In the category of TV shows that were never made available for purchase after their original airing, it’s hard to find one more popular than “Summerland.” It lasted two seasons of 13 episodes, launched the careers of Jesse McCartney (in conjunction with his teen-heartthrob music persona), Zac Efron (who looks so gawky here that it’s hard to believe the current buff movie star is the same person) and Ryan Kwanten (later of “True Blood”).
“Full House’s” Lori Loughlin and the Disney Channel’s Kay Panabaker also brought viewers. Of all the “TV Shows Lost to History” I’ve chronicled on my blog, “Summerland” is the one I feel most confident that people remember.
Sudsy primetime soap
As I rewatched Season 1 (2004, WB) , it became clear that this Aaron Spelling-produced show about three orphaned kids who move in with their cool aunt is a calculated mass-audience primetime soap – but also that it succeeds in that aim.
“Summerland” Season 1 (2004)
WB, 13 episodes
Creator: Stephen Tolkin, Lori Laughlin
Stars: Lori Laughlin, Merrin Dungey, Ryan Kwanten
While one can criticize “Summerland” on the metric of originality, it’s hard to deny the appeal of the Playa Linda, Calif., beach; the town sprawling with bikini-clad girls and board-shorts-clad guys; and most of all, the beach house where the makeshift family of seven resides (eight when Erika moves in).
Although I personally couldn’t live like that, I do get envious of this place where there’s always some exciting personal drama going on, yet a lot of these people’s time is spent surfing, playing beach volleyball and lounging in the hot tub on the patio.
Love triangles and job strife
As you’d expect, the drama centers primarily on love triangles and to a lesser extent on jobs (since it takes place in the summer of ’94, the kids don’t have school yet).
The writers pay lip service to finances. The beach house is “rent-controlled,” and with that many tenants, I suppose it’s feasible that they can afford it. When Ava’s (Loughlin) and Susannah’s (Merrin Dungey) fashion design business falters, they make mention of being deep in debt.
The writers favor broad, one-dimensional characterizations that often require only a single facial expression. Ava, as noted, is the Cool Aunt who is great at fashion design but is taken off guard by everything else in life, including the notion of lunch.
Susannah takes up the Cool Aunt mantle when Ava oh-so-gradually shifts into the mom role. Johnny (Shawn Chrisitan) – Ava’s soulmate (but darn it, they just can’t get the timing right) – always has a puppy-dog expression.
Jay (Kwanten) favors the tired surfer look. Erika (Taylor Cole) is the smoke show with family troubles and – when the writers remember to pepper it in – worldly wisdom gleaned from “The Odyssey” and “Gone With the Wind.”
Transplanted kids
The portrayal of the three Kansas-transplanted Westerly kids has some depth at first. In the early episodes, Nikki (Panabaker), 13, asks her brothers if they are OK and makes all the meals, but once she snaps out of it, she lets the four adults be the “parents” (or at least the equivalent of one solid parent) and falls into the role of the bookish teen pining after a cute guy (Efron).
Bradin (McCartney), 16, always has a gaping-mouth expression as he tries to figure out the two girls bidding for the girlfriend position – Crazy Girl Sara (Sarah Paxton) and Girl Next Door Callie (Danielle Savre, who went on to play the title character in “Kaya”).
This contrasts with the perpetual girl-confusion of Efron’s Cameron, who prefers to achieve the look with a furrowed brow (Despite his perplexity, he almost literally has to fight off three girls with a stick throughout the season).
Derrick (Nick Benson), 9, is a literal-minded, big-hearted kid – he wonders about how to get a present to his mom in heaven – who says things so clearly written by adults that even the writing team of “Dawson’s Creek” would say it’s unrealistic. Of course, he intrinsically understands the Ava-Johnny dichotomy better than they do.
Life’s a beach
In the pilot episode, the Westerly kids are suddenly uprooted from Kansas to California, from one family to another, from a structured Christian household to an existentialist free-for-all.
In the season finale, they dig a box of their late parents’ keepsakes out of the closet and share tears and hugs. The “losing your parents” conceit is smart – it automatically adds depth that isn’t particularly earned otherwise.
As it turns out, the Midwestern siblings adjust easily to the Beach Life where the main worry is relating to the opposite sex – heck, even Derrick goes on a date.
It would’ve been nice to have more culture-clash moments, and it would’ve added depth if the kids struggled in more than a lip-service way with adjusting to their new digs – particularly Nikki, whose “living in her head” wiring contrasts with Beach Life.
Bittersweet fantasy
In totality, these 13 episodes present a bittersweet fantasy where you can be weighed down by tragedy and ennui while living in a beach house.
(Maybe I shouldn’t say “fantasy,” as I do have a couple of friends who have impressively carved out California and Florida Beach Lives reminiscent of “Summerland.”)
You can be surrounded by love yet always worried about love. You can have perfection and a profound, trouble-filled life at the same time. This is a Beach Life that doesn’t involve an hour of preparation (sun block, cooler, chair, games, etc.), because that falls outside the 44-minute runtime.
This concept has obviously been done better elsewhere – the Hawaii-set movie “The Descendants” comes to mind – but still, I’m tempted to make excuses for “Summerland.”
Some storylines have my finger hovering over the fast-forward button, while others are more giggle-worthy – I’m personally more drawn to the teen arcs than those of the adults. But at the end of most episodes, I have a smile on my face.
This blog post is part of a series about great short-lived TV shows that haven’t been released on DVD or digital or streaming services, and are rarely – if ever — shown in syndication. While some of these shows can be found somewhere on the Internet, fans of great TV want to see them get a proper release. If you’re one of those fans, your best bets are to vote for the show at TVonDVD.com or to request information from Amazon.com in the event the show gets released. This will let the copyright holder know of your interest.
Main image: WB publicity photo