Skin

If Sarah Michelle Gellar comes back as Kendell I am watching. She was a Firestarter during her early years on All My Children, and a crazy powerful dramatic actress. Her Buffy, her Kendell and her Katherine are all iconic characters in their own right, and she excelled at playing the emotions for all that they were, and always went beyond the writing to make her characters work, shine and penetrate through to the audience. I'll take her over watery Minshew every day of the week, and twice at supper. Minshew could play romance but that was it. Her fake coughing crying fits and Vivian Leigh voice overs were weak tea, compared to what Gellar could produce at the drop of a dime, which was always insane given that she was a teenager at the time. I loved how much SMG's Kendell hated Erica, it made the show so interesting, and her seething, palpable rage was captivating in a way Minshew just never was. SMG's Kendell was Carly, before Carly was even a thing. I agree with this. Reboots are a huge thing nowadays, with Buffy and Cruel Intentions not being picked up Sarah doesn't have a lot of opportunities to land in terms of reboots. Crazy to think that All My Children would be the project to raise her back up to notoriety again. Everything comes full circle.

I kind of disagree. We have a proxy for that and it doesn't bode well at least with both Greenlee and Babe. We know that they didn't work, or at least didn't match what the originals brought, which is why the recasts were so short lived. As soon as Budig said she wanted to come back they threw Sabine out the window, while the ink on her contract was still wet. I also have a hard time believing Pratt would have killed Babe off if Alexa was still in the role and spinning dreck into gold on a daily basis. Babe as a character could have been written out many times in 2004 or 2005. The reason she wasn't was likely due to Alexa's ability to work her stories so well, and AMC's need for a replacement Eden Rigel and eventually a replacement Rebecca Budig, to contrast Minshew. Ultimately I think there was a reason why Leo was never recasted, and why no writers ever saw fit to undo the death of Gillian, with a recast in the role. They were just that good, and the writers realized that they weren't worth the squeeze.

I'm glad I waited to watch this, rather than looking at each episode piecemealed. The show didn't really start to get interesting until the last few minutes of episode 3 with the Wanda and Monica tension. The show really found it's stride from Episode 4 onward. Elizabeth Olsen deserves a Primetime Emmy in the Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series category, stat. Like I don't care what Disney has to do, just make it happen. She pretty much single-handedly made Disney's service a thing, that's worth tuning into beyond their bad screen for screen remakes. Episode 8 was brutal, but also what this entire series needed from the very beginning. I really can't walk around from this episode without a burning hatred for Tony Stark and Tyler Hayward. Literally such awful people, and I feel it would be justified if Wanda hated them for what they put her through. That scene where Tyler gaslights her, is enough to make me want to push his head in. Literally every sentence he said was designed to trigger her. The behavior is just disgusting. Desecrating Visions body in front of her, telling her she has no say in how she can mourn him, and that his body doesn't belong to her but the government -- it brought up really bad themes of slavery to me. Just beyond unfair. But she maintains control the entire time. It makes me even angrier that he basically created Ultron again, by creating a sentient weapon. Showing how Tony continues to be a scourge on this earth. In the end of the episode, I was actually glad to see her reject the reality that life gave her, and just sort of create her own in sheer denial and obstinance. I would totally do the same thing. I stan. Wanda gave herself the life she deserved, and I don't really see a problem with that, even though what she is doing is technically "wrong" with the mass brainwashing of an entire town. It's hard not to see this story as a bit political, or at least a commentary on gender? Women are constantly told to keep their emotions in check and that they can't get overly emotional, Wanda has to hold back against someone who deserves all of her anger, which is deeply unfair and unsatisfying. The idea that Wanda has this conga-line of grief and she is still seen as someone who deserves to be put down, and is dehumanized when it's men who put her in this position time after time, just makes me seethe. Especially since she came into S.W.O.R.D. peacefully, listened to them, let them point guns at her, threaten her, and walked away without much fuss. It's also kind of wrong that everyone in the universe gets a happy ending but her? It's kind of cool that they are finally adding Wanda's powers into the MCU, her powers have always been a bit confusing and I feel comic book editors have never known how to describe them: she impacts probability fields, she has magic, she warps reality, she has telekinesis, she reads minds until she can't, etc. Her capabilities are monstrous, but I guess that will help scale Phase 4 effectively. It's hard to not see her as the strongest Avenger moving forward. Even Agatha seems to be completely out of her league.

I agree with this -- but I also think it represents a problem that AMC was having in the 2000's. The characters really only worked because of the actors that played them. It says a lot that Greenlee, Babe, Leo and Gillian only worked because of Budig, Havins, Duhamel and TerBlanche. Either you have a tremendous casting director, or the writing is bad. Probably a bit of both. I'm convinced that this is the reason why soaps got on as much as they did when the writing was reaching new lows. However I think casting directors and TPTB did recognize when they had gold at least as we got deeper into the 00's. It was clear with ABC that they were prioritizing certain strings (string 1, string 2, string 3), who the show could revolve around and were looking to the talent pool of actors and actresses to make the writing work, and make the show happen. I agree that these characters had potential to be future leads of the show but that was because of the actors in the role, not the characters themselves. The talent was good at being able to hide the writing. W]hich I think is what FrenchBug is trying to say. Leo and Gillian would not have functioned well without Josh and Esta, and we've seen that a number of times when a recast fails to recapture what the original actor created, and the character is just kind of useless and a dead-end storywise, when the soap could have cut their losses and not have ruined the story because of it. I personally disagree that Ryan Lavery as a character was useless, in my opinion he was able to survive outside of Gillian, even though his romances were no where near as poignant. Ryan was able to create at least two more successful pairings with Kendell and Annie. Where as after Leo Greenlee could barely capture anything. Ryan could have gone on for years with Kendell, if there wasn't network interference of making Rylee work as a pairing. Sabine would have been fine as a new character, she just was never Greenlee though and it's really hard imagining her as Greenlee. I remember her scene where she said "I just wanted to come home, that was my big crime" in the Confusion bar scene, and Greenlee would never have been that nakedly vulnerable, towards people she was angry with. She just wouldn't. Sabine would have worked as a dramatic love interest for Aiden, or Josh, or any one of choice, but she didn't have the chops to play the dramatic soap bitch that was Greenlee. Budig, is hard as nails and it's her biggest strength and biggest downfall, but she sells mean Greenlee like no other.

I still squeal like a school girl every time I see the scene where he and Greenlee reunite back in 2011, and he tells her to smell his cologne, and he kisses her cheek. Leo and Greenlee Reunite He is such a giant because he knew when to leave, and Greenlee was never the same after him.

I could understand critiquing the libodozone story, but honestly the returns from the dead were needed because AMC shouldn't have killed off all of those characters in the first place. I just look at it as Broderick righting the ever wrong that was unleashing Pratt on All My Children. I think Cady's return as Dixie in 2005/2006 was misunderstood, and the fact that fans didn't throw themselves on the screen when they saw her return made TPTB think she wasn't worth a return. The response to Dixie coming back to screen in 2005, wasn't what you typically would expect. Jesse and Angie returning was huge, but Dixie just kind of got an eyebrow raise. They got more of a reaction from fans once they killed her off with the pancakes. Had fans given that reaction earlier I doubt they would have killed her off. Dixie/Zach, Dixie's iciness to Tad and JR, Dixie's weird story with Greg Madden all made the story so much worse than it should have been. Audiences didn't want Dark!Dixie. They wanted Dixie from 2002, and Cady didn't give them that.

So far CW's no.1 show in ratings overall about a month into it's run. It's performing nearly 3 times the average of a typical CW show. Due to the strong ratings performance they ordered an additional 5 episodes (bringing Season 1 up to 18 episodes) and renewed the show for a second season, just after two episodes aired.

Sometimes it's not just about duration, but about impact. Honestly the idea of recasting Josh Duhamel's Leo probably gave AMC's casting director a headache. The audience likely would have rejected a new Leo so soon after Josh departed (Josh won an Emmy for Supporting Actor back when they still meant something). Look no further than the way AMC dismissed Juan Pablo and Carlos as romantic suitors for Greenlee. It was just too soon for the audience to move on with a recast or a new love interest for Greenlee. However at the same time Leo didn't necessarily have a reach where he would still fit on the canvas after McTavish started writing soon after his departure. Leo in this way was perfect for the time he was on the canvas, but from a character perspective doesn't fit narratively outside of a certain time period. I could see Leo coming back from a narrative perspective in 2003, but after 2003 it gets a bit hazy, on where he would have fit in the narrative. I would say he, Ryan, Trey and David were of a similar feather. They were giants when they debuted but slowly lost their luster and relevance outside of their heyday. At the end of the day Ryan and David were but husks of what they once were before. I could easily see Leo being reduced to what he was had he stayed on the canvas. What makes Leo so special is oddly enough his brevity, and how much he sparks from 1999-2002. The map of 2002's AMC's doesn't look all that great either, showing that the show likely had other priorities than investing a considerable amount of time and effort in a failed, dead on arrival recast. So much about it was so confusing. The Maggie/Frankie story, Trey, Dixie leaving, Kendell/Erica/Bianca drama, Anna was almost out the door at that point, Maureen/Maria drama, etc.

That's condescending as hell. 🤣 I know what the MCU is setting up for (we all do honestly, they aren't being subtle about it), that doesn't change my opinion on the topic, nor do I think it takes any weight away from what I expressed.

I'm waiting for all the episodes to drop so I can binge this, because I have no patience for Disney's slow drip. That said I am crestfallen that Aaron Taylor-Johnson isn't in this, and that he's been replaced. I felt even in his one appearance in Age of Ultron that he had great chemistry with Elizabeth, and they really sold the chemistry of being close siblings who had been through collective trauma together their entire lives. Peters just isn't the same, and kind of ruins the dramatic weight of that storyline and damages the pathos of what Wanda experienced in Ultron and Civil War. But I guess it kind of had to be him, as the original version would have been too sad, and he would compete with Wanda's grief over Vision.

Bianca is pretty unique to the canvas (at least Eden's version was), and considering all that she went through it wouldn't be fair to audiences to watch her go through a slow death. There were other people on the canvas who could have been killed off that way who would have had the same level of impact but were not useful to the canvas during that time (Leven Rambin's Lily, and Eva La Rue's Maria come to mind). The time for Kane noble teary sacrifices was during the Michael Cambias storyline. It would have been more meaningful to the show to have Kendell take the fall for Bianca, and go to jail and then have her reintroduced to the canvas in 2006. Lord knows Kendell's character suffered during those earlier years with Zach and that surrogacy story. Another death that felt just wrong to me was the death of Jen Rappaport. I know she wasn't beloved, but the violence of her death will always feel cruel and gratuitously violent. The storyline had little value in terms of shock, and didn't have much long ranging implications. It was hard to now see Lindsay as a husk of what she once was after her daughter died and she had such a haunting quality to her that the Nora and Lindsay rivalry never sparked again. It just felt like life had beaten her down in a Blanche Dubois kind of way. Similarly killing off Reid in ATWT wasn't necessarily heat-wrenching but as if someone was idea strapped and kind of spiteful and sore that they couldn't pair Luke up with Noah and send him away on a boat to parts unknown. I don't know if that was writer lead, or if the writers feared fan backlash or what but it's such an abrupt ending that it still sticks out on rewatches on that Nuke channel on Youtube.

This is the reason I opened the thread. Those deaths hurt so much, were so cruelly done and felt so purposeless. It felt like they just wanted to gut GH's heart, and I don't see the purpose as to why. Emily was killed for Nikolas' manpain, but Georgie is a head scratcher. It felt like they just wanted to make the serial killer storyline important. These deaths would be the equivalent of AMC killing Bianca off, or One Life To Live killing off Jessica or Natalie. Why gut a historic family for no reason?

This is hilarious. We saw Carly give birth to Morgan in 2003, during that panic room storyline with Ric. I personally think there is a sliding scale here on the spectrum. I recognize that soaps overall, have to compete with quarterly ratings 'sweeps' numbers that command them to do something to bring soap viewers in which is why you get these 'event' storylines such as fires, storms, illness viruses sweeping the canvas, serial killers, and more. You have to find a way to get people to show up continuously every three months (February, May, July and November) for the all mighty advertising dollars. But honestly I felt soaps would try to accelerate this even more than every other month, and they were trying to do it weekly with all the Friday cliff hangers, then they would try to do it daily, then they would do it in almost every scene. You can't keep viewers on the edge of their seats in every moment of every episode, every week, until infinitum. At least not with lower staked stories (and especially if you don't bother to build them up with pay off - which takes time). As such they went with these outrageous storylines that almost pre-baked itself with so much drama that it was sensational but not at all realistic (possessions, time travel, supernatural elements, etc.). There are tons of soaps that are successful by being grounded in the day to day, but they also don't have the "burdens" that soaps do. Soaps have to create 200+ episodes of programming a year, while a lot of primetime series just have to fill 10-22 episodes within 9 months. Bridgeton, Grey's Anatomy, ER, Desperate Housewives, and so on are all soaps. Just different kinds of them.

I agree, that targeting cast members for what they don't say is a dangerous precedent. I'm as solidly liberal as they come, but I disagree, with drawing up names of cast members who didn't post a tweet in support of something, and then using that as a barometer that they are a Trumpist. Go after the ones who vocally proclaim misogynistic, racist, and homophobic agendas.

The Justin Timberlake stuff is honestly disgusting, as it's basically the only reason Justin had a career to begin with. He hitched his wagon to a bigger star, and he was able to separate himself from the rest of the boy banders and create an image of himself as a "man" precisely because he had Britney, who at the time was the hottest and most popular female star in the late 90's and early 00's. Kathy Griffin also said while they dated Britney, he was a controlling presence in her life. It's really sickening to hear that the reason radio played his songs was because he shared details of their sex life during his radio promo tours. He used her name so many times during the promotion of Justified (most of the songs were about her, or at least he played it off like they were), and then again with FutureSex/LoveSounds during the campaign with What Goes Around Comes Around. It's really a shame, how he got away with stuff like this, and how anti-women the early 00's were. We can see the way he treats women is awful: Janet, Britney, Jessica Simpson, etc.

But why doesn't the president tweet, and complain about things? We need the sound bites for our 24/7 news cycles Psaki. 😩

^ Times have changed, as has their relationship to Britney Spears and journalism overall. Journalists are the enemy now. Society now understands that Britney is not someone to be vilified anymore, and now someone who people should have treated more kindly. I was a huge fan of Britney during 2003, but I remember a lot of people disliked her and hated her once she matured into a young woman. She was shamed for being too sexual and being too provocative (not unlike Madonna during her "Sex" era), and Diane Sawyer was just one aspect of that culture shaming her for it. Britney was constantly harassed for not being virginal enough, and being too sexual for her audiences, and she wasn't allowed to "fight back", because she had to be the good girl and take the scolding. It was more important for people during that time to shame a woman, than it was to ask journalist to adhere to ethical standards. Sawyer just embodied the cultural zeitgeist at the moment. That doesn't age well with where we are in 2021. So progress I guess?

I think I understand this more, after walking away for a bit, and reading your response. My statement was admittedly hyperbolic. That being said I disagree with the argument that you can't measure show engagement, fan engagement and general viewing behavior and enthusiasm as an indicator for impact. I just completely disagree with that notion. This is the foundation for Nielsen existing, why Q scores for television series exist, why net promoter scores are used to understand engagement with services/products/television, why market research is a thing and why the ratings themselves are used to direct advertising dollars. It's all more or less borne out of fans willingly sharing their viewing habits and what television series they watch, and using that information to extrapolate how larger audiences feel about their specific shows, in order to measure attachment to the content they are viewing. That's basically what surveying in essence is. We can certainly derive and measure interest from many of the things I laid out in my previous arguments. I think I am understanding the reaction at this point. I was making two separate points (1) EJ and Sami created a response in Days fandom that was notable and generated interest that was unlike her other pairings and (2) In my opinion they were better suited for each other from a narrative perspective. I saw those two statements as exclusive and separate, and not a combined joint statement. My bad for not making those two points separate and clarifying that in my post I guess. I thought the paragraph break made that overt, but it wasn't read through. I completely get the idea that there are fans in the middle who could care less about shipping, but that also kind of makes my point. Ambivalent watchers don't care either way. Of the two pairings audiences responded more to EJ and Sami from the sources of evidence I already provided. Of the two pairing options the EJ/Sami pairing generated more enthusiasm, interest and excitement. From that response they received significant attention to outside soap viewers and achieved primetime notability. That, is my main point, those indicators are not arguable. That doesn't make them a "better" pairing by itself, it just means they generated more interest and were the more interesting (*ah that controversial word again!*) couple for soap and general audiences. Again using the "interesting" qualifier as a proxy for attention-getting and popularity/notability I guess :shrug: Yeah, that's my personal opinion and is separate from the "interesting" statement. I get it, thank you for explaining this to me, because I didn't get why people weren't connecting the dots.

I honestly don't know how else to word it. When I look at the definition of interesting here is what is defined within the term: arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention. The word fits. They aroused more interest in the show then Lumi did at that point in the story (or really ever). This was referenced multiple times in MSN, TV Guide and in Soap Opera Weekly publications back when soap magazines were still a thing, and were still of interest to the viewing community. Soap interviewers would even interview Bryan Datillo and ask him what he thought about the EJ/Sami pairing generating more fan mail/interest than Lucas/Sami did at that time. Datillo even had to respond to the fact that a lot of fans liked them as a pairing even though he was part of a rival ship. All of this was way back in 2007, 5-6 years before EJ and Sami even got together. Listen, I don't really care if people like EJ and Sami, that's not the point I am trying to make. I am simply saying if you loved them or hated them, they generated a level of interest not seen by any of her pairings since the turn of the century. I don't care if you prefer Lumi or Ejami - that's not the conversation I am even remotely interested in having. You preferring one ship over the other - is an opinion. But there are things that are measurable and you can determine based on quantifiable facts. If your barometer is fan sites, tweets, fan mail, music videos, YouTube screen clip views, publication space on magazines, or even mainstream media attention like having 5 minutes dedicated to them on the Colbert show, or whatever else floats your boat the answer is pretty definitive and clear. At the end of the day EJ/Sami generated all of that on their own, and it made the pairing notable and standout amongst all her other pairings. That's not something her other pairings replicated. That's objectively a fact. It doesn't bother me if other posters like Lumi more, because that's not what's being talked about. You can hate a pairing and still acknowledge that they had a huge impact on the show and beyond. I just did a few posts back with Phick. You are mixing quality and personal preference with interest, which is not my point. You are looking for a value statement, which is antithetical to what I am talking about. I am not trying to define if someone is "better" or not. I am trying to gauge interest, engagement and fascination and measure that within context. The bolded definitely does speak to their impact. It's a direct and quantifiable number of what people are willing to engage with and find interesting. You can bet any intellectual property and television series will want to capture what is causing a reaction for their viewers and that they will want to understand fans relationship to the material that they are writing and producing. Television series want to trend, they want the news publication publicity and they want awareness of their shows. Writers would rather you hate or love something, then feel ambivalent about it.

I know this, I am saying the reaction from audiences was something not seen since that period. From fans, and non-fans alike. No. It's really not. Not when we have data points which attest to this point as a fact by how audiences reacted and engaged with them to demonstrate the effect and impact of them as characters. EJ and Sami had more engagement than any of her other pairings ever have. You can hate the pairing all you like, and still be able to objectively come to that same determination and ultimate conclusion that they caused a reaction that was not seen by Days in quite sometime. What caused that level of impact? Interest between and with these two characters. I hate the pairing of Phylis and Nick - however I can't deny that the pairing was much more interesting in 2005 than Sharon and Nick were, even though I liked Shick more than Phick during that time period. I also can't deny that Phick completely changed the course of those characters and those characters within their orbit since their affair. The impact of that couple is undeniable, even if I don't like or care for it.

Wrong, you interpreted as an opinion (likely because you disagree). You can measure interest, fascination and demand for characters through data, and at all times when the story was playing out EJ and Sami were the generators of interest in those stories they had. You can dislike them, hate them, not want them together, and still understand objectively that people were interested, engaged and connected to their stories because those characters resonated with the audience at large.

It's not opinion that EJ and Sami got much more publicity, discussion, and overall engagement than a typical soap couple on DOOL from 2000 onward. That's not up for debate. You can hate them or love them or be sick of them, but regardless of that, Ejami created so much discussion during their time on the series that it (and them) was virtually inescapable. Lumi, Safe, Saustin never had that.

Sami and EJ were a thousand times more interesting than Sami and Lucas. That's not opinion, that's really just fact. No Sami pairing before or since got as much of a reaction from audiences than what she got when she was fighting with him, cursing him out, and eventually when she was paired with him. Lucas, Rafe and Austin are pretty much the same character in the end, which is why all their stories with her ended the same way. With them calling her a tramp, or telling her how much of a horrible person she is, while they leave her crumbled on the floor crying. EJ was the natural evolution of Sami's character. An "evil" man who had many commonalities with her naturally villainous character, who loved her fully, completely and wanted all of her, rather than hoping and praying she would transform into "good sister-lite" Carrie. Sami was always hiding who she truly was with all of these men, which is why those relationships failed. She was herself with EJ. That's the difference. That's why they worked. It's a shame that JS won't be returning to give the character and the pairing closure, but surely Days can do something else than have Sami hate herself, and go crawling back to Lucas for a fourth or fifth time, so he can again tell her she is maggot meat and deserves nothing good in life.

Pretty much cheating stories are useless without the sex scenes. They are needed to show, amplify and viscerally feel the betrayal. Love stories also would be underserved by removing them. You are only showing part of the relationship. You won't be able to really see how well these two characters "fit" one another, without understanding their chemistry and how that informs the passion they feel for each other. I get what the tweet is trying to say, but I feel they are kind of missing the point. Gratuitous sex just for the sake of it, is useless and meaningless. But when it's done right it can amplify a story, enhance the dramatic stakes and really resonate a love story.

Yeah, I just disagree. I personally find it hard to see the point behind the "I didn't get my ship", members of social media who at max represent a handful of thousands of people. The show is still in the top 10 of most watched series on Netflix, so if the finale was hated so adamantly I find it hard to believe it would still be streaming so highly weeks after the series finale. There's a difference between Game of Thrones finale and this one. Even with stan twitter going off it seems like the legacy of SPN is well intact. The problem with a lot of the Destiel twitter fan arguments is that they just do this all the time. Everything is a smokescreen to make their objections appear more valid. They did this time and time again through out the series of the show. Jensen doesn't like the Destiel ship because he views his character as straight the fans start a campaign telling everyone who will listen Jensen is homophobic, writers post a tweet saying they liked the finale, twitter fans dox the writers into deleting it, on and on. It's just very obvious what they are upset with. Misha is a cast member who has fluctuated from being a regular to guest star to recurring over the period of 12 years, because he can't find a job elsewhere. He will do and say anything he can to remain on the show as long as possible, so he gets a paycheck and can remain employed. He will feed the fans of a particular ship because it gives him relevance to appear on the show long past his sell by date. If you are going to look at extraneous sources of data and make them valid as an argument to what the canon text says, then you also have to look at the biases implicit within those sources. Misha will say and do anything that makes him more important to the series and show. Saying that he loves Dean makes his character more important and increases his profile because then he can have more scenes with one of the shows leads. If Misha is saying something it's his opinion. Honestly Castiel's "I love you" was said back in season 13, and it was said to Jack, Sam and Dean and it was taken platonically. Now all of the sudden his "I love you" is romantic, when the context is more or less that same - he said both phrases as he was set to die. If the "I love you" was supposed to be romantic, it could have been written as "I am in love with you" to be more explicit. I'm looking at the episode counts and screen time and again I just don't see it. The only actors who have more than a season worth of episodes are: Rowena (33), Mary (37), Lucifer (38), Jack (39), Bobby (68), Crowley (67) and Castiel (146). This is a show that lasted 327 episodes. Bobby was actually in the finale - but the rest of these characters were on the show for less than 50% of the time it was even on. Some appeared for only 10% of the shows episodes, yet the argument is they should have been included in the series finale. I don't see the point of having a bunch of extras who only lasted a few seasons here and there to bloat an episode that was only going to last 45 minutes or less. When the lead characters, who this show is about have the equivalence of 8 seasons more airtime and screen time then they do.