DynamiteKiddo

Like a lot of other people, I think Brock Kelly's Evan is gonna be a pretty huge upcoming twist.  I'll love it if he's a bi murderer baby daddy lolol.

3 minutes ago, victoria foxton said:

 

 

 

It's terrible the producers don't respectfully sit down with the actors.  Though recurring and spottily featured for the past ten years, Judi Evans should have had a meeting with Corday, not even just Meng or Alarr.  And isn't Alarr gay??

Carly ate the show alive immediately, without any real ties to the canvas... they shoehorned her in through Justin & Adrienne, gave her backstory with Jenn, retconned Frankie's entire character premise to give her family, created Lawrence (another airtime hog) around her, and RA & AS even included a flashback situation where she had a chance encounter with Bo that changed her life forever... then she was EVERYwhere until she (and Lawerence) abruptly left in '93.  And when Louise Sorel and then Victor Webster left in 2000, you never would've even known she was on the show.  Then 2009 happened when CC was one of the biggest things on soaps and it happened all over again, only for CC to get the Matt Ashford/Christie Clark testament.  MESS.  Lol.  They even tied Carly/Rafe together, iirc.

7 minutes ago, KMan101 said:

 

Right? It looked good. So of course it was dumped. As everyone tries to cram into Julie's Closet, er, Place.  

 

The lighting, while dark, looks so much better.

I liked that set.  I loved the Josh Griffith era production values.  Most everything else then was pretty horrible lol.  And Gray Bunny is right, we REALLY need a set like that.  But I think they're doing their best to mostly feature multipurpose sets.

Dee Hall always does that.  It is such a horrible, bizarre acting choice (deficiency?).  Unless it's emphasized that she's supposed to be warm in a scene, she acts like Marlena doesn't give a f or is pissed af.  (Unless it's John, Eric, Belle, Claire, or Will.) At least since the 2011 return.

But I think there's something to the Dee/Suzanne rumors.  Even when the taping schedule conflicts and we don't get, say, many Hope/Jennifer scenes... they still have them.  They just straight don't have scenes together and they were best friends pre and post JLBLaura and they've had quite a bit of intersecting story since 2011.  They were even neighbors in 2016 in that condo complex.  Lol.

WOW.  FS must have been blindsided with all the promoting he's been doing lately.  I get this move (they have just been plain boring since Will got his memory back), but it is shocking and disappointing to me to lose the gay representation and they're such legacy kids.  I think Will has a ton viable story left (and I really like CM) and Sonny was feeling like dead weight for a while, but after everything and sacrificing Paul twice for them (who was the real gay star), I am happy that they'll presumably leave happy together... it will feel right after ALL this to me.  And I think they'd be great candidates for the web series.

The other thing that really bothers me about Ben is that he could've been one of my favorites IF they kept him psycho and had him pop in and out a few times a year like they've been using some characters (think Tony & Anna).  But I guess they wanted to lock RSW down with a contract... and RC has this bizarre agenda with him.  And none of the actors, including RSW, play the necktie subtext (unless it's called for in the script like with Hope and Eve).  It's infuriating!  Like any time his name is brought up, characters like JJ and Jennifer should be visibly shaken.

1 hour ago, ranger1rg said:

It is. It’s all so bad.

 

If one character went through “this stuff,” I might be able to enjoy it. But when we get an entire handful of characters playing someone else in one episode? It just sucks. 

This storyline is so bad, so embarrassing.  But I do feel like there have been a handful of cool "mood" moments, but they can't sustain the creepy, kinda luxurious ambiance because the whole thing is so stupefying (and no budget).  However, I will admit to actually getting a kick out of Friday's episode--they embraced the lunacy and went full ham with the two body snatchers and a doppelgänger situation.  "Gina" and "Stefano" revealing themselves, the Rafe/Kate exposition about them, and finally Hattie giving herself away... I'm

not even going to try to articulate what happened in terms of everyone identifying themselves set against their actual identities, etc.  LOL.  I've also been ok with this week so far because things are finally happening and it feels like this is ending.  (And Stevano flashing on Abby was great.)

But while this stupid story is climaxing (and Ben's story is picking up), we're breaking baby switch/Will/Maggie momentum.  I'm all for the rotating stories, but this is whiplash--every few days it's like it changes to a different show. And on another story note, I'm super stoked to pick back up on Gabi/Eli/Lani/JJ... another stupid story, but I'm very genuinely curious where they're going with it.

1 hour ago, Soapsuds said:

I guess Ciara forgets that Ben killed Eve's daughter.

Everyone forgets that except Eve, and she was supposed to be a b!tch.  Ben is a mess.  This second act of his has lacked any and all integrity.  And it's also too bad, because he could have been an effective fan favorite in a recurring psycho role.  It's telling that they keep Ben separate from Chabby, but they've even had Abby defend him?!?

