Emerald Cove originally appeared as a short segment during the dying days of the Mickey Mouse Club. It starred the second tier of the kid empire. On the first tier was the wannabe pop group, "The Party." On the bottom were the youngsters like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. JC, from N Sync played one of many mindless surfers in this beach drama. This may sound like a train wreck but it wasn't all that bad. The weak points were that it had too many characters. None of which were all that interesting.
MMC had a track record of putting a live action show in the middle of their daily show. The Secret of Lost Creek, was broken into several parts and shown over a long amount of time. The movie was maybe an hour and twenty minutes, yet Disney stretched it into months. The Ernie Reyes Jr vehicle ,"Secret Bodyguard," also had a lengthy. All three shows played at various times during the MMC run.
Emerald Cove was different because they used the show's talent.So in theory the show would work because the viewers already knew the show's cast from MMC. In life most theories end up being wrong.This show proved that. The acting was at times was bad. Also the plots all had been done before. Themes such as ,"My friend likes you, but you like me, what will we do! There was even a seemingly stoned surfer caught in a love triangle. Also the usual poor guy chases rich girl. And the all time favorite street music producer chases angelic urban singer theme shows up here. A string of the segments was combined into making a few half-hour episodes.
Tony Lucca went on to do almost the same show a few years later with Keri Russell. It was called," Malibu Shores." This show can be described as the repressed first cousin of Malibu Shores. Thank goodness neither show ran too long.
