Khan

As I've said, I think DAYS could be salvaged if TPTB would do away with the camp and the gimmicks and re-commit themselves to pure and honest storytelling. Unfortunately, even if Corday/NBC/Sony were to score a new EP like Shelley Curtis or Wendy Riche, or a new HW like Nancy Curlee or Pam Long, the fact that DAYS continues to tape its' episodes 17 years ahead would ultimately work against them. If the show's ratings or view counts or whatever magically went up on Peacock, then TPTB would pressure the new regime to give viewers more of the same; and if they inched downward, then they would likely panic and mandate that the show has to get even wilder or else risk being dumped from the platform. Either way, if a better production regime were to take the reins, it would be MONTHS before we'd get to see the results, and who knows what could happen, both on- and off-screen, in the meantime? In a perfect world, I guess, DAYS would hire a new EP and HW pronto, dump the appropriate number of episodes already in the can, allow the new team's stuff to air or stream as quickly as possible, and simply eat whatever production costs they have incurred on the "lost" episodes. However, as @Vee puts it in another thread, the studios and streamers are in panic mode. They're crashing, slashing and burning (or burning down). They're stripping whatever properties they can and selling them for parts. No one, especially NBCUniversal/Peacock or Sony, is gonna be interested in simply scratching months' worth of (shitty) episodes and starting fresh. Honestly, @j swift, I feel like AI bots have been writing DAYS since at least 2000, lol.

If Ellen Wheeler's creepy Mormon version of GL taught us anything, it's that... Frankly, @AMCOLTLLover, I don't feel the same sense of futility about DAYS that I felt about GL toward the end of that show's run. I think a new HW'ing and/or EP regime could save DAYS - even a DAYS that's been relegated to a third-rate streaming service and has had to rely for the longest time on found objects on the sides of streets for its' costumes and scenery - if they would re-commit themselves to telling smaller, simpler, character-driven stories that matter. Like Bill Bell once said, all you need are a man, a woman and a waterfall, "and who in the hell needs the waterfall?!". IOW, the "disaster" you've referred to, @Errol, is something that will play out on-screen down the road?

Perhaps, her best friend, Freddie, played by Kim Fields, will be able to explain everything?

Does DAYS even employ a casting director anymore, or does Ken Corday or Albert Alarr merely send out a group text whenever they need to cast another character?

I hate to say it, but even finding out that Whitley is on Megan's payroll and that Megan has paid her to brainwash Abe would be welcome at this point, lol. I'm just afraid that, down the line, we're going to get a scene where Abe bumps into Marlena or Kayla and mistakes them for characters on his "favorite soap opera." (Again, DAYS, this is how you treat one of your few, Emmy-winning veterans?)

I don't get the difference either, @carolineg. IIRC, "Eddie Maine" was just a stage name; he wasn't a split personality. Ned was still Ned, and he still knew who he was and who his family was, too. In my mind, Ned is playing a game with this Eddie Maine stuff, so he can lull Nina into a false sense of security, only to lower the boom on her later (preferably, during her and Sonny's wedding).

I agree, @Wendy. MSNBC and NBCUniversal are like everyone else in the media. They don't recognize the danger in continuing to give that man airtime. They see only dollars and cents. A long time ago, before he ever stepped foot inside the WH as Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump said that the press and the media needed him, because, without him, they'd never sell as many newspapers and magazines and commercials. Sadly, he was right.

Maybe "Darling Nikki," lol?

It doesn't make any sense to me either, @carolineg. Maybe an explanation as to why Synclaire, I mean, Whitley was so obviously obsessed with Abe that she kidnapped him is forthcoming. At the moment, however, the fact that we know nothing about her motivations makes this story even more bizarre than it is already for me.

I don't know why, but I feel like Abe's story would be much more effective if Renee Jones were back and playing Kim Coles' role. Of course, RJ's return wouldn't be permanent, since she's probably very happy in her retirement; and Whitley couldn't be working as a nurse at University Hospital, since it would seem odd to have someone who looks like Lexie working where she had worked but nobody bats an eye about it. On the other hand, Abe could have recurring, gauzy flashbacks of Lexie and assume that that person and the individual who's keeping him now are one and the same, with RJ's Whitley maintaining the illusion that they have been together for a very long time.

The Mac/Rachel/Janice/Mitch storyline was probably the last time fans were excited about AW.

Unfortunately, @Cheap21, I don't think the reboot is worth checking out. The reboot should have been an opportunity to retell the story for the late 2010s-early 2020's, with a greater emphasis on character development. Instead, it took the worst aspects of the original series - the paper-thin characterizations, the improbable plot twists, the emphasis of style and gloss over substance - and turned them up to eleven.

Wow, Larry Hagman looked really good in that ad, lol.

I agree, @Paul Raven. Consistency is one thing, but ATWT seemed to lapse into inertia by the late '70's. Characters appeared to be playing the same scenarios over and over again. The show definitely needed a jolt.

Something tells me they won't have to worry about Trump's passport. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think he's the type to color his hair, put on some eyeglasses and flee the country like someone on "Unsolved Mysteries."

I agree, @dragonflies. However, like I said in the Y&R July thread, even a brief return could still impact everybody's lives down the road, and it's becoming clear to me that this story probably won't have such an effect. In fact, I predict that, this time next month, it'll be like the whole mess had never happened.

On the one hand, springing Cameron from prison and bringing him back to Genoa City in order to terrorize Sharon and her loved ones so more seems pointless since it's likely the story will be wrapped up and forgotten by the time I finished writing this post, lol. On the other hand, however, even if Linden Ashby won't be sticking around for the foreseeable future, his abbreviated return still should shake up the canvas significantly; and I'm afraid that it won't. Again, if his return doesn't impact the Newmans' lives for years to come, then what was the point of bringing him back?

Elizabeth Hubbard was and is one of my all-time favorite actors, but it's hard to take some of her opinions seriously when she professed that Althea Davis was her favorite (soap) character to play. She thought Douglas Marland's conception for Gloria Walters was "cheap" and "obvious"? Well, that's peanuts compared to how Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock wrote for Thea on THE DOCTORS

I agree, @te.!

I agree, lol.

I can just imagine what the three or four other Marlenas would be doing right now. You have one clone living in squalor in a trailer park in Florida; another living a life of splendor as the wife of a wealthy businessman in England; a third living and working as a nun in an African orphanage; and maybe a fourth who is now a spinster librarian at a college somewhere in the Midwest.

It's continuing, because Ron Carlivati personally believes that if you pound a silly gag into the viewers' skulls often enough, sooner or later, the viewers will begin to love it; and if they don't, then, at the very least, they'll become so numb to it that they'll stop resisting. Speaking of head trauma, I'm sorry, because I'm trying very hard these days not to criticize the folks who make these shows, but what this show is doing to Abe Carver and to James Reynolds is so foul that Ron, Ken Corday, Albert Alarr and everyone else involved should be indicted.

Oh, you are so not kidding, @DramatistDreamer, lol! That scene had to be the lowest moment I've ever experienced in all my years of watching ATWT. Lower than anything Stephen Black and Henry Stern could've done and did during their brief tenure as HW's for the show.

Well said, @Vee! I guess it was for those moments when he inevitably found himself out of toilet paper.

I do, too, @P.J.. However, I would have brought back Scott Eldridge for that function. He, like Rick Ryan, was a virtual blank slate with a sketchy past and multiple ties on the canvas. Plus, imagine playing "bad" Scott against his "good" half-brother, D.A. Tom, with their mother, Lisa, who was once Oakdale's most notorious "bad girl," caught in the middle.