I don't know about his financial situation, but I doubt it was mutual.  He seems like one of those very admirable soap actors who has no illusions about their situation--this can be an incredibly stable career if you tow the line.  (Or at least it could in the past.). You may be forfeiting risk/reward, but you're enjoying security.  And soap lifers can still advocate for themselves, they just have to be willing to roll with the punches.  Galen seemed perfectly content to be a team player and ride the wave for as long as possible.

He is lucky he lasted so long.  Dena Higley relentlessly tried to make the Hernandez family work--never did.  And after they fired Christie Clark and finally dropped Safe, they kept Rafe as supporting (the only time I liked him, when he was f***ing Kate and wrapped up in Sami's murder trial after Stefano tried to cut his di*k off) before giving him Jordan.  When that didn't work they stalled while Aiden went darkside and Bo died, then they tried to really renascence the character by positioning him as the post-Bo(/Daniel) hero lead opposite Hope.  And it didn't work. Rafe just doesn't work.  But admittedly, after a decade+ of investment in the Hernandez family, I would've tried to keep him for Gabi's sake.  But, ya, this is vague and I don't understand what GG is saying.

Galen seems like a real nice guy and is very well liked among the cast, so it's sad to see a "vet" like this go, if he is actually leaving?

Should've figured Ron was gonna do some Marlena/Hattie thing after Kate spilled last week.  Closed captioning lol.  If this is all true, the yearly Marlena/Hattie switcharoo is getting old af.  I like Tony, Kristen, and Chad being a part of this, but the actual Stevano stuff is just horrible.  HOW did this get greenlit???

Wow... she's still taping.

That's the DiMansion "study," though... I actually really enjoy that set (I always try to spot what's in the bookcases), but I'm afraid we'll be without the full DiMansion set from now on

I really hope he doesn't end up a causality in this Gabi thing.  He's way too important a character to needlessly and carelessly be killed off.  RC already just did that with his Aunt Adrienne.

After all these months of unconfirmed news, soaps.com is confirming Casey Moss' departure. They say it'll happen during Feb. Sweeps.

I'm devastated.  JJ was an unfocused character after his first year or so, but CM really rose to the occasion every time he got good, big content.  And he worked so well with his family.  "Days" is going to lose part of its heart.  I feel lucky we had him for seven years.

Thanks for the spoilers!

The time jump was only a creative choice, but it would have been the perfect opportunity to bridge the gap between tape and air.  But from what I understand, this schedule is what keeps DOOL viable.  But as a daily soap, they need to be able to react to audience reaction to sustain really satisfying content.  At the very least, Meng, Alarr, and Carlivati need to pay much closer attention to the dailys.

And still no word on the actors' statuses...

4 minutes ago, edgeofnik said:

@DynamiteKiddo Yeah, it’s like they try to cram 4 days of dialogue during the 2 episodes they give LA/TP. But you can tell both actors enjoy the work and each other. I wish Tony & Anna were the ‘senior’ DiMera’s holding court in mansion ala Victor/Maggie just let Stefano RIP. With Kristen, Chad, etc there. 

 

KA is still stunning, especially with the Gina styling. But other than Rafe, is there else that she could be paired with? It’s the same issue with LK - having Kate chase Victor is just ick! 

The DiMeras as a family are... idek.  It's crazy to have Kristen and Abby involved and not have Peter's "shadow" looming over the family, with all the company drama.  And they need a center.  Tony & Anna as reluctant patriarch and matriarch could be quite amusing, but this family does need gothic darkness.  But I hate Kate as a surrogate DiMera... I love her relationship with Chad, but it doesn't mean she has to be shoehorned as a de facto DiMera, especially when her own family was the "othered" counterpoint to the core families for so many years.

And ya, if not Rafe, Hope's other options are pretty sacrelig'... either break up a supercouple or something insane like Chad or Ben?!?  Lol!  They could try her with Justin again I guess when S&K reunite.

And I definitely don't want Kate & Vic.  Despite others' feelings about Josh Taylor (and my own sometimes), I've been holding out for Roman & Kate to be endgame all these years.

23 minutes ago, edgeofnik said:

 

LH is a goddess! I've always loved her delivery - it's so quirky, but enjoyable. During this miserable Stevano mess, Anna ripping Stevano to his face was the only saving grace of the episode. SN has truly been atrocious. Even when Stefano got mad, JM still had this cool edge about him, not these hysterical tantrums.

 

When BB ranks as one of the DAYS top actors.... KA looks way too young to be his mom.

I really, really hate to admit it, but BB is simply fine.

Anna is a character I really appreciate seeing, but admittedly struggle with.  A little goes a long way for me.  Stevano/Gina can't end soon enough for me.  However, I'm not looking forward to Justin inevitably turning into a doormat (or much worse, a psycho) and I am very worried about a Rope reunion.  For better or worse, I accept Gabi as an integral part of modern "Days," but her brother, Rafe, had definitely run his course.  But they have that Rafe/Carrie loose end.  And they need to figure something out for Kris Alfonso; too bad they screwed up Aiden and Ted so bad.

I really love BB but it has a lot to do with his looks, lol.  But it is wild to put Kris, Brandon, and Olivia in a row as three generations, lol.

4 hours ago, Sindacco said:

I know alot of fans love to whine about Sarah getting much focus but in this case it wasn't uncalled for since she was in the car with Adrienne.

I will say that I never put Sarah's "terrible night" and Adrienne's "accident" together.  I was pleasantly shocked when the promo aired.  Even though the logistics still baffle me, I love a good multi-character car crash.  I just wish it had been staged differently.  Hopefully we'll get another, complete sequence if there's another twist.

3 hours ago, KMan101 said:

 

I agree they're schizo on who they feature but Ron did similarly on OLTL and GH. You'd go a week or two without seeing folks.

 

I also agree on editing the episodes differently. All of it ultimately feels rushed, even if it was decently produced, considering what the show often looks like.

 

They also continue cutting the wrong scenes. Jack with Adrienne was cut. Ron posted about it. Real shame someone keeps [!@#$%^&*] with the show. Yet we could get a 3 and 1/2 minute scene on Sarah worrying about Adrienne, who we never saw her interact with before, IIRC.

 

I'm guessing Summer is the real culprit (NOT A SPOILER TOUPS, IT'S MY GUESS). It frees everyone of blame and Ron didn't bring her back for a hot minute for nothing. It's how he operates. All of these things happened for literally no reason because it's probably Summer's fault.

 

I'm also going to throw out a guess that Evan killed Jordan. They're tying Ciara/Ben/Will/Sonny/Evan together for a reason ...

Random but you know what I kinda miss? Friendships. It's really refreshing when we get scenes between Will/Abby, Ciara/Will, etc. I get with the budget/guarantees/etc. that folks mostly stick to who they're in story with, with brief overlap, but I miss when the canvas truly interacted.

 

I randomly thought of when they had Paul/Lani becoming friendly and then he suddenly was confiding in Chloe.

 

We need more friendships. But soaps don't really take the time anymore. Not saying they don't exist or folks still aren't friends, but there's a lot of little things missing from DAYS that adds up, IMHO. And so it infuriates me when I hear that there's a few folks behind the scenes at DAYS that seem to have issues with certain families. I've heard Alarr is a Suzanne/Maggie stan. And someone thinks John/Marlena have 'too many kids'.

 

It's not a competition.

Cutting the Jack/Adrienne scene was a big mistake.  There's a deemphasis on the Johnson family that's particularly damaging to Jack and Steve... instead of having them as a family with their own special place on the canvas, their roles become very tethered to Jenn and Kayla, respectively.  (Which has been very problematic for the actors, esp. Matt Ashford.)

And Kayla is missing a point of view here, as she was just as close to Adrienne as she is, say, Hope.

Which segues into your point about friendships and broader interactions.  They're sorely missing or only shown for the plot (Marlena with Kayla and Kate right now).  But connecting Will and Ciara through Ben is about the only cool thing to come out of this "situation."  And even JJ/Lani/Eli/Gabi are in story together again and they are not tapping into their very rich (and recent!) history; that whole age group has such unrealized potential as a "crew."  And Jack & Jenn should be ALL over this Stevano & Gina nonsense.  (Until Missy left in '06, Hope & Jenn felt like the most important relationship on the show to me.)

Backstage bias sucks, but as "Days" fans, we don't have it nearly as bad as GH or B&B, lol.  I remember during TomSell, there was definitely real J&M hate and it didn't feel like just the writing.  I would love to see J&M together with Carrie, Eric, Sami, Brady, and Belle (and all the grandkids lol).  We've gotten so close a handful of times!  It's been since 1999!  Lol.

3 hours ago, Gray Bunny said:

 

Catching up, and finally watched New Years and I noticed the change on this episode with the scenes at Julie's Luncheonette Restaurant for New Years and again with Eli & Gabi showing up at Kristen/Lani's door. I agree it looks better aesthetically and takes away from the overall cheap, cardboard wobbly look of the sets. 

They shouldn't always be filming several feet away from the actors in spaces that are supposed to be small.  This is so much better, and adds variation and layering.  And I hate that they always film in the middle of a room, esp. places with lots of nooks like Brady Pub and K mansion.  I get that they can plow through hella scenes that way, but it looks like cheap theater, and not in a self aware way lol.  I remember when EJ died in 2014 (when production was MUCH worse than now), they made it a special episode by filming in places on the sets they never do.  For this cheap ass show, it was amazing.  And it was great to see the action and camera move from multiple characters/areas last week in the hospital (with JJ/Will and Victor/Xander).  That used to be normal.

And I agree that Julie's Place looks like it's one of those places that closes after lunch lol.  They did a nice job redressing it for the app series, though.

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Rolf is really stupid for pulling a gun on Steve in the middle of an Olive Garden like that.

HAHA!

I wish I were watching back when they had that Rome arc in '97... I read a scanned article online where the set decorator talked about redressing Salem Place to look like "Rome."  Even when they'd go to Europe before the '09 budget crisis they always had "Europe" sets... at the time I thought they were cheesy af; these days, I'd kill for 'em lol.  "Chad and Abby in Paris" worked for me because of the stock establishment shots and that great new set they got.

Freddie Smith and Wally Kurth both went for cracks and breaks in their voices.  I know some criticized WK for his initial reaction (which was overwrought and could've used another take), but I thought his performance was heartbreaking.  I appreciated what FS was going for, but it didn't exactly work.  And I thought Chandler Massey was great.  I agree with the consensus that they're low-energy, but I thought FS & CM really showed up to work this past week.  Matt Ashford was good too, if kinda hammy.  The one who surprisingly disappointed me was Kate Mansi... maybe she doesn't do "quiet strength" as effectively as she does everything else... ironically, this is absolutely Marci Miller's wheelhouse.

1 hour ago, Antoyne said:

I totally agree about SH being very likeable in the role as NormalKristen. It's when she's going bat-shi.t crazy that I find myself longing for Eileen in the role.

I actually think, when sane, SH's Kristen is much warmer than ED's. (Which is super interesting.)

However, ED does all the other stuff better... she has the gamut of emotions down, from devoted to shame to irritation to flippant defiance to scary to feral, etc.  SH hams it up too much and just comes off as f'n nuts and violent.  Which really worked for the J&M wedding, but it doesn't make for a viable long-term character, though.  But I hope that they make her work, as I've grown to really appreciate character and actor since the TJ.

On 1/23/2020 at 9:25 AM, victoria foxton said:

 

 

Ouch after this week

I remember at some point shortly after this, Adrienne calls Jack to tell him she had her baby and named him, Jackson, after him.  This never gets brought up now.

Brady & Kristen are a huge plot device for the sake of making this all "work."  However, I'll admit, it IS all working for me so I'm willing to roll with it.  Which is unlike me.  But NormalKristen shows how likeable SH can be in the role.  Her Bat$hitKristen, otoh, is pretty terrible for anything other than small doses.  But even though I'm down with this right now, I absolutely do NOT want Brady with Kristen and will likely have trouble with however they try to reintegrate Kristen as a viable character outside of Lani and the DiMeras.  But for the TJ, I'm cool with this lol.  Why Jenna?  Did she name her baby after Jennifer?

8 hours ago, KMan101 said:

 

SO many say that and I have to agree. lol.

 

lol yup

 

Oh man, that one's a keeper!

 

So many plotholes this week lol. Ron threw this together and it's nice to see some folks on social media finally starting to acknowledge this. 

 

And also this week goes to show they have it in them to put on a better show than they do. Just saying. Not that I've loved everything. Some of the acting has been awful. But the show's looked pretty good! lol

They must have new directors.  Some of the shots have been much tighter, like esp. in hallways... which makes it much realistic that these people are actually in hallways lolol.

But this week was very well produced.  My only gripe was that we needed music for the births, Haley's fall, and esp. the crash (and the lead up).  With the budget restrictions, visually, that's all they could do with the crash... but some suspenseful music and lots and lots of fast cutting back and forth between Will, Sonny/Justin, Adrienne/Sarah, and Xander would made such a bigger impact.  But the call between Sarah & Xander before the crash was perfect--LG & PT couldn't have been better all week.  LG's Sarah can really annoy me, but after this week, I really understand why they've invested so much in Sarah/LG.  And with Haley's fall... it was great, but they played it like any other scene in the episode.  After what they invested for those shots, I would have made that THE scene of the episode lol.  But all in all this was a very well produced week; it took him a while, but Greg Meng seems on-point visually, even if the character rotation is still jarringly uneven (because of guarantees and scheduling).

For the writing... it was sloppy, but really classic soap.  I just don't know how everyone's gonna move forward from this.  Summer still could've caused the accident, right?  Lol.

And one of the changes I think I would have made to the format was instead framing each episode with a "present day" at the top... I would have started each act with that with a specific character recalling whatever, to really give everyone a point of view... but maybe that would've been too much lol.

But next week should not be Gina/Stevano heavy.  This show is schizophrenic with who they feature... they're gonna lose a ton of momentum with the reveal--next week should be mostly baby switch and Wilson.  Thank God Ben wasn't in the promo lolol.