Khan

Ah. Kind of like how GH snatched Denise Alexander away from DAYS before they really knew what to do with her. Of course, GH didn't resort to turning Lesley into a villainess the way DAYS did with Kristen. They just gave her a long-lost daughter. Especially when Drake wasn't exactly unpopular as Roman. As much as I love Deidre Hall, I really feel like she forced TPTB into an impossible situation with the "Tale of Two Romans" crap. Honestly, I would have been happier just to keep Drake as Roman.

One name: Donna Mills.

For obvious reasons. No, there isn't, lol. But, that might be due, at least in part, to my lack of understanding over how Kristen came to be in the first place. Did DAYS create Kristen first, and THEN they hired Eileen Davidson? Did ED even audition for the role? Or, did DAYS hire ED, because she'd been popular for years on Y&R, and THEN created a character for her? If it was the latter -- and I've often suspected that it was -- then it wouldn't have been the first time DAYS had hired a popular star from another soap without having a real character for her to play (hi, Genie!). However, as Genie's DAYS stint taught us, it takes more than sheer "star power" to make a new character "pop." ETA: Yes, ED's Kristen "popped," but, IMO, she popped for all the wrong reasons: Susan, Penelope, Sister Mary Moira, Thomas and all the other lookalikes that I'm forgetting. Sorry, it's late, and I probably should be in bed. Not necessarily. Roman could have easily flipped out over losing first his identity, then his wife, to John. It's a bit SEARCH FOR TOMORROW-ish, but at least Wayne could have gotten some good scenes out of it. As I keep saying, all I wanted from JER and from DAYS was a fair fight. Let Marlena be caught emotionally between John and Roman, and then let her tell you, as the writers, where her heart truly belongs. Don't go in with preconceived ideas of who is endgame and who isn't. Just let the characters tell you where they want to go. Because this is a very, very, VERY peculiar situation. Even for a soap opera. Even for DAYS. If, as the story unfolds, you see that too much time has passed, and that Roman and Marlena are attempting to recapture a past that cannot BE recaptured (which makes sense, given everything that had happened), then, fine, let Doc go back to John. But, do it in a way that respects Roman, and respects the audience who still loves him. Make it a priority to maintain the essence of Roman Brady, as played by Wayne Northrop, even as time and circumstances have changed him (as they should). Whatever you do, DON'T be lazy and make Roman the de-facto heavy in the triangle (the dull and unreasonable husband who can't or won't accept that his marriage is over) just because you think John's peen is magic. Let Roman and Marlena be adults about this: they can see that they're growing apart, so they mutually decide to separate, before John and Marlena can have airplane sex. Marlena reunites with John, and either Roman leaves town, or he stays and "works on himself" (attends therapy, addresses issues stemming from his years of imprisonment, etc.). ...OR... If that's simply too damn hard for you, then, yes, just accept that the triangle is ridiculous on its' nose; let Doc chase after and coo over John's junk; and then, once you've acknowledged that years of torture have caused him to break completely from reality, have Roman go full-on Sam Reynolds and kidnap Jo Marlena before meeting his grisly demise in the woods. Simplistic and melodramatic? Yes. But, so was much of JER's writing for the three. Same. Even then, I knew that the supercouple/action-adventure formula of the '80's was played out and that DAYS needed to change direction. However, I never expected them to change into THAT, lol. If anything, I felt DAYS should have returned to basics, like GH did when Claire Labine became HW.

Which is ironic, because the premise surrounding THAT triangle was so ridiculous and so only-on-DAYS that it dictated that someone, either John or Roman, become less-than-good in order for it to work. To put it another way: for years, John (and everyone else) thought he was Roman; now, he's not. Marlena, who was once presumed dead, is back, and she's torn between her husband, who's also back from the dead (...I guess...), and the man everyone THOUGHT was her husband, including himself; and who's really more like her husband than he isn't. Now, try spinning something real and nuanced out of that, lol. It barely made sense, because DAYS hasn't been written intelligently since the Carter administration. And I say that as someone who loved this show back in the '80's.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your perspective on Kristen completely. You love Kristen and you want her behavior ascribed to a genuine pathology. As someone who grew up watching Douglas Marland's work on GL and ATWT, I think it's only natural to want to understand why someone like Kristen behaves the way she does. It's just that I don't think Kristen has ever been a strong enough character, either as a "saint" or as a "sinner," to support the deep-dish thinking. She was very thinly drawn in the beginning, which made it easy for a hack like JER to turn her into a wacko later over John's penis.

Not necessarily. Kristen and Marlena could have both been "good" people caught in a no-win situation over John. Unfortunately, it's been AGES since DAYS was the type of soap to do that kind of sensitive, nuanced, character-driven drama. And JER...? Well, like @KLN says, he tended to see things as black-and-white. Plus, I don't think enough time had passed after Patch's "death" for viewers to accept Kayla moving on with anyone, let alone her ex-brother-in-law. Or, maybe enough time had passed, and I'm just blurring it all together in my mind, I dunno.

RE: Shane/Kayla -- Perhaps, if their respective spouses (Kimberly and Patch) were both dead, or presumed dead, audiences might have accepted the pairing. But, the truth was, Kimberly was still very much alive, so it seemed like a slap in the face when you had Shane literally saying he had been with the "wrong" Brady sister all along.

I don't think Kristen Blake DiMera is a tragic anti-heroine. She's what happens when you don't know how to write a "good" character in a way that's interesting.

She doesn't. Delia was infinitely more layered as a character than Kristen. She wanted so desperately to be a part of the Ryans, because her own family was so messed up (schizophrenic father, mother who made a living selling subway tokens, etc); and she manipulated the family, who wanted only to love her, and constantly painted herself as a victim (against Mary, against Jillian, against Faith, against anyone who threatened her shaky status within the family), because it was easier than growing up. I don't know what the hell Kristen wants. Regardless of who's playing her at the moment.

I still wanna know whose idea it was to pair those two up in the first place. Like, did we not learn our lesson from Shane and Kayla?

Exactly. That's what I meant.

At the very least, having Marlena fall for the more villainous John, and having John struggle to reform himself in order to make himself worthy of her love, would have re-emphasized many of DAYS' core themes. Oh, Gawd. Just forget I ever brought the damn idea up.

Frankly, I don't even care for the minor revamp that Robert Calhoun performed on "As the World Turns On and On" when he took over the show in '84. The original, more space-age-y version is much more provocative. No, I wasn't talking about using "As the World Falls Down" as the show's final theme song. What I meant was, in the show's final episode, in its' very last moments on the air, before it faded to black for the last time, they could've had a montage of many of the show's best-ever moments, or maybe just a montage of showing all the current characters going on with their lives, with that particular song running underneath.

IMO, John and Kristen will always be fascinated with each other, because John is really more like Kristen than he is Marlena. Whenever he's with Marlena, he's still just playing the part of Roman Brady, as he was programmed to be. But, again, that's JMO.

*shrug* Oh, well.

Amen. Say what you will about Martha Williamson and her syrupy show, "Touched by an Angel," but whenever they DID talk about the devil -- and like Bill Cosby's angel character said, in one episode, "We don't like to talk about him much, because he isn't worth talking about" -- the show treated the battles between good and evil very, very seriously. They strove to entertain, yes, but they were also very careful not to glorify the devil or make him look like just another fairy-tale villain. This isn't "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," and the devil is not just another Big Bad.

It really appalls me that Ron Carlivati treats something serious like demonic possession as just more soapy goodness. This isn't some reality show on Bravo, Mr. Carlivati. You are literally playing with fire. You need to balance this darkness with light, not lightheartedness.

Again, it doesn't have to end with Roman and Marlena reunited. I mean, OLTL reunited Clint and Viki at the end, but miracles like that don't happen everyday, lol. I'm fine with John and Marlena as endgame, but, as @Vee posted upthread, it'd be nice to put a button on what is largely unfinished business for Roman. It'd also be a great way to restore some luster to Roman and give John/Marlena an organic conflict that keeps fans on the edge of their seats as to when they will reunite. (Again, when it comes to serialized drama, it's never a question of IF something will happen, but WHEN; and the longer you can delay the gratification, the better.) And if/when John and Marlena fight about her and Roman spending so much time together, Marlena could remind him of that, too. (Drake and Dee aren't the worst actors. They can rise to the occasion when given halfway decent scripts.)

As head writers, the Cullitons' track record has been very hit-or-mess, but as script writers, they've truly been among the best.

But, you see, you've just provided John with the necessary motivation: his hardcore devotion to Doc. John has endured a ton over the years for Marlena. Why, he's even literally fought the devil for her! Twice! And, let's not forget, when John was still just The Pawn, it was Marlena who willed him into recovering his memories. (Well, they weren't HIS memories, but you get the point). Ergo, when it looks as if feelings have resurfaced between Roman, the man John USED to be, and Marlena, the only person in this world who's ever truly known him, John feels he can't just step aside and let Roman win back Marlena, not after everything he (John) and Marlena have been through. The question is, how far would John be willing to go to hold onto Marlena? Will he like the man he becomes in the process? And how will Kristen -- who's never fully gotten over John, IMO, no matter what anyone says -- exploit the growing divide between John and Marlena (provided, we could get Eileen Davidson to commit to more than cameo appearances)? And what happens when John reaches what everyone feels is the point of no return? Maybe Roman and Marlena decide they're better off remaining as they are, but could Marlena forgive John for his actions throughout the crisis? Are redemption and a reunion with Doc even possible for John? (Of course, the answer to that last question is yes, but I would want the road to be a long and arduous one.) In a way, it's kind of like what happened years ago on ATWT, when Andy Dixon was battling the bottle, and his long-divorced parents, Dr. John Dixon and Kim Hughes, were thrown back together to help him through it. Kim's husband, beloved Dr. Bob Hughes, felt left out of John and Kim's growing closeness, which, in turn, left him vulnerable to a ONS with Kim's longtime rival, Dr. Susan Stewart. Now, Bob and Kim didn't split for good, but the affair did rock their union; and the story itself played on so much history between John and Kim (their marriage was pure hell), between Kim and Susan (they fought over Dan) and between John and Bob (John always resented Bob, because Bob was chief of staff and had the better bedside manner, even though John felt he himself was the more skilled physician). Not a single character in that unfortunate saga was under 30 or had a bangin' bod, but it was riveting just the same.

Well, I could see a scenario where Marlena's sanity is called into question after the medical board hears she is writing a book or giving an interview about her ordeal, thereby forcing Doc, her legal rep and her family to prove the unprovable -- I mean, the devil IS real, but how do you prove it in a sanity hearing? -- but I wouldn't have the board automatically revoke her medical license just because she fell in again with the wrongest of wrong crowds, lol. Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, Patch and Kayla, even Jack and Jennifer -- just about all of DAYS' other, legacy couples got a shot at romantic redemption, but thanks to that horrid Jim Reilly and his "storytelling genius," Roman and Marlena will never, ever get that opportunity. I'll never forgive him for that. Ever.

And that's why this genre is in the toilet. Because no one at the top even cares anymore. Wait, what? You want to "punish" Marlena for being possessed by the devil again! I mean, it's not like it was her fault, lol! Like I keep saying, this SHOULD lead Doc to take a hard, serious, thorough look at her life, and what has led her to this point. Maybe she could realize she shouldn't be a psychiatrist anymore. Maybe God is calling her to a different profession, like an evangelist, or even a nun! (Boy, wouldn't THAT put a kink in her and John's marriage!). But, she shouldn't just shrug it off and carry on to the next insane episode. Demonic possession is nothing to be casual or cavalier about.

I'm not saying you need to reunite Roman and Marlena either (...although, a boy can still dream...). I'm just saying, give me what JER wouldn't: an honest-to-God triangle with Marlena, Roman and John, where the fix isn't in before the story even takes off. Give the audience back shades of what made Roman, and Roman and Marlena, such a big deal during the Reagan years and then see if John and Marlena are truly endgame. If they're actually NOT endgame, and Roman/Marlena actually win over the audience again, fantastic! Roman and Marlena are back together, and (much to Kristen and Sami's endless frustration) John gradually falls for a made-over Susan. But, if John and Marlena ARE endgame...? Well, then, Roman and Marlena's issues are resolved, John and Marlena can go back to cooing at each other, and Roman will be truly free to be in a new triangle between Kate and her long-lost sister, played by Lisa Hartman Black. Because, Ron Carlivati is an idiot.

That's what would be so brilliant and beautiful about bringing back Wayne as Roman. You could have another go-round with Roman/Marlena/John, which I would love (I STILL believe it could work if written right); or you could have Kate/Roman/Marlena/John, with even the possibility of John and Kate hooking up; or even Kate/Roman/Laura, which would yield its' own, tantalizing dividends. Wayne Northrop back as Roman would be just that good.

What if he's been possessed all along, and the movie idea was just a part of the plan? I'm not sorry Zach Tinker isn't on this mess of a show. He deserves better.