Vee

You can do a hell of a murder mystery with Gwen. But Ron hates letting go of villains and antiheroes, he tries to force them into becoming the protagonists. We're 6-9 months away from Leo's abuse backstory a la Kevin on Y&R. Which in theory isn't actually a terrible concept, but the problem is how Ron tells these stories on his soaps - he slants everything to make the dangerous, volatile characters the good guys in a scenario, and forces the 'good' characters to become what his storytelling clearly views as prigs, hypocrites, etc. to try to make it all work. He's been doing this for most of his career. Ron has a formula and he follows it. He didn't retcon Ben's crimes when it is extremely easy to do on a show like DAYS, because, like Victor/Todd II on OLTL, he stubbornly believed the audience can and should accept the character as a romantic lead regardless of their grotesque crimes simply by the force of his writing talent. It's ego. Jesse was an angel on at least two soaps (AMC and Loving), lol. But it worked out. The resurrection story for Jesse was full of holes and not very good, but the performances carried it and the net gain for the show going forward with the Hubbards re-cemented was huge. Same goes for bringing back Dixie, or Will or Jack on DAYS, or Bo. The longtime value to the foundation and the families and history can't be overstated.

It was the same principle with Will, that was also a mistake. I can think of a few others! But the point is, yes, they're right to do it especially since Kristian is, I suspect, unlikely to return on a contract, or an ongoing status that doesn't have a lot of outs or breaks like this silliness with Chandler Massey. At least with Hope you can say 'she's off with Bo'.

Exactly. It's a little late to start grounding DAYS in reality. And even if you did reinvent the show, I wouldn't start by sealing this pointless death in concrete. AMC had the right idea when it resurrected several key people before going off ABC, then clean slated a ton of the show to reinvent it on Hulu. They had much more room to grow.

I am not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. It was a mistake to kill off Bo, particularly when there was no good new man or story for Hope let alone solid writing. The way they were mishandled is one of so many black marks on the show (not unlike the many deaths of Jack Deveraux) and it's in their interest to fix it.

We've had these discussions in the MP thread - I think a lot of S4 works but once Darren Star leaves and the stories and characters he set up begin to go sideways, it gets pretty nuts by the end. S5 was an intriguing attempt at a more grounded change but a lot of it doesn't work while only some did. S6 is awful, and S7 isn't perfect but is a pretty decent recovery season (again, brought to us by former Knots Landing creatives). MP should not have been cancelled given the success of S7.

I thought it was a brain tumor.

I knew they'd be back someday, and I hoped it'd be before the end. This is lovely news. It's uniquely DAYS that the show is experiencing a bit of a new media renaissance and may or may not have more network commitment behind it now than in many years while still being deeply backwards in its storytelling and a mess day to day. The rising profile of the show with all this stuff is good news for the genre and for DAYS' longevity and I'm happy for that, but it has yet to translate well to quality.

Lee Grant! Did she ever do another primetime soap (not counting Peyton Place)?

What a thrill. Spoilers for the Thirteenth Doctor's upcoming finale: The end of this sorry era cannot come soon enough, now for two more very good reasons.

It was a brand new show IIRC. I don't remember the plot details but there were some.

Berfield has a kid but is very private re: any family, though I have heard he is in fact allegedly married to a woman and not gay as was rumored for aeons. But yes, Unhappily Ever After - so creepy.

That show was weird as hell. I just remember that's where Justin Berfield from Malcolm in the Middle first turned up, along with IIRC Nikki Cox.

I just binge Golden Girls when that goes down tbh. Or Cheers. But I doubt you can go wrong with Labine's early GH in '94 or Marland's ATWT, at least for me during this pandemic.

I'm touring soon, baby! In honor of the first two replies, my first stops will be Shady Pines and Shut-Ins Anonymous.

Lord:

Oh, I'm free, baby.

I been saying!

This is a sad piece of news, as I've always admired Langella's work and I love Mike Flanagan's as well, and I was looking forward to seeing Langella work with him. More admirable, though, that Flanagan acted so quickly.

RIP to this king.

It's way too common on soaps now (and GH in particular) for the entire canvas to be allied against one obvious villain who everyone knows is responsible but they can't act. So it's just day after day and scene after scene of people scowling and complaining about so and so and doing nothing but making 'plans.' Esme is no different. They all know she did it and the (white) kids are no worse for wear, so where's the story? It feels like GH (and not just GH, Y&R does this too) coddling the aged audience by reassuring them nothing much will change or impact these characters in a serious way. Too often the stories just drone along.

Lynch is now denying it (in a strange way), which begs the question of how Variety of all publications could've gotten rumbled: That is weirdly cryptic, and he is known to fib. I am used to the rumors going nowhere generally, and I only entertain them when he speaks or a major publication does. So my only skepticism at this point is how Variety could've been off, if he's being truthful. Meanwhile: