I was on doomed 90s soap Eldorado – a BBC icon was responsible for our downfall before we even hit TV screens
IN THE 90s, Eldorado showed the promise of being the next big soap on TV, but less than a year later it was unceremoniously axed, never to be seen again.
However, the long-forgotten episodes have now been brought back to our screens on U&Gold, and fans are getting a better insight into what went wrong.
Initially planned to be an EastEnders style series in the Costa Del Sol, Eldorado arrived on screens in 1992 and followed a group of British expats as they lived life in the fictional Spanish resort of Los Barcos.
But the production of the show faced one problem after another before they even made it to air, and soon it became notorious for being one of BBC’s biggest failed ventures.
In 1993, then-BBC1 controller Alan Yentob shook up the channel and unceremoniously axed Eldorado, though years later and the mystery as to why still remains.
In the case of most cast members, they moved on from the series with little to no fanfare, and haven’t spoken a word about what actually happened since.
However, rumours about the ongoing issues with the series, including boozy nights out and illicit run-ins with the Spanish underworld while filming has kept the series in infamy.
Things started to feel off for the show when it was moved up in the schedule, premiering in July instead of the planned September, giving the creatives behind the series three months less to write, prepare and edit the scenes before they arrived on screen.
Actor Jon-Paul Gates, who joined the series at the age of 17, told MailOnline that he partly blamed Terry Wogan for this slip-up, with the iconic presenter being given a “golden handshake deal.”
“They needed a prime time soap, not to replace EastEnders, but certainly to compete with it,” he explained to the site.
“Wogan, in his infinite wisdom, decided to cut short his contract, which meant that instead of us going out in September that year, they desperately tried to get us to go in July.”
“This meant they focused on all the young talent, including myself, who had virtually no experience instead of focusing on the more established talent – the likes of Patricia Brake and Jesse Birdsall and Campbell Morrison,” he told them.
“And so the transmission date was pushed forward to July, and obviously with the set not being completed, and the scripts were rushed.
“I think it was on a hiding to nothing at the outset.”
Despite this slip-up, the BBC went the extra mile to impress viewers, filming near Malaga before drafting in much-celebrated producers in order to essentially build Los Barcos from the ground up.
Eight million tuned in when the show finally made its debut in July 1992, but within the space of months that had dwindled down to only 3million – by which point team esteem had hit a low as they struggled to carry on.
It also didn’t help that the show faced backlash at a time the country was going through a recession, with the BBC spending a vast amount of ex-payer cash in order to keep on filming in Spain.
Eventually, they had to cut it loose.