Michael

I liked what Sheri did with those novels in 2009-10. They gave John and Marlena another kid in those, right? I tracked down most (all?) of the novelizations of 60s-70s stories a few years ago and did a big blog post about them, if that's of any interest: https://whathappensinsalem.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/a-novel-idea-the-early-years-of-dool/

Oh, totally. That's where I think the execution could have been much stronger. By his 2000s run and the latter half of Passions, the dialogue was legitimately a parody.

I have really fond memories of and feelings for that era, even though I can now clearly see its drawbacks and failings. But I disagree about pacing, to some degree. I thought JER did an excellent job of building and sustaining suspense. The particulars usually turned out to be dumb or, uh, credulity-stretching, but I thought the overall long-term nature of the show worked and it's something I DEARLY miss today. Definitely agree about the tone and the dialogue. It's weird to be getting stories currently that have most of the same trappings -- the masks (which I'm sick of), fake deaths, etc. -- but the dialogue and production kind of feels... humdrum. And while they occasionally still hit it, it often feels like they're trying to emulate that specific tone and it misses. Don't get me wrong (and I know you won't agree with me here): I like a lot of the more down-to-earth stuff we've gotten in the years since JER, and there's plenty I appreciate about 2006-present. But there were hallmarks of his writing that I think did work well and don't get the credit they should because of the over-the-top trappings. I actually think, at its absolute core, JER's pacing is very classic soap! I never had that hope for MarDar, for whatever reason, and I'm kinda glad because I thought their year absolutely sucked. It was the epitome of "good on paper and terrible in execution."

Ken Corday's incompetent and damaging leadership rears its head once again. Absolutely disgraceful how poorly he handled this and allowed Alarr is go on like this for years.

Hmmmm. Interesting! The rewrite was so bad that I remember feeling like they might as well have just put up a title card that said, "FORGET ANY OF THIS HAPPENED!" It didn't even make sense within the retcon.

I really just want to know what the plan would've been going forward. JER would've written Marlena out of the killings somehow.

Now that you mention it, I could easily have seen Chrishell as a more effective Taylor.

Oh, I thought she was dreadful. She and EJ were sniffing that damn scarf for however many weeks she was in the role. She was just no match for Nicole at all, and her "sweetness" came off as cloying and fake instead of a real counterpoint to Nicole's scheming and impulsiveness. Recasting with Braun, who has a totally different energy from both NL and what Taylor was supposed to be, didn't really work anyway, but they kind of twisted Taylor into a harder-edged character to fit her. The whole thing was a mess.

I see what you're saying, but I don't feel any momentum at all. Paulina has cancer and she's just kind of... huffing and puffing and talking to about three people about it. The scenes where she found out (offscreen!!!) left me totally cold. Johnny and Chanel got engaged with, like, zero story after a rushed reunion, and aside from Paulina and some forced interactions between Johnny and Stefan/Chad, no one has reacted to it or had an interesting perspective on it. (And I appreciated what they were trying to do with Chad and Johnny, but it felt so abrupt.) Technically things are happening, but it all feels very dull and directionless. I agree that we're getting more scenes focused on character and relationships, which is great, and it can make it interesting on a day-to-day basis, but since Tate, Holly, and Nicole went offscreen, most of it feels sort of random and... well... like filler. Those in-between beats and moments that don't explicitly push story are necessary for a good soap, but they need to be attached to some kind of drive, too. I feel like that's missing in every area other than Ava & Stefan's Big Drug Adventure, which is the least interesting story featuring the least interesting characters. The Konstantin/Pawn stuff had me curious at first but it just feels like more of shoving John and Steve together in some weird revisionist history and it doesn't have enough shape yet. The other day, John and Steve said something about no one had mentioned "the Pawn" in years and that's why John is so rattled, and I'm like... this comes up at least every six months when they give J&M a walk down memory lane. I do find some of the Everett stuff intriguing, as you mentioned, but it's so attached to Stephanie and this narrative that she's got some unbelievable catch that it takes me out of it. Maybe when we get more on the Jada connection, it'll pick up some steam, but I think this Stephanie has been way overplayed in a succession of uninteresting, chemistry-free relationships, so that factor is dragging the interest level down for me, too.

I think the overdose itself was in Carlivati & Quan's plans, so the scabs executed it, but then they put that story on ice because they're not really doing anything huge or canvas-changing during the strike material. But it's taken the most compelling story on the canvas (the drug story) and shifted its focus from Tate, Holly, and their families to... Ava, Stefan, and Harris, which is an absolutely hideous trade.

The 2015 retcon was so lazy. Andre just walked in and was like, "Since I found out I'm your son, Faaaaaatha..." I get why they did it, but it was so empty and frustrating.

It's crazy to me that they've never explored André's backstory in any specificity. What was his original face? Who's his mother and how did Stefano wind up being his father?

Thanks for responding. That was my recollection, too. She had the surgery and then... nothing happened. I loved the setup of Marlena returning to hosting a radio show, and it really did feel like they were building to something. I found Langan's run to be full of elements like that. Things would get set up, built, and then either dropped entirely or forgotten for a while before there was a random conclusion.

Did the original Hattie story ever go ANYWHERE? Did she even get an exit during Andrea Hall's run?

I believe so, yeah.

Wondering if he could be Parker Jonas.

I had totally forgotten that they brought on Matthew as Sean in the mid-2000s. I can't remember a damn thing of consequence he ever did, though.

Which doesn't even make sense considering he barely knows this woman!

The stairs disappeared about a decade ago. The larger Town Square was only around for maybe a year and a half; as mentioned above, the last thing I remember there of any significance was Nicole falling down the stairs and pretending Jen had pushed her, causing that miscarriage. We've had that condensed HTS set ever since.

I somehow have NO memory of Dave returning for that 2000-04 stint even though I was watching pretty diligently during that time!

It was Kinsey or Kinzie or something like that.

Just about! I still have no idea why they did that Jada/Eric pregnancy, although I appreciated that a female character chose to have an abortion and hasn't been made to suffer for it. (One could argue that being paired with Rafe is the ultimate suffering, but you know what I mean.)

You'd think Eric, the unemployed 50-year-old who did prison time for vehicular homicide, is publicly drinking even after that, and has impregnated four separate women in half a decade, would be the problem with the adoption...

Okay, this is an unexpected treat!

This is the unhinged soap news I didn't know I needed today. What in the WORLD.