DAYS: Frustrated by Hogan Sheffer

[ChangedBYSon]

In fact (regarding Sami's son being "gay").....

What I would like to see in daytime is a mother (Sami) who loves and accepts

"other" gay people.

But has a big problem when it's her own child that's gay.

I think that's a truthful thing that happens among gays nowadays, as I've run into

3 or 4 different women who have no problem having gay friends, gay co-workers,

gay employees---but suddenly have a huge problem when it's their own child.

That would be so interesting for Sami and her son.

And then when WILL got a boyfriend (hell, make him Jett)---I'd have Sami shitting GLASS

and doing everything in her power to break them up.

She'd offer Jett big bucks to leave town...pay some thugs to beat up Jett...have Will "hypnotized"

that he's straight...hire a "drag queen" to take compromising photos with Jett.

I'm just being FACETIOUS off the top of my head (LOL!!!!!), but I think there's so much from

TODAY'S WORLD that could be done on these soaps and done with a lot of HEART.

[Vee]

...Ever feel like you're repeating the same conversations over and over again?

[sema608]

I question that, too. On ATWT, we had lots of airtime for Bonnie/Isaac, Ben/Jessica, and Marshall Traversa and his daughter Sarah. We even had Lien and Denise. It's becoming clearer by the day that Hogan had more freedom on ATWT than he has at Days right now. I also think he had a good supporting team on ATWT who made the stories extremely catchy. I think while Hogan is capable of writing GREAT material, he needs the right support and control and he doesn't have this at Days. How could he do so many things on one soap and do the total opposite on another?

At this point, I think Hogan should walk out on Days. It's just not working. Either his reputation will continue to be tarnished or the show will fire him for their mistakes on what they think drives the show. Even though Ed Scott is here, there's STILL something fishy going on behind the scenes. Now I'm left wondering what's the real deal with the contract Hogan signed.

[sema608]

Well, Wyman is gone. Ken Corday is the only one left. I'm thinking he's not like Goutman at all. Goutman gives his cast and crew some freedom. I don't think Corday is willing to give up any control whatsoever. Maybe he is the reason for the downfall over the years. Yeah. I think Hogan should quit before Corday uses him as the scapegoat.

[ChangedBYSon]

"I'm sure I don't know WHAT you're talking about"

---Bette Davis, "It's Me You Love" (1937)

also released as "It's Love I'm After"

[RuAsRuAnAu]

Sheffer bares some blame, but the vast majority of it belongs to Corday. I'm telling you, Ken Corday gets away with murder! People have repeatedly bashed Jean Dadario Burke, Jill Farren Phelps, John Conboy, Paul Rauch, Stephen Wyman, Lynn Marie Latham, and Christopher Goutman, but Corday? Hardly a peep about his destruction of his parents show. I've been shouting about this from the rooftops for many years now. Fell on deaf ears? You bet.

[DrewH]

Corday does not go without blame. Fans know that Corday interferes with the writing on countless of times with past writers and currently with Hogan.

[ChiTownBoi03]

Well...uh...I guess I'll interject by saying I think Corday and Sheffer should share equal responsibility. To me, even if Corday is giving suggestions on the direction or who to write for, Sheffer is *still* writing it. And the writing, his execution or his stories don't seem to be cutting it. I also saw this thread coming...at some point

[juppiter]

BUT he pulled this same [!@#$%^&*] at ATWT! Ken Corday sucks, yeah, but so does Hogan!

[juppiter]

Ummmm.... Was it Passanante who wrote out these characters?

NO IT WAS HOGAN!!!! Isaac NEVER got much airtime under Hogan. Bonnie did, but was written out before Napeira's contract was up. So was Marshall. Jessica was ruined. Travers raped then left. Sarah was a joke and frankly looked white. Lien was backburner the summer she was on. Denise left shortly after Hogan assumed the helm.

He talked the talk of diversity but DID NOT walk the walk.

[IMissAremid]

Romance doesn't have to be people sitting around kissing! Romance can be people arguing. It can be people dancing at a big event. It can be people traveling on an adventure. It can be people facing some serious hardship or crisis and relying on each other to get through it. It can be discovering the secret truth about a person. It can be people fighting their feelings for each other. You simply can't convince me "Days" viewers don't want romance when ever since DOOL hired a writer who is allergic to it the show has taken this HUGE turn for the worse.

And I certainly don't think more ACTION is the answer to this show's ratings woes when the only action that Hogan seems capable of coming up with is something exploding (Stephanie and Max's car, Sami and Lucas's garbage, the flowers that knocked out Nick, etc...), someone getting stabbed/shot but not dying (Roman, Benjy, Steve, John, Shawn, Jett, etc...), someone getting locked in a room with extreme temperatures and then doing something stupid to injure themselves as they try to escape (Lucas in ice truck, EJ and Sami in sauna, Belle and Shawn in freezer) or someone getting knocked out by fumes (Steve and Kayla in hospital, Sami in car before meeting Andre, Sami/EJ/Lucas with the briefcase, etc...) and in almost all the instances nothing having much of a long-term storyline or emotional consequence for the parties involved. We've had plenty of ACTION in the past year under Hogan and what has it got us? LAST PLACE.

