Khan

That sounds simple enough, but the problem is that DAYS has gone so far out there - not just with those tropes that you've mentioned, @Liberty City, but with a great many other silly gimmicks - that to try and write more character-driven, budget-friendly stories in the vein of Bill Bell or Pat Falken Smith would be impossible to do at this point. The core of the show is too rotten, and it would take too long to "re-condition" the audience, too.

I agree. I'm not sure whether this has been mentioned yet, but the success of "The Cosby Show" spurred CBS onto making their own, African-American family sitcom, "Charlie & Co.," starring Flip Wilson, Gladys Knight, Kristoff St. John (ex-Adam, GEN; ex-Neil, Y&R) and the Once and Future Urkel, Jaleel White. The family on "Charlie" appeared to be more middle-class than the affluent Huxtables. Nevertheless, you could see the parallels between the two shows. Ironically, "Cosby"'s success also inspired Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye to create "Married...with Children" (or "Not the Cosbys," as the show was called originally). But here's my question: would y'all argue that MWC, in a sense, provided the foundation for what would become "Roseanne," which was itself a response to "Cosby"'s affluent take on the American family?

Granted, I'd be happy just to get my 44-year-old foot in the door, but I couldn't write for DAYS even if I were magically their new HW, because I wouldn't know how to make that show make sense for me. Nothing about it is remotely connected to reality or common sense in any way. I mean, I could try and find ways to make the show more grounded, but it would be oh-so-painful. For myself and for everyone else involved, lol.

Chase: "You have a bigger problem than I thought." If you're talking about ME's acting, Chase, let me remind you and everyone else that I've been saying the same thing since DAYS OF OUR [!@#$%^&*] LIVES.

I wish this show would admit that Abby is a dead end of a character and kill her off.

IDK which is worse: Ron Carlivati's writing or working with Ron Carlivati's writing.

Tyler Perry's number one problem as a writer - aside from the misogyny, the colorism and the blatant self-hatred as a closeted gay man - is that he has no idea at all how to structure stories or even scenes with beginnings, middles and ends. His writing is what MST3k's Michael J. Nelson would call a Möbius strip, one that starts from nowhere and leads exactly to the same place.

Two things I'd love to do with Y&R: 1. Bring the show back to Bill Bell's original concept: stories about YOUNG people and the challenges they face today. It's shameful how Y&R (and every other soap) has neglected to spotlight the political and societal upheavals that have occurred in this country over the past decade or so, particularly in regards to how they affect our youth. 2. Introduce a new family from the "wrong side of the tracks." A character or characters struggling to move beyond their meager surroundings has long been fertile ground for storytelling; and in our present day, with economic disparity foremost on many people's minds, I feel such a unit would be very relevant to Y&R's audience.

Lemme guess: he turns him loose inside Wyndham's with a Capital One Visa and instructs him to buy clothes that aren't black and/or leather. I mean, if Frank loves working with RH and Michael Easton so damn much, why does he keep bringing them back to brand new characters each time? Why not just keep them on indefinitely as the same characters or, if they have to leave from time to time, just bring them back playing the characters they were playing before?

For your sake, @Errol, I'm glad Dan O'Connor knows about you and about this board. I don't always say or show how much I appreciate being a part of SON, but I do. Especially now that I have learned to make the Ignore User feature my friend, lol. Furthermore, I can tell from that interview that O'Connor seems to be a very friendly, down-to-earth guy...but that won't change my assessment of him as a (head) writer. I wish I could be more like Douglas Marland and cheer on everyone who works in the industry, regardless of talent, but I can't. I've gotta call crap when I see it. And it doesn't matter whether it's crap, because of the usual network/studio interference; or it's crap, because the writer(s) simply can't tell good writing from bad. Crap is crap, and a lot of what I watched of Chris and Dan's work on GH was crap. And if the industry ever slipped up and gave THIS crank a job as a writer for one of these shows, rest assured, I wouldn't delete one single, solitary word of what I've said over the many, many, MANY years that I've been ranting about these shows online. Not even if I turned out to be a bigger hack than Chuck Pratt, Megan McTavish, Dena Higley and Hogan Sheffer COMBINED. And you have my word on that. And if it wasn't, then the husband must be really confused, lol.

Ugh, don't remind me, lol! It isn't so much that I think they aren't that bad. But it's not like they're gonna polarize the audience the way other, more toxic couples do on this show. Besides, I feel like their fans have suffered long enough, and that everyone deserves a payoff eventually, lol.

Guess you haven't seen "Tyler Perry's Madea's Guy Fawkes Day"?

In this case, however, it doesn't help to have an EP (such as Frank Valentini) who inadvertently reinforces their prejudices by dragging his feet for the longest time on promoting Spencer and Trina's relationship (when it's clear his preference is for lily-white Joss) and then stuffing Trina back into the background as soon as Spencer is killed off. Call me crazy, but I think we'll see Trina recast at least two more times before that girl ever gets another love interest.

LOL!! Sorry, @JAS0N47, but reading that made me laugh so hard. I hope you don't take it the wrong way? If you did, I apologize! What you do for all DAYS fans is nothing short of Herculean, and I, for one, thank you for all the time and energy you devote to keeping such a truly valuable database.

I can see it!

Sorry, I've claimed Y&R already. But I really like your ideas!

Granted, I'm not a Jason/Liz fan, but I feel like their fans deserve a good, old-fashioned power ballad as payment for all those years they had to trust the plan, lol. It wouldn't. It would be like watching a dinner theatre production of "Days of Wine and Roses." Or, in their case, "Days of Drugs and Neuroses."

Abby could start a podcast called "[!@#$%^&*] My Families Haven't Told Me About" and each episode could be about her learning about and responding to the latest crises in her families months after the fact.

Just one more reason why I needed a storyline that explained the source of all of Heather's problems (and no, I'm not talking about poisoned hips either, lol). What happened in that girl's childhood to make her the way she was? Like most characters created by the Pollocks on all their shows, it seems like Heather came in scheming from the very beginning without any real explanation as to why.

As far as I was concerned, there was only one option for Nadine after that whole debacle with Bridget, and that was to leave Springfield in disgrace.

If/when Jason and Liz finally become a couple, I hope they'll scrounge up enough cash to play this song at their wedding:

For some reason, I'm recalling actor James Greene (who was in a lot of movies and TV shows, including one of my all-time faves, "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd") played a real sleazy type who either tried to rape Jenny while she was hiding out in NYC, force her into pornography or both. Did that actually happen, or am I misremembering?

AFAIC, we need to start a "#FreeGHActors" movement on social media, lol.

Now that you mention it, @Paul Raven, I think that's EXACTLY why he said he didn't care for the story. At least that's what I'm recalling atm, although I might be wrong. Also, I recall reading in some other, long-forgotten book about the soaps that when Marland arrived at GH, he realized that the show was still working off the long-term projections from the last several HW's. I think that's why what he (and Gloria Monty) were able to do with the show was so remarkable, because they really had inherited a mess, lol.

IKR? It's so...Village People, lol. And the second theme song is like something you'd hear on a PBS kids show from the same period. Thanks for all this information and analysis, @Paul Raven. It really helps put the Silverman era at NBC in a different perspective for me. Come to think of it, I can't think of too many Universal-produced comedies. I think "Kate & Allie" and "Gimme a Break!" come closest, but MCA-TV was just the distributor/syndicator.