titan1978

I’ve been catching up on possession 2.0 and I think if they had done a riff of Stephen King’s Needful Things this time it would have worked better for me. The devil comes to this quaint little town, wrecks havoc, and gives people what they want but not in the way they want it.

That’s just incredibly bleak.

Tuned back in for a couple of days to see what’s going on. I have to laugh at Maurice Benard going on and on about not being told to speak up by the directors when he started and I think of him as particularly shouty now.

Kin is also in the photo- maybe he meant on contract.

Those credits are laughable anyway.

I liked them together back then. I think the trauma of losing Duke twice and how maudlin Anna had become made it easier for me, because she was happy again. I preferred her with Duke and Robert with Holly. I also liked Robert and Cheryl, and hated Katherine.

Tony makes no sense to me at all. They have used the Andre thing to absolve his character of various Dimera schemes and writing regimes, and IMO, he would be better utilized if he was a more sinister version.

I do understand the storyline purpose, but when you think about the show in later years while he was still on contract- they wouldn’t give in to Vanessa’s demands to stay during her original run. They killed off Alan. They wouldn’t bring Genie back full time. He also fit into a spot they needed- a legal figure to butt heads with Sonny but not in a serious way. And I like Mac, I just can’t believe how many other, more vital characters left and he was still standing. That is a waste of time. Especially when it comes to any business storyline on DAYS in the last 30+ years.

Her story trajectory with Austin was very gross. She taught herself science to fake that paternity test lol. Only on DAYS and under Reilly’s pen does any of this work. It was stupid but certainly entertaining!

John as a priest really made so little sense and was the true end for the character for me. He’s just a plot cypher and Drake doesn’t bring enough acting chops to fill that out. All the talk about Mac in the GH spoiler thread kind of makes me think how did he last as long as he did? He’s not a good enough actor to go as dark as Guza would want, and he had more failed relationships than successful ones. Even Robin and Felicia were gone for years at a time and Mac was still there. And I don’t dislike Mac, I just can see he was just there and not treated as a major character for most of his run.

And she was acting out/manipulative long before Alan raped her! There is a progression, but it’s like two years from just bratty teen, to manipulative, to kidnapping and then trying to make Austin her baby daddy. As a character, she blames the affair for almost everything. But in truth, maybe she is just pathological. Watching it recently, it is pretty clear Marlena knows it will end her marriage to Roman and that he will feel betrayed in a way that he may not recover. I think she keeps the secret as much for her as for Sami. And Roman absolutely does not stick up for her enough, only calling Sami out a couple of times.

I still thinks she had some of the right ideas, just executed them completely wrong. Focusing on a more blue collar family was smart, they just forced it too fast, and Tony should never have been hired to play Bill. But Riche just brought a more down to earth, richly emotional texture to the show. I don’t think Monty was capable of doing that. At the time, I didn’t really care about Mac one way or another. He was cute, but I didn’t start to like him until he and Felicia were in the Ryan story, then running the Outback together.

Even in the midst of the affair storyline, there are scenes with John and Sami where he brings up the fact that he raised her. They have a conversation about it when they return Belle, and John gives Sami a few days to tell Marlena and Roman it was her. And AS plays the beats of having some feelings for him. In my rewatch, she really starts to hate John when he tells them she was behind the kidnapping because she won’t. Before that she wasn’t happy with John exactly, but most of her rage was directed at Marlena. I even think part of the weird relationship was based on Marlena always calling her out on her issues and behavior, and Roman was more reluctant to (which to me is subtext because he missed out on most of the twin’s childhoods), so she leaned into that relationship. When John reveals her secret, she begins to talk about hating him, and never forgiving him. Sami is a horrible brat, and betrayal to her is not colluding in her schemes. John is basically still Roman during the period of Reilly I just finished, which shows they needed to do something to make them their own characters. Yes, he lost Isabella and his life as Roman, but his personality is still lighter. It isn’t until Stefano starts toying with him before Maison Blanche and then after that story that he starts to become more the John Black as we know him. More angst, the growly voice, more serious and less lighthearted.

I just watched the Riche episode. The empathy they showed MB was pretty incredible. No matter what I think of Sonny or MB’s ego, that was very generous and human, in a business that usually treats everyone as replaceable. Makes me miss her even more at GH.

I do not disagree. I think soaps should have an element of romance, and I don’t know why they shy away from it so much. And I have loved my share of super couples. But it’s like you said- the formula they perfected, which was very specific to DAYS had grown a little stale by the early 1990’s. Nobody did supercouples like they did back then.

I was into the early part of his return- the ghost of Tom Horton (which went nowhere as I recall), the early deaths. It was sad for those vets that were killed off before they knew they were coming back. Marlena being the killer was just nonsense though. Because it went nowhere, she was brainwashed, the deaths were undone. I could not take anything else seriously. And everyone got really stupid really fast. I still would love to know what his original plan was. I think if he had come back with an eye on tradition (like his earlier run), and more focus of real emotion and the characters not being treated like hollow chess pieces, I think it would have worked better. It was just a mess. Was Zach killed off during his run? Ultimately a mistake IMO.

No matter how well you get along with an ex, playing a romantic storyline with one that betrayed you in the past in the same place you fell in love originally would be incredibly difficult for anyone. I am so glad to have Felicia back, and I am glad Kristina Wagner doesn’t have to fake it with Jack as Frisco. I hope we get a little of Felicia in investigation mode.

I know- As someone that watched it back then but was kind of driven away by the time we got to Paris, it was really awesome to go back and look at the earlier part of his run. There are things I appreciate even more now than I did then and I loved it back then. Binging it really allows you to see all the little clues dropped in to build all his stories, even things you forget by the time of the big climax. The atmosphere and music were great. All those scenes at night in Salem, almost always foggy. And when they went somewhere else it felt like it- Maison Blanche interior and exterior scenes felt like a different location than Salem. And Salem Place was a fantastic and much missed set. My rewatch was brought on by both boredom with the current Possession and really enjoying the Curlee/Demorest/Reilly Guiding Light when the Pandemic began, before so much of it left YouTube. I can see his style really clearly on GL, even though he was part of a team.

I’m happy to have her back!

It’s no slight to LW, who I would watch any day over Sonny. She is just in the same boat as Alexis (but at least two of her kids are actually onscreen often). I wouldn’t saddle her with Howarth or Easton, so much like Alexis if there is going to be romance they have to cast someone for her and build it. Sonny has momentum in his story, it’s already going. Carly has to have something built up, and the question is will they do it or just have her floating around our ing Jason and yelling at Nina? Maybe Sean, but I fear that would be about as utilized as Laura is with Kevin. He deserves better than that, so does she really.

The first thought I had when i read when did Sonny become irreparable was also when he shot Carly in the head. That was the beginning of the end for me. For me, it was the total domination of Sonny, Carly, Jason, and Michael. As a kid all the way to a teen Michael was also forced down our throats for years. Everything revolved around him. And the diminishing of the rest of the canvas while those four are the show added to the issues. Although, I do think there are immediate story possibilities for Sonny, whereas I feel Carly has been backed Into a corner a little bit.

I loved Langston and Markko so much more than Cole and Starr.

And again, to complain about the latter period of Reilly’s writing on DAYS during his first stint- he brought Roman back and cursed us with Josh Taylor. I absolutely hate him as Roman, always have, always will.

Michael Weiss was my favorite Mike Horton. I always found Roark bland in the part. And both Belle and Brady were watched by Shawn and Caroline, with an angry Roman constantly there to hold Belle and almost decide he wanted Marlena back before getting angry and stomping out the door. It made sense and was even in character- Roman could be very bull headed. His early relationship with Bo is full of conflict. But I still think they did Wayne wrong.

Exactly. Once I saw how the audience was reacting to Sprina, I would have negotiated contracts that allowed for them to go to school but still had a commitment to GH, and worked the schedule out to maximize it. And I know that isn’t easy, but that’s the job. This isn’t DAYS- where it would be 4 to 6 months before you know if the audience is responding. ABC/Frank had plenty of time to figure it out. It’s pretty rare nowadays for a couple to hit that well. They should have capitalized on it.