Well it didn't get "Days" LAST PLACE in the ratings, Phoenix. Your assertion that somehow we are all apparently bitching for nothing because last summer/fall wasn't THAT great just doesn't wash. "Days" had .6 more viewers this time last year and was TIED FOR THIRD PLACE! I wouldn't call that NOTHING. You call regular 2.5 and 2.6s and staying between third and fifth place stagnant? Well I call that SOLID. I call that CONSISTENT.

I also don't know what you are talking about that JER's style somehow changed what DOOL fans want. If you look around the message boards today hardly anyone is happy and none of it has to do with how JER changed our expectations and a lot of it is coming from people who were high-fiving each other when JER left and Hogan Sheffer was brought in. Sure, not everyone has the same favorites so there is a lot of blame being tossed around and sniping back and forth among the partisans, but for the most part I don't see any disgruntled fans asking for anything that unreasonable when you get down to their core concerns. They simply want to see character integrity respected, even if they may have different opinions about what the "true" nature of a character is especially when it comes to these polarizing love tug-o-wars Hogan has cursed us with during his tenure that have turned most of the characters into pretzels to suit his plots. But even more than that, fans want to see compelling stories with a beginning, middle and end featuring satisfying drama and emotional payoffs that reward them for investing in the show. Hogan is not giving viewers these things and that has NOTHING to do with Corday.

Or are you asserting that Hogan is writing this crap under duress like he's trembling in the constant fear of Corday threatening to non-fatally stab him just like Andre or something if he doesn't put redundant and pointless stories that insult the intelligence of viewers on the screen?

[PhoenixRising05]

I don't care what he did at ATWT. First off, I watched his reign over there and loved it up until some big wheels over there started sticking their nose in his writing.

As for Days, Corday has done this time and time again since JER left in 1997. He did it with SSM. He did it with Lorraine Broderick, causing her to quit the show in 1999 after a mere month. He did it with Langan, who he threw most of the blame on for the teen invasion even though he was just as much responsible. Corday was quoted in the mags as being a hero when he was the one that created the problem to begin with. Corday is the one that had Brash and Cwickly demoted after they turned the show around. He is the one that interfered with JER's writing so much to the point where it was nothing but watered down trash (I still think his run would end up being bad but Captive Island, Iraq, etc wouldn't happen). Now, here he is interfering with Hogan's writing. We all saw that interview in April where he admitted responsibility for the backburnering of the big 4 earlier this year. Then, we were told by Hogan he was free to write again in June and notice how the vets were pretty big in June and the whole month was amazing. All of a sudden July and August gives us choppy stories and you feel as if stories are changing direction everyday. It felt like a different show compared to June and only now is it getting better. The show was never bad but it was clear it had a plan and was deviating from the plan for some reason. Corday is the common denominator. He has been here for all this and everyone else goes but him. Hogan takes some blame but I would say around 80-90% of it goes to Corday.

I always say that people should think about the situation. Corday has a track record of interfering. Hogan is a 4 time emmy award winning writer. His introductory interviews said all the right things and made promises to which he kept most of them while others were made impossible due to cast changes and being forced to write for others. Hogan would never make those promises if he had known those changes were coming. Corday blindsided him. The man has a reputation to uphold and he is not going to tarnish it. Not with that ego of his. Hogan researches history and there is no way that anyone can tell me this man can seamlessly pull off the Tony/Andre switch and Anna's return and give us so many nods to history (Doug's Place) but completely act as if J&M's history never existed. I don't buy that. Even if he didn't want to write for them, he would at least mention it. That is a Corday move because they are too expensive and he doesn't want to use them.

Some will argue that Hogan should still write good stories for those he has if he is limited at times. Well, if you plan on doing something and are told you can't and you have to do something else after pouring your heart and soul into something, would you pour that same heart and soul into the thing you are being forced to do instead? As hard as you may try, it won't be the same because it wasn't the plan and it wasn't what your heart was set on. That is what is happening to Hogan. His stint has been full of being blindsided by changes not made known to him, by fans expecting too much from him too soon (see Fall 2006), constant interference, and a poor budget and lack of network support. Hogan takes some blame here but far more rests on Corday and also on the network.

[billyjill]

The soaps that do well today compared to the pack are the ones that keep their core audience by doing their trademark things well. The problem is between the supercouple 80s, supernatural 90s, and super teen heavy 00's, different people in the audience have a different idea of what is DