Khan

So were a lot of people, apparently. And I still don't understand why.

Well, that seemed pretty obvious even as I was watching the Mardi Gras explosion unfold. Maybe "domesticating" Janet to the point of having her sit all day in the Dillon living room and fold laundry was, in retrospect, a surefire road to nowhere, but McTavish's fervent desire to turn her into some mad bomber was just as baffling. I mean, as wacky as Janet From Another Planet was, she was an audience favorite nevertheless, so why would you want to paint her into a corner like that? I just don't get it.

Easiest bet anyone will ever make.

Soaps are supposed to be written FOR women, so why those who write and produce these shows decided along the way that having women fight like dogs over men would appeal to their female viewers...? Frankly, it baffles me.

Esme. Gladys. Brando. Who da fuq is responsible for naming the characters on this show!?

Great. One pointless character discovers he has feelings for another pointless character. "Please join us again...for THE YOUNG...AND THE POINTLESS." And why in the name of God is Nick still cavorting around with people in their twenties!? God, I hate the soaps.

Please, no one needs to relive Amish Reva.

It's like the joke about CBS always forgetting to cancel KNOTS LANDING. JJY has stayed as long as he has on GH, because they keep forgetting to write him out. John as anything other than Roman Brady was the end for me.

No, because "men don't get raped." But seriously. Even Sheri Anderson, Leah Laiman and Thom Racina took time out during those hectic days of far-flung adventures to make us understand why this-or-that character was doing what they were doing at the moment. It probably wasn't as deep as anything Harding Lemay wrote on ANOTHER WORLD; in fact, I know it wasn't, lol. But not once did I ever watch and ask, "Now, why in God's name are they doing that!?". As romance-focused as they were, they still tried to make it make sense. JER didn't. It was just, "Ooooooooh, chile, did you just see Carrie slap the [!@#$%^&*] outta Sami!?!?!?".

Honestly, what Sami needed, and still needs, is for Maeve Ryan to sit her ass down and give her a good, long, talking to.

Yeah, it was smart. Of course, it would have been even smarter to give them strong ties to the hospital. For instance, Bill (who still could've been played by Tony Geary, although...maybe not) could have been introduced as a new surgeon, the product of a blue-collar family who sacrificed a lot to put him through medical school, and was happy to be reunited with his clan after spending years working at a hospital somewhere on the West Coast. Then, in addition to Bill and Sly, the son by an ex-wife who, as the story suggests, is a gold-digger who was more concerned about being rich than being a wife and mother, we're gradually introduced to the rest of the Eckerts: Fred, Angela, Jenny, perhaps even a younger brother who becomes a rival with A.J. Quartermaine for some girl's affections.

And exactly where does this pathological behavior stem from? That's always been my $64,000 question for Samantha Gene Brady. Some blame it on the fact that she was raped by Alan Harris, but I'm like, "As awful as being raped can be for anyone, young or old, male or female, this goes way deeper than being raped." And you can't blame the selfishness and narcissism on Roman not being there for her childhood, because, as far as everyone was concerned, John was Roman. She had a father -- and a single father at that -- raising her. So, is Sami the way she is, because Marlena was absent for most of her young life? Is that it? You have to explain it to me, DAYS, like I'm a damn five-year-old. Otherwise, I'm just gonna think this brat is (still) bratty because that is what the plot requires. (See also: Heather Grant Webber, GH.)

Well, it definitely would have been jarring for many to watch, lol. But, to me, one of two things needed to result from the Two Romans saga: either John shifts into villain/anti-hero mode (which I suggested upthread), or Roman does. Because, IMO, a retcon that massive required showing a character, or characters, in a completely different, but well-motivated, light. John and Marlena's affair/Belle's conception? That's...okay, but nothing really changes from that except the towels in the bathroom. John, Marlena and Roman are essentially unchanged after the affair -- which is why it worked better as justification for Sami turning into a total bitch than it did anything else. PLUS...think about it: having Roman slowly go mad and turning more and more into the man he spent his career trying to take down...? I'm not saying I would have wanted Roman to become another, cartoonish supervillain like Stefano -- we'd still have to have hope for redemption somewhere down the road, or else Roman's gonna end up like Sam Reynolds on SEARCH FOR TOMORROW -- but that would have been an ironic transformation too delicious not to play.

Take out the part about Ryan's dad, and it sounds an awful lot like Kyle Sampson and Miss Sally Gleason on GL. Not saying it's an awful idea -- in fact, it might be the one, rare, good idea Megan McTavish ever had as a writer -- but I can see very clearly where she got it from. (Hell, maybe she was the one who came up with it at the other show!)

Poor Scott Bryce. I feel like he returned the last time out of a sense of loyalty -- both to the show, and to its' fans -- but had a difficult time understanding how and why Craig had not just regressed but had become an entirely different person. (Same goes for Ed Fry. I read Kelley Menighan talk about how frustrated he was with Larry's motivation, or lack thereof, in the whole Hunter mess.)

Agree. It's like GH knew it needed to move on from the "Spy vs. Spy" era, but it wasn't sure how to do that; and in retrospect, hiring back the EP who was responsible for that era's success might have seemed like a good idea "on paper," but it probably would have behooved them more to hire someone who would've brought a fresh perspective to the entire show, which is exactly what Wendy Riche later did.

But, when the affair happened, I felt that Sami, at the very least, should have been more torn between supporting/defending John and supporting Roman's need to have his family back. Instead, it seemed as if Sami immediately blamed John for breaking up the family -- which, again, seemed strange to me, because, in a way, John was her family. (Actually, it was a perfect opportunity for Roman to turn into a darker, more complicated character -- after all, how would you feel if you found out that another man had assumed your identity for years -- had, in fact, slept with your wife, raised your children, formed close and personal relationships with your parents and siblings -- with no one raising any eyebrows? -- with him becoming more Stefano-like, demanding that his daughters be loyal only to him; and Sami and Carrie unsure over whether to support Marlena staying with Roman out of some sense of duty, or "following her heart" and going back to John after Isabella's death. But, whatevs.) Yeah, it's as if JER and his team either didn't know or didn't care that, technically speaking, John was a bigger presence in Sami's early years than Roman had been. Just one more reason why I basically never cared for JER's simplistic take on DAYS. And as for Carrie...? Well, like you said, she was older and remembered more clearly. If anyone needed to show loyalty to Roman, it needed to be Carrie, because she was old enough to remember him with Marlena.

Well, Mac did have a defined purpose in the beginning -- as Robert Scorpio's estranged, irresponsible kid brother, with a shady reputation as a longshoreman. The brothers Scorpio hadn't seen or spoken to each other in years, which suggested they shared some deep, dark secret. (Didn't Mac kill their parents in some plane crash or something? Or did I dream that up?). However, JJY was such a wan actor that I think TPTB, including Gloria Monty, realized right away that he couldn't pull off playing the ne'er-do-well brother of their spy hero, so they had Mac and Robert making up over their differences and moving on, and Mac remaking himself into an entrepreneur, with the opening of the Outback. And then there was the romance with Dominique Taub, who was living in fear of husband Leopold, who was mixed up in some cartel with (I think) Harlan Barrett and Faison, and...it was all so interminable, lol.

Sami's attachment to Roman over John never made sense to me either. From what I remember, it was John, and not Roman, who virtually raised Sami. If anything, Sami and Roman's relationship needed to be more complicated, with Roman fighting to regain prominence in Sami's life, and Sami resisting out of a sense of loyalty or devotion to the man (John) who'd been there for her formative years.

Unless, that is, they betrayed him -- because, to a man like Stefano, loyalty was everything. So, if there was a situation where John, as Stefano's son, had gone against daddy in some, significant way...? Yeah, I could see Stef "punishing" him by brainwashing him into thinking he was someone else. (Or...John went along with the brainwashing, because he desired Marlena. It's just that the brainwashing ended up working a little too well for Stefano's liking, lol.)

I tell you, if that "Re-possession" mess doesn't end with Marlena renouncing her earthly ways and joining the convent....

I've disliked Mac Scorpio almost from the beginning, when it was all about him and Dominique and that slick-as-hell Keith Washington song that still makes me ill every time I hear it.

Stefano DiMera would do just about anything to anyone, including his own children, if it served his purposes. That's what made him so powerful as a supervillain...and so frustrating to me, too, if I'm being honest.

That's suggesting his second (or, for that matter, his first) stint ever went right -- which it didn't. I don't know if I could ever say JER was a great, or even a good, writer. In fact, I think the Laurelton mystery on GH, which I've heard he was largely responsible for, proved that his kind of storytelling always carried flaws that were deep and hard to overlook. But, IMO, Reilly's second stint at DAYS, along with the bulk of his work on PASSIONS, was simply the product of a writer who had lost what little skill he had in the first place. If JER was ever at the top of his game -- and I guess you could argue, from a ratings standpoint, that he was -- he wasn't anymore by the time he returned. In a way, it's not too unlike what had happened to Douglas Marland toward the end of his life and career. Of course, the difference is that while Marland's final year on ATWT was morose, it was still highly rated; whereas, Reilly's final years on DAYS and PASSIONS, respectively, which were tasteless, were not. That sentence right there is exactly why I wish NBC and Sony would just can DAYS already. Because, one possession was bad enough.

What, they aren't already? (God, I hate that show so [!@#$%^&*] much.) I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll keep on saying it 'til Errol has the good sense to ban me I'm on this lonely planet no more: the only John Black backstory that will ever make sense to me -- aside, of course, from him being the real Roman Brady after all -- is that he is Stefano's (illegitimate) son, whom daddy employed to impersonate Roman (probably to keep him from some great love that Stefano either felt was unworthy of the DiMera name, or wanted for himself, or both). DAYS can continue to dance around what is so obvious until it fades to black forever, but I'm stubborn and plain don't give a [!@#$%^&*].