So besides giving Michelle Stafford additional material, what was the point of Sheila's return, and having her look like Phyllis? The didn't even have her cause any real havoc before she was discovered and neutralized.

Kept them afloat? Or a large part of the decline? The 90s is when soaps started to lose their core audience and characters like Sheila and Kristen and Todd Manning and Stefano were, IMO, a large part of the problem (when NOT well-written). They lived in this vaccuum, this circlejerk of neverending story, pulling the same schemes and accomplishing nothing in the process.

Well, I can really only speak for Days when I say that "characters like this" weren't part of the decline. Days ratings did nothing but rise, rise, rise when Sami Brady and Kristen DiMera were on the frontburner. There was no decline. It wasn't until Kristen was written out and they watered Sami down that the ratings took a nosedive -- almost immediately.

Any 'kind' of character can be successful if written correctly... even the soap psychos.

The wannabes from today's era don't hold a candle.

So besides giving Michelle Stafford additional material, what was the point of Sheila's return, and having her look like Phyllis? The didn't even have her cause any real havoc before she was discovered and neutralized.

It's just Latham putting her thumbprint on the show and ending the character once and for all (she thinks)

This storyline was a horrible idea.... If LML's objective was to do the Sheila thing one more time and finish it for good, it was essential that Kimberlin Brown reprise the role to give her and her fans closure. I'm no Hogan Sheffer fan, but when he wanted to say no more David Stenbeck, he went out of his way to bring back Keith Couloris and have Annie Parisse's Julia fire a revolver into his corpse... just so we could be *absolutely sure* that he wasn't coming back.

As it was, Michelle Stafford was uninspired, and she didn't get to even do anything. I agree, this wasn't Sheila. Sheila is still out there somewhere, and will hopefully only appear on B&B from now on. I still think that the 1998 B&B and 2002 B&B Sheila storylines were the only truly effective Sheila returns. 2003 B&B Sheila, 2005 Y&R Sheila, and 2007 Y&R Sheila were all pretty shitty.

Edited February 9, 200718 yr by juppiter

I, for one, am always going to remember Sheila's Kiss of Death to Mary/Erica as her final scene. Now that was a great send-off.