Khan

Yep, we sure did, lol. Look, I realize that the era of supercouples jetting off to exotic locales in order to take down supervillains like Stefano DiMera was over and that DAYS needed to move in entirely new directions. And I realize, too, that had JER not gone big, then DAYS would have gone home, permanently. But I feel like DAYS (and other shows) should have taken lessons from Y&R, GH and even GL and turned inward, focusing back on the kinds of deep, psychologically complex stories that Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith had told in the '70's. Maybe DAYS wouldn't have come within points of beating Y&R in the ratings, but then again, maybe it wouldn't have become the kind of silly, cartoonish mess that it still is today either.

ICAM, @chrisml. James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten should have introduced Sydney Chase on LOVING in preparation for the spinoff. Doing so might have helped give TC more of a "push" in terms of building suspense around her, and around the new show in general. I don't necessarily agree that the LOVING Murders needed to continue on TC, but I do think they needed to plant story seeds other than, "Hey, everyone, Corinth's been a real drag since Gwyneth Alden killed everybody, so let's all move to SoHo!". (In retrospect, maybe they would have been better off just moving some of those actors over to AMC or OLTL.) Furthermore, as I've said before, I think TC made a concerted effort in the beginning to steer away from telling the sort of big, melodramatic stories that we had become accustomed to seeing on soaps - to be "anti-story," in a sense. I think that makes a sense if you want your show to be seen as a cutting-edge soap for a new generation. But even if you don't want the kinds of stories that you could watch on your grandmother's old soap opera, you still need something that will keep people glued to their screens other than jaw-dropping sets and fantastic camera work and editing. You also need strong characters with strong relationships that, in turn, will generate strong stories. I also agree, @chrisml, that they might have miscalculated Morgan Fairchild's appeal in getting her to agree to star on TC. Obviously, if you lived through the '80's, or if you watched SFT BITD, or even if you saw her play Sandra Bernhard's lesbian lover on "Roseanne," then you know who she is. But I don't know whether that appeal carried over at all into the next decade. If TPTB wanted a "name" to headline TC's cast, then they either should have swung a bit higher - maybe gone for someone like Jaclyn Smith*? - or, as I suggested eons ago, they should have (done the unthinkable and) spun off Erica Kane/Susan Lucci (with the provision, of course, that she still could appear on AMC occasionally, and that she could return full-time to AMC should TC ever be cancelled...which it was). For some reason, @Vee, I was thinking 3:00 pm CST, rather than EST. Yeah, I can't see ABC bumping even a flailing GH up or down on the sked for a new soap that was rising from the ashes of a cancelled, low-rated one. They'd sooner put TC on after "Nightline." *It's just a suggestion, since I can't think of any "names" in the same age bracket as MF's that held any cache in the mid-to-late '90's. I ask you politely not to kill me.

And now look where he is: lucky to get a part in a movie on LMN.

I agree. I'd be okay with a return to the network OR with streaming, but I do think streaming would be the better of the two options. Granted, things are looking shaky at the moment in the streaming industry. In fact, the business itself appears to be contracting, as streamers are merging, dumping a lot of product that isn't retaining viewers and whatnot. If you ask me, though, I think these shifts will be good for streaming in the end. Yes, streamers ultimately will adopt a business model that will look an awful lot like cable TV, but I think doing so will create a need for profitable but more "traditional" kinds of programming...such as soaps.

And if you didn't watch LOVING, but you knew TC was spun off from it, you weren't going to tune into the new show, no matter what. IMO, the only things TC had going for it going in were Morgan Fairchild, Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams. Otherwise, as amiable as the LOVING actors might have been on-screen, the start of TC was a big "So what?". Maybe. For one thing, TC could have pulled in younger viewers who didn't know the connection with LOVING and therefore could love or hate it on its' own terms. Again, though, you gotta have story and incredible characters to draw viewers of any age in, and I just don't think TC really had that (at least, not at the start).

I agree. I could be wrong, but I don't think Mark Hapka/Nathan was very popular, so the fact that Nathan hasn't been mentioned at all since he left Salem likely guarantees that we'll never see him or Melissa again.

Lordy, lol! But at least we know who Nick's parents were. I'm still trying to figure out who fathered Nathan, lol.

Even her battles with DID read as dull, and that's saying something, lol!

Make no mistake: DAYS was floundering. At best, Deidre Hall and Wayne Northrop's returns provided a sort of Band-Aid, but they alone could not salvage the rest of the show creatively. It NEEDED a new direction BADLY. I'm just not sure JER was the right person for that task (then, or now).

I wouldn't go that far, @Paul Raven, lol. I'm actually okay with rebooting/reviving AMC, but I think it needs to be done right, by people who "get" the show and its' overall message. Like @Errol said, it needs to be done either in daytime on a network or on streaming. Reviving it as a primetime series is not going to work.

That reminds me of what John Pleshette (ex-Richard Avery, KL) said about KNOTS and the difficulties of getting the show's original cast (four couples, all living together in the same cul-de-sac in Southern California) to interact. In real life, he said, neighbors don't become all that involved in each other's lives, so you end up contriving situations where they could be involved - like, for example, having Gary Ewing work for Sid Fairgate at Knots Landing Motors. That's why I tend to prefer soaps centered around families. Like you said, @te., family members might squabble with each other, but blood always will be thicker than water. Also, stories about families are something just about everyone can relate to. If you didn't come from a large or loving family, you can live vicariously through one on a soap. In the end, I wonder if it was worth spinning off LOVING into TC at all, just because LOVING always had been a low-rated show with not much of a following outside of its' core audience. Maybe Agnes Nixon, James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten would have been better off developing a brand-new soap that had no ties to LOVING whatsoever.

How could I forget the country Alice's? When Bonnie had the audacity to change the sign to one of a drawing of the late Alice Horton, wearing a Stetson hat and brandishing six-shooters, lol! You'll never convince me that JER loved writing for DAYS.

I think Douglas Marland would have used the flood as an opportunity to introduce a new family - most likely, a blue-collar family, who would have been particularly devastated by the flood - while keeping Jo, Stu, Patti, Liza, Sunny, etc. front-and-center. I know people think Marland couldn't write a half-hour soap, but I'd like to chalk up his stints on THE DOCTORS and LOVING to external forces, lol.

"Gold & Silver Circle Honor"? What is this? The Daytime Emmys, or the Kentucky Derby?

More than likely, Gary Tomlin wrote GH during the strike, Josh Griffith wrote Y&R (and directed it and acted out half the parts); Bradley Bell wrote B&B, and Anna Indiana wrote DAYS.

I wonder if TC took that approach deliberately in order to avoid looking like another hoary old soap opera and instead look hip and contemporary.

And the WGA is wrong for doing it.

It could've been worse: they could've asked SMG to present Lucci with the award. And why would Francesca James have been there?

I agree. And if they could somehow get Nancy Curlee or Patrick Mulcahey involved with the writing? Even better.

It doesn't surprise me that JC/Kay appealed to 12-17 year olds. After all, Kay Chancellor was a woman who looked fabulous all the time and had just enough money to tell people to go [!@#$%^&*] themselves. When you're twelve years old, that's a life goal, lol!

I think I see where you're coming from, @dc11786. Although a "found family" has its unique advantages, having a "traditional" family with multiple generations lends itself very well to conflicts, too. Like you've said, it all comes down to how families are explored, and TC apparently didn't explore its' "family" very well.

I'm not saying I'm okay with writers going Fi-Core, but I am REALLY uncomfortable with anyone publishing the names of those who do. That's a little too "Red Channels" for me.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: social media will be the death of us all.

When I said "everyone involved," I didn't mean Bob Nixon. It's more than who'd they bring in to write and produce the show, though. It's also about the vision for the new show and its' tone. From everything that I have read about it, it sounds like "Pine Valley," or whatever it would be called, would be dark, and not at all like the AMC I remember watching. In fact, it's as if Megan McTavish is back and ready for prime time!

I know PASSIONS was the first time I'd heard anyone who worked in soaps talk about the 12-17 demos, but that might not be when that particular demo became so highly coveted. (Maybe it was during JER's DAYS 1.0?)