IA, Chanel. The only guy in the younger group is Max. We need another one.

One that is NOT a Brady or a Horton. If Bonnie is staying, I can see them bringing on Connor.

I think Max is much more interesting than, say, Austin or Patrick. Talk about run of the mill hunks.

I think Max is much more interesting than, say, Austin or Patrick. Talk about run of the mill hunks.

I agree! Although I do think the writers should give him a little more "umph" personality wise.

I used to think the same of Abby, and it looks like the writers are doing just that by making her such a teenager with her attitude toward Frankie and her mom. She's much more real now that she's not just Chelsea's one-dimensional goody two shoes side kick. I actually liked Max a bit more before he decided that he "loves" Chelsea, when he was using her...I saw the potential for Mabby then, with him being a bad boy who wanted to be good and Abby being the good girl who wanted to be a little bad . Hopefully the new writers can flesh that out fully. I certainly do think they have the potential (if the SL is written right, and time is taken to develop it) to become a young supercouple...they have enough chemistry that I want to see more of them, and their characters are tied into the history of Days.

Exactly. And maybe this will give Abby something to do other than be a prop for Chelsea. Also, I don't consider Abby to be this pampered, girly-girl princess that so many of you think she is. Now if you want to talk about girly-girl princess, look at Belle.

Abby thinks she could get down and dirty if she wanted to. She has no qualms about doing office work around a bunch of guys in a dirty garage, so that says something. She's also feisty and has some backbone. I don't see her being a doormat at all. It's time Chelsea had a female rival closer to her own age besides Hope.

Max is a great guy, so why stick him with a manipulative head-gamer like Chelsea? Stephanie is more suited for him, but I'm sorry, adopted uncle/niece pairings are icky. You guys can fantasize and cry for your incestous pairings all you want, but if Maby is going to happen, I'm all for it.

EXACTLY!! I completely agree with everything you said. This is actually new territory for me. I roundly despised all of the young set brought in a few years back (Shawn,Belle,Mimi,Rex,Phil et al), and I expected I'd feel the same towards this new set. I don't. I can't stand the character of Chelsea, but that's really it.

Abby might have the same prom princess outside as Belle, but she's not the chirpy simp that Belle was. She's interesting to watch and endlessly more likeable. The actress is great and just keeps growing. I'm not over-the-moon about Max, but I like the pairing. It carries on the long tradition of opposites attracting on Days. This should be very cute to watch.

ITA. Abby and Belle couldn't be more different. Abby is a genuine heroine who viewers can like and root for. Belle is a whiny, self-absorbed hypocrite who viewers are supposed to root for but many don't.

So they look cute together. Granted and so do almost all soap characters look cute together. That means nothing. What means something is the history and basis of that character and Abby is not being given a good run if she is to be stuck in a garage just to pair her with the good-looking Max. That is not a good reason. She should be following her career choice and like most college girls, driven to succeed in it, doing the groundwork for it, for instance interning in her field. Her associates would be others like her, not at all what is happening in this story. Max is a fine man, has a glamourous background as successful racecar drive and now has a successful business in the garage. That is all well and good, but has nothing at all to offer a young woman on her rise in her profession. Too bad there is only one young available man on Days. Whose fault is that? Hogan should be burning the night oil figuring out how to get Stephanie, Chelsea and Abby all into acceptable and suitable and exciting romances. All of us have seen beautiful men married to really unattractive women and also beautiful women married to plain men. Looks are so superficial. It's the whole package that counts. I simply cannot buy the stars in the eyes of Abby. She is not stupid. Max is nothing at all like her father whom she idolizes and certainly, any man to get stars in her eyes would have to be similar in intellect and personality.

Max falls for Mimi?

I'm really liking Sami & EJ, I hope we get some type of Lucas/Sami/EJ triangle.

So they look cute together. Granted and so do almost all soap characters look cute together. That means nothing. What means something is the history and basis of that character and Abby is not being given a good run if she is to be stuck in a garage just to pair her with the good-looking Max. That is not a good reason. She should be following her career choice and like most college girls, driven to succeed in it, doing the groundwork for it, for instance interning in her field. Her associates would be others like her, not at all what is happening in this story. Max is a fine man, has a glamourous background as successful racecar drive and now has a successful business in the garage. That is all well and good, but has nothing at all to offer a young woman on her rise in her profession. Too bad there is only one young available man on Days. Whose fault is that? Hogan should be burning the night oil figuring out how to get Stephanie, Chelsea and Abby all into acceptable and suitable and exciting romances. All of us have seen beautiful men married to really unattractive women and also beautiful women married to plain men. Looks are so superficial. It's the whole package that counts. I simply cannot buy the stars in the eyes of Abby. She is not stupid. Max is nothing at all like her father whom she idolizes and certainly, any man to get stars in her eyes would have to be similar in intellect and personality.

Great post, Jean. I couldn't agree more.

yay! where to begin? first off all im happy carrie is leaving. and austin, even tho i love au/sami. and i am happy that we finnaly have a writer who sees where sami is and where she needs to go, and i think EJ is the perfect man to get her there! sami/ej def have sexual tension and the actors have hella chem! so i am looking forward to this. to bad lucas is still around..

wtf? philip goes off? what does that mean? he just up and leaves town? ... belle finds her way back to john/mar? okay. didnt know she had lost them. and shawn has been spinning out of control. and he gets a new women? what?!

mimi and... max?! where did that come from?! but i so see it. and i think i might like it.. and what? abby/max! yes!! its about damn time!! they work so well together. this should actually be really good, IMO.

so chelsea is gonna be like billie, kate, and sami all rolled into one? im all for it!

I'm so confused about the Max/Abby/Mimi spoiler, I thought he loved Chesea. I hope Abby's feelings for him doesn't ruin her friendship with Chelsea, Chelsea's love for Abby is the only likeable quaility I see in her. I'm so disappointed that Lumi are going to reunite. With the addition of EJ, I was hoping Sami would finally be free of him and his emontional abuse. I never thought I would ever be saying this but I kind of wish JER was still the head writer because I think I'm going to be prefering his storylines over the new head writer's.

I'll actually disagree. Shockingly, even as a member of the James E. Reilly Alliance (I'm still a member, I just forgot to keep it in the sig when the revelation that is JARESA on "Passions" developed), I have to say, the day-to-day episodes are much better under the new writers. "Days" is can't miss now. Granted, parts of JER's reign were can't miss as well but now, it's just more natural, more fresh. Take Sami and John's being nice to each other (as nice as they could ever be) on Friday's episode. How REFRESHING was that? And mixing up the characters in different, less predictable storylines isn't necessarily a bad thing.

JointStrikeFighter, IA with everything you said about the new writers. I think change is great, and we need new and fresh storylines.

Max is totally wrong for Abby. There's no way the daughter of Jack Deveraux would be attracted to a deadbeat race car driver. She would go for someone who has brains, is witty, sophisticated, charming. Max is NONE of these things. It makes far more sense for her to be attracted to EJ...pity about the age difference.

And PR, I hardly think the show should be looking to emulate Jennifer/Frankie...a romance that has bombed not once...not twice...but THREE times.

I never said they would emulate it-there is history there and I think it would be awesome to explore that with the Maby pairing. It would be like history repeating itself in a sense even though Frankie and Jen didn't make it.

I am stunned there are so many anti-Maby. I think people need to remember that Hogan will probably be adding some new dimensions to these characters so what we have seen from Max and Abby before should be thrown out the door. Not that he won't be true to the characters but he will take them in new directions so all this talk about Abby not doing this or that and Max not doing this or that is moot in my mind.

There is alot of Days fans that want Maby so Days needs to explore it in my mind. If it doesn't work out, you just move them in different directions but it's better then incest and Darin and Ashley have great chemistry.

We will see .

Am I missing something with Abby? I love the character, but I don't see her being this great character that she is being made out to be here by some posters. I mean she has virtually been ignored since she has been on the show until recently and I have not seen that much special out of her yet. So far Abby has had no real direction. At one time she is a whiny brat, blaming Jennifer for everything that is wrong in her life. Then she is just Chelsea's friend and confidante, and good helper to her mother. Then she is back to blaming Jennifer for everything bad because she is in love with Frankie. And then she gets a little story with wanting to have sex because Jennifer did with Frankie. Until this story with Max she really hasn't had much to do.

The character is really just developing. I am still trying to get to know the real Abby. From what I have seen I don't see her as being any better than Belle was as a teen her age. The only thing is that this actress can act and the actress who played Belle couldn't act that well. But the character of Abby just has not been developed that well and that was a big problem with the writers. They seemed to never know what to do with her, and esp. let her be on the backburner with the highlight of that young group being Chelsea.

I am just wondering if some are transferring their love for Jack and Jennifer over to Abby just because she belongs to them. I don't know Abby yet, and just now getting to know the real Abby. I know more about Max's personality than I do Abby's at this point. Abby is a great character and I hope that she turns out to be even greater, but there is no way that I could say or see how anyone could say she is better than Belle or any other character at this point. She just has not had that much to do, and been so erratic in her behavior.

Speaking for myself, I see Abby as being a Horton and actually, she and Will are the youngest Horton's currently on Days, so those of us who love the history of the show and believe the Horton's are the core family are delighted that both of these youngster have been given morals and uplifting types of personalities. Abby is a soap princess in that regard and so far she is an excellent role model for the teen viewers. She hasn't been given a distinctive personality, but rather a complacent accepting, sweet, do-the-right-thing type of girl. Personally, I think that is great and want to see her continue in that vien. Following that line of thinking, she would want to follow a profession others in her family have. I longed for her to become a doctor, but others wanted her to follow the path of Jack and Jen to become a journalist. There is no basis for her majoring in business and working in Max's garage. It just doesn't fit the aura that has been built around her. My asperations for her future have been very high and I'm drastically disappointed in what is happening with her. Josh was a good, young teen companion and I think she should still be with him and both of them going to college, doing college things and fund-raisers, fun, wholesome things a 19-year old does. So that's my thinking.