Eldorado', 'EastEnders' was no major success story after its first 8 months and had numerous teething troubles. Unlike 'Eldorado', 'EastEnders' was given a chance and just look how it turned out. By March 1993, 'Eldorado' was destined to emulate the success of its sister soap 'EastEnders' but it would never have the chance.'Eldorado'was going to get there, watching some of the late episodes alone proves that, as do the high viewing figures it was achieving towards the end. But it was not to be. On July 9th 1993, we said goodbye to some great soap characters such as Freddie, Gwen, Joy, Trish and Marcus not forgetting the likes of Drew, Isabelle, Pilar and Nessa (the first disabled soap character who was played by a real-life disabled person). Far from justifying the criticisms leveled at it by the tabloids, 'Eldorado' went out in style with an excellent final episode that demonstrated just how far it had come. A massive 11 million people watched as Marcus and Pilar sailed off into the night and those blue credits rolled for the last time to Simon May's fantastic arrangement of the theme tune. In the end, we were ready for more 'Eldorado' just when the show had become ready for us. Isn't it ironic then that we had to say "Adios Eldorado".

"A little bit of daily sunshine"

[tonjo · 25 January 2002]

Watching recent repeats of Eldorado on cable tv brings back great memories. How many of us looked forward to our twice weekly transportation to the sunshine of Los Barcos? I did. Yes, it had some teething problems. (Tho' looking back, it doesn't seem half as bad as at the time!). And it got better. The storylines and the characters were good, if not always entirely believable. But hey, this is soapland! The Beeb made a big mistake by listening too closely to those telling them that they had a made a big mistake comissioning the programme in the first place, (work that one out!). What say they get back to Los Barcos, pick up where they left off and give us our winter sunshine back?

A curious piece of British TV History

[chris_myers90 · 6 October 2004]

When in 1992 the BBC decided it needed a second soap to relieve the burden on 'Eastenders' to be the networks solo rival to ITV'S 'Coronation Street' and 'Emmerdale' the novel idea of setting it in the sunnier climes of Spain amongst British ex-pats seemed to give the show a unique selling point. Many shows come and go but the fatal blow to this soap opera may have been the original fanfare with which it was launched. The BBC spent £10,000,000 on preliminary sets and production but upon first glance the hugely anticipated drama seemed to have little in the way of story lines or characterisation. There were production problems with the sound that made the show at times impossible to watch.

The hype that the show had been given and the fact that it was funded by the licence payer meant that the British press leapt upon it and it became a favourite object of derision. Initially encouraging viewing figures tumbled to only 3 million per episode and ten months after its fanfare debut the BBC pulled the plug and cancelled the show.

It is well known that the quality of the show and the viewing figures were climbing towards and the end and that perhaps the show was finally starting to catch on. However, the damage had long been done. The media had slated it and tainted it as a joke and from this there was no return for the BBC. The massively expensive sets were mothballed and are now a museum for intrepid tourists and curious TV fans. The shown came to an end satisfactorily and somewhat gracefully (for otherwise see Crossroads #3) but one can only imagine how devastating it was for the actors (other victims of the shows bad initial production) and we can only estimate how much money was poured down the drain on the massively hyped and massively expensive white elephant.

The BBC soap set on the sunny southern coast of Spain

[Peacock-5 · 24 June 2000]

This series should have done better, it could have done better, but was never given the chance. It was a soap based around British ex-pats that had found a haven and mixed with the locals. The storylines were ok, but some of the early acting was poor, but as time went on the production changed beyond recognition. However, after all the effort the cast and crew put into the series, the BBC bosses pulled the plug and watched £10million pounds waste away instead of trying to help it out. Viewing figures were up and the series was selling well around Europe, but all there is left now is an empty studio village and repeats. Nothing more...

Most entertaining soap!

[Severus_Snape666 · 12 January 2005]

OK, so I admit, I never saw it when it was originally aired (being 8 at the time!), and I bought the Adios Eldorado video because I'd heard so much about Jesse Birdsall's character, Marcus! I thought it would be a 1992 version of Sunset Beach- terrible acting, bad sets, poor story lines that never went anywhere. But, I was wrong, for the characters were well thought out and yet the soap didn't got too bogged down with overly serious plots that modern soaps rely on. The quirky, colourful characters worked well because they were larger than life, not trying to be as close to a normal world as possible. I've only ever seen the couple of hours worth on the video, so I'm still waiting to see reruns on UK Gold, but I think its a fantastic show, Even my 12 yr old sister loves it.