I'm being hard on Hogan, not S&K. I respect what the couple means to DAYS history, which is why I think their return warranted more careful planning from TPTB. The bottom line is that the characters were (and still are) strangers to the vast majority of the audience. You can't just throw them on the frontburner, dig out a few 80's clips from the archives and expect people to invest in the couple. Even Langan understood this when he re-introduced J&J in 2000 and they had been off for a much shorter period than S&K.

Yeah, their return was handled horribly, Kayla should have arrived first, reconnected to the Bradys, THEN bring Steve back. It's taken an entire a year for Steve and Kayla to even feel like they belong on the show again. It took me awhile to get them and like them again. But I had the same reaction when Jack and Jennifer returned, but at least they weren't given tons of airtime. Character returns only seem to work when story dictates it. Hope's return worked, because it had such an impact on Bo and Billie. Austin and Carrie's return (even though it was poorly written), SHOULD have worked, because of where Lucas and Sami were.

Actually to be fair, Jack and Jennifer did get a lot of airtime in 2001, more than they got the following years, but other familiar faces didn't totally disappear. IMHO it's not that Steve and Kayla can't carry a big storyline, it's the overall effect of losing Bo Hope John and Marlena (for all practical purposes they're gone, anyway) while getting a lot of kids and then two characters who were robbed of a proper re-introduction.

Bringing them back was in my opinion both a great idea and a stiff challenge. They dropped the ball ... will they pick it back up again? I'm not optimistic with Sheffer around, and I'm not optimistic that Corday will ever give creative control to someone who could utilize all of Days' assets.

Lately, every day that goes by I wonder what would have happened if Tom Langan had been let go in 1999 instead of Lorraine Broderick. Sigh.

I would get rid of some of these unnecessary characters: Jeremy, Roman, and Will being the first ones to go.

I would bring back Vivian and let her and Kate go at it in grand Diva fight styles and give them a sl with a business slug fest.

More Romance (James Scott excels at romance give him some scenes this)

More socially relevant sl; Benji could of been written as one or give Marlena or Maggie breast cancer and show the affects on them and their close loved ones.

Give Bope, Jarlena soemthing to do but interesting (even I have no clue what it could be)

No more sci-fi crap or bombs Yeesh!

Yeah, their return was handled horribly, Kayla should have arrived first, reconnected to the Bradys, THEN bring Steve back. It's taken an entire a year for Steve and Kayla to even feel like they belong on the show again. It took me awhile to get them and like them again. But I had the same reaction when Jack and Jennifer returned, but at least they weren't given tons of airtime. Character returns only seem to work when story dictates it. Hope's return worked, because it had such an impact on Bo and Billie. Austin and Carrie's return (even though it was poorly written), SHOULD have worked, because of where Lucas and Sami were.

Great post. You hit the nail on the head with this one.

As someone who has been watching 15 years I missed the Bope glory days of the 80s as well as all of Payla's original run. I was a Bo and Carly and then Bo and Billie fan at first, but over time grew to root for Bo and Hope and fall in love with them as a couple after Kristian came back in a really fun umbrella story that I enjoyed in Maison Blanche and when she returned to Salem as I got to know and love Hope through seeing her interactions with Alice and Jennifer as "Gina" and that whole reveal with the music box or whatever it was.

But for as great as I thought that return was the Steve and Kayla one just didn't work because it was actually only until this summer storyline that I *finally* started to get what was so special about Steve and Kayla as they gave them a better story and finally put Kayla and Steve in more scenes with Bo and Hope. I don't think they would have had to keep Jack to integrate Steve and Kayla (even though I could have been down for a Jack and Billie romance) but they absolutely should have had more Kayla stuff with Bo and Hope before this summer if the show's goal was to restructure things for phasing out John and Marlena and making the new Fab Four Bo/Hope/Steve/Kayla.