Doctor Farnham, whose official job as the village Doctor, and thus responsible for the physical well-being of Crossroads staff and guests, has played havoc with emotions all through the Motel.  Apart from agitating David Hunter's inumerable fans who resented any threat to their most favourite Crossroads character, he's had viewers everywhere on the edge of their seats to see whether he would really prove the one man capable of making his way to Faye Mansfield's heart.

 

"Frankly," explained Allen Lander, who plays the debonair Doctor, "he went through rather an unsympathetic period when he was courting Faye because he thought he could help her.  She was an attractive girl, of course, and he naturally wanted her company.  But when she told Sandy she loved the Doctor, everyone hated him, and her."

 

But, as Crossroads followers know, the romance that meant so much to Faye was really nothing but an innocent flirtation as far as Doctor Farnham was concerned.  His real interests lay in Lia Hua (June Bolton), the girl David Hunter had rescued from an orphaned life in the jungles of Malaya twenty years ago.  "When Lia came along it was just a head over heals affair, and he just did everything for her.  Faye just didn't exist."

 

It seemed that everyone who cared about what happens at the Motel was trying to get in on the excitement of the Doctor's romancing.  "I got some sympathetic letters written by women who really wanted me to make it with Faye, but there were also bitter attacks from people who were appalled by the idea.  One woman, on Faye's side obviously, wrote every week when I was still trying to break through to Faye and said 'I just prayed she would go out with you!'  It was just amazing."

 

As Allen Lander is the first to point out, his brief appearance at the Crossroads Motel has proved, as it has done for so many of the actors who come to the series, his most widely appreciated role.  His previous career had never brought in the volume of mail, both critical and adulatory, as this performance of Doctor Farnham has gathered together.