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JER's DAYS Discussion


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I was watching Days for several years before the JER storylines began but what I remember vividly about his first run was how he set up some storylines years in advance (When Stefano was in hospital in 1993 he already mentioned being responsible for Kristen and Peter's mothers death but this didn't come up again until Aremid/1996).

His first run worked because he essentially had a 5 year plan. By the time his run came to an end he pretty much brought most of the storylines he created to a relative conclusion (John/Marlena were together; Sami was exposed, Carrie/Austin together) as they sequed into the next writer (Sally Sussman Morina - I think!). I think if he had stayed on at Days we would have been treated to an endless recycling of his greatest hits storyline-wise (which was pretty much what he did in his second stint).

Best storylines: the introduction and evolution of the Sami character; Sami shooting her rapist in the groin; Marlena/John in the boardroom at Titan and her pregnancy, Carly Buried Alive, MarDevil, Kristens schemes and her many other characters), some of the Sami/Austin/Carrie/Lucas saga - the best being that Lucas was Will's father; Tony shooting himself and framing John.

Although the constant flashbacks, repetition of scenes and slow moving plots were noticeable there was just something about how it was written that made it addictive that you just had to keep watching every episode. The payoffs were huge when the reveals happened so it made the slowness worth it.

However I watched this as a teen and when I see some clips now I realise how juvenile some of the dialogue was and I can understand why many long time viewers were saying it had become a cartoon. Sadly most of the men were portrayed as dumb (Austin and John) and the women as victims (Marlena).

He gave Days the much needed ratings boost but his style of storyline writing just opened the door for a further 11 years of idiotic plots. Although not under his regime the absolute worst have been John/Hope sub-sex, the far too long Princess Gina storyline, anything Tom Langan ever wrote, the incorrect aging of the younger teen set in 1999; Garden of Eden, Carrie/Austin/Sami redux more than once - that storyline just needs a complete rest never to rear its ugly head again! Cassie/Rex landing in a UFO - ughhh!

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JER wouldn't have worked on OLTL.

The first two years of his stint at DAYS was awesome, but then from 1995-through 1998.. the show devolved into a campy mess. Watching it, I wouldn't have been surprised if it came out that 6 year olds wrote the show.

Imho, the show has never completely recovered from that era. It's funny, but the show appears more outdated in the 1990s then it did in the 1980s when Sheri Anderson/Leah Laiman/Thom Racina wrote the show.

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I count Jim Reilly as one of the last 'classic' soap opera writers. Slow pace, playing every beat, flashbacks, good versus evil, against all odds romance, are all classic soap tropes. He just added the wild and wacky elements to get people talking and to tune in. It's a shame that he's remembered more for the stunts, than his respect for the soap opera basics. And quite frankly, there weren't that many stunts and the only ones that hadn't been done on daytime before was the possession (which was a glossed up DID story).

Anyway, my favorite Reilly story of all time is the John and Marlena affair. Begining with Marlena and Roman's epic fight before Stella trapped her in that hole and ending with the reveal that Belle was John's.

In no particular order I also loved...

Kate's flirtation with Jack during that entire Spectator storyline.

I loved Jack and Billie's relationship and the entire Kate's manuscript storyline, leading to Countess Wilhemina.

Vivian going insane, Buried Alive and the aftermath, and Carly eventually choosing Laurence over Bo.

Peter and Jennifer.

The muder of Curtis Reed and Billie's trail.

Maison Blanche and the reveal of Hope/Gina

Vivian's schemes to get Victor

Sami versus Carrie over Austin

Queen of the Night

When Kristen teamed up with Vivian and Ivan

Anything with Celeste

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My favorite JER story was Aremid. I was not a big fan of MarDevil, I think that time period during the possession was JER's weakest during his first run. But 1993-1994 and late 1995-1997 were great.

Austin/Carrie/Lucas/Sami was very repetitive. Austin walks in on Lucas hugging Carrie, so he thinks she's moved on and he decides to do the same with Sami. Always silly misunderstandings.

Jack/Jennifer/Peter was also very repetitive. It was basically Jack trying to prove Peter was up to no good and Peter always covering it up at last minute, over and over. But I still liked it. Unfortunately, when Jennifer finally did learn the truth about Peter, she was played by Stephanie Cameron, so the the impact was lost. The same happened a year later when Jason Brooks returned, Mark Valley had left so the finale to the Jack/Jennifer/Peter story was with Stephanie Cameron and Steve Wilder as Jack and Jennifer.

I liked Bo/Billie and "Gina" finding out she was Hope. And unlike many others I also liked Hope/Bo/Billie round 2, with Krista Allen in the role, and with Franco as the troublemaker.

Vivian's schemes to get Victor were also fun.

But yeah, Aremid was the best. From Peter and Jennifer's wedding, to Tony killing himself and framing John, Lexie finding out who her parents were and Jude holding Hope captive in the cabin.

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Carly buried alive is what made a fulltime Days viewer, before I used to be in and out of the show. Vivian was spellbinding in this gothic tale.

Who killed Curtis Reed is my favourite whodunnit of all soaps. I guess the denoument was predictable in hindsight, but I was a naive teenager new to the show back then.

Maison Blanche was epic - The house was a character too in a way! Celeste, Hope, Marlena and John as prisoners, Bo & Billie. Aremid had a similar vibe to Maison Blanche, but for me it paled in comparison.

Sami watches her mother commit adultery, gets bulimia, gets raped by Alan, shoots him in the balls, sells Belle on the blackmarket, rapes Austin, sleeps with Lucas, runs away to Seattle -it was so fresh at the time...

Kristen and the Banks siblings was campy greatness.

I didn't really like MarDevil, but it was compulsive viewing. Hated Marlena in a cage in Paris.

Jenn/Jack/Peter were a solid B storyline. I loved Laura's gaslighting and sleeping with Jack.

Lisa Rinna/RKK sizzled like no couple I've ever seen on Daytime.

I loved the friendships like Billie/Kristen/Jen and Billie/Carrie and Austin/Carrie/Jonah/Wendy.

I loved all this - but I was a teenager/early 20s by the end. Age changes one tastes, and I fully understand why older viewers hated it. If I was in my 30's back then, I would of really hated it.

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I really started watching Dool in 96/97 so I missed early JER but from what I've seen on youtube, I would have immensely enjoyed it. I think the John/Marlena affair/pregnancy is probably the best story that he ever did, and Lumi/Caustin and John/Kristen/John/Marlena was classic storytelling.

2003-2006 was hit or miss but I loved how He wrote the Sami/Lucas relationship although I hated how Sami regressed back into blaming John for everything bad in her life when she had already gotten over that from 1999-2002. The Serial Killer story was must see tv although Melaswen was at times trite and just horrific, however I would still take the worst of that era over much of 2008-2013, the show at least still felt like Days of Our lives to me.

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I've harped on the good and the bad of Reilly many times before. I'll try to keep it brief:

I got hooked on the show because of his stories. Began watching in the summer of 1995 at the very end of the possession story (didn't even really know what the hell was happening other than a scary looking woman with white eyes holding a man by his throat in the morgue). The Aremid story arc is my favorite soap opera storyline of all-time. I loved everything 1995-1997, although starting in 1997, some of the stories didn't offer a "Miss-A-Day, Miss-A-Lot!" momentum as it did in 95'-'96. The sabotage Reilly did at the end of his reign for the next headwriter was very apparent with such lackluster tales as Roman "dying," John/Hope/Kristen/Stefano in the jungle, Recast-Jenn and Recast-Jack on the run from Peter and joining the circus, way too much Susan/Mary-Moira b.s. which had become too silly at that point. But I digress...

2003-2006 was complete and utter sh.t. Although like mentioned above me, I did like how Lucas & Sami were finally brought together during the time of the serial killer. That was the one bright spot to an otherwise dark, bleak time. The whole serial killer storyline was like one big DAYS acid trip where they were imploding the show and going to scrape up the unharmed to build a brand new show with the non-killed characters (much like how Loving became The City). 2004-2006 was full of nonsense, poor characterization, endless recaps (I mean seriously, the Shawn/Belle/Phillip/Mimi/Rex storyline of that time was literally them repeating the same dialogue day after day with absolutely NO advancement in story) and ridiculousness (Captive Island, Captive Castle, The Boys in Iraq, Dr. Alex North, etc.) Then by 2005-06, Reilly relied on 90's nostalgia to rebuild the Sami/Austin/Carrie/Lucas quadrangle based upon the most inane, stupid, idiotic predicaments. Austin accidently took over Carrie's company.... but in all his research, he never stumbled across the company president's name????? And then there was Carrie choosing to be with Lucas instead of Austin because Sami had doctored up some tests results that showed that procreating with Austin would result in children with birth defects. I mean, really???? Then there was the history-rewriting mess with Dr. North and Marlena which I won't even get into.

To sum it up, I lobster-loved 1995-1997 and would love to see anything and everything 1993-early 1995 (hooray for YouTube!) but absolutely loathed 2003-2006 and was so pleased with Beth Milstein's work that she did in the late summer of 2006 to wrap up Reilly's mess before Hogie came onboard and created new messes of his own (Willow anyone?).

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I really agree with "Gray bunny" as well. I started watching the JER's first stint in 96. One of my favorite Days storylines EVER to this day is the Secret Room and all the Susan/Kristen/Marlena stuff...pure Days classic. I even loved the beginning of his second stint. And (while I may be in the minority) I really enjoyed the Serial killer storyline for a while.. the suspense was great..but it became too much by the time Alice was choked by her own doughnuts..by then it was too far gone. Marlena and the flying casket.. Maleswen.. it was way over the top. The only thing I enjoyed 2004 until the end of his run in 06 was Zack's death.. I agree the Belle/Shawn/Mimi crap had no development and then Austin/Carrie/Lucas was total rehash... all in all he had some good things (some great things in his first stint) but doing both DOOL and PASS the second stint was way too much

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Like everyone else, I fall into the "liked the first, hated, hated, HATED the second" run.

I too thought Mardevil had no place on Days. It made the show into a parody of Dark Shadows (now Mardevil would have been PERFECT for that show, and maybe JER would have been great at writing Dark Shadows... who knows?) I was a huge Carrie/Austin fan, so I loved the triangle with Sami and the involvement of Lucas in the story. Otherwise, most of JER's first run was entertaining, if not a little predictable at times.

Do not get me started on his second go-round. I was not a Passions fan so when they wanted him to write both shows I went "you gotta be kidding me". Oh, but at the time if you criticized JER you weren't cool. So everyone starts cheering as the SSK story starts, not realizing how much it's destroying and ripping apart the fabric of the show. Everything else was basically a one-note joke. When Alice "died", I stopped watching and had intended to stay away. My thinking was if you're that cavalier to kill off Alice Horton after you wrote off longtime faves of mine like Jack, Doug... forget it. Then when the "they're not really dead!" rumors started I returned. Almost sorry I did. Melaswen was a f***ing disaster. Jack getting back home only to find a fake Jennifer waiting for him... by this time I was about ready to openly call people idiots if they supported this crap. :)

I cheered the day he got fired. As bad as Dena Higley's material was at times, it was better than this. (Told ya don't get me started.)

You either loved the man or you didn't. I will say he is missed today.

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Nobody listened to me on this damn board when I told them that serial killer story was worse than Amateur Hour. Everyone was so high on Daddy coming back from back when they were watching at age 6. Yeah, no, I learned that same lesson the hard way when Michael Malone returned to OLTL. Oh, the original Gina/Hope story went over a lot better when I was in sixth grade, that's for sure - the dialogue on Reilly's show was never any great shakes. But as an even semi-functional adult you could barely watch that [!@#$%^&*], and it was far, far worse when he returned. But all I heard for a year was how DAYS WAS BACK!!! because of Jim Reilly, the man with even less of a concept of reality vs. construct than Irna Phillips. And oh, these murders were all so well-thought-out and tasteful and served the longterm fabric of the show, and oh, no, they'd never go back on it and undo it because it's all genius - but of course they did, they rewrote it, they made him do it. They had no other choice.

By the end of the '90s Reilly was not a functional head writer for any long-running soap opera other than his own.

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The serial killer mystery was a good story, it is what it became that was a disaster. Those attacks at Belles fashion show leading into the brutal, violent murders of Abe, Jack, Maggie was great tv and heartbreaking, but amazing to watch. Even up to Cassie the murders and the mystery was great, however after that the praise clearly went to JERs head and it bame who is going to die this week and got tired until the Marlena reveal, and that made it good again for about a week but then it turned into full on comedy and was terrible and by the time alice was killed, the coffin flew, and everyone was alive the story was DONE, but then dragged onto that island, onto the escap, onto the other island, and it was an epic mess. I do see a lot of merit to the thought that he was trying to ruin days to save passions, and thats not an argument i usually buy into.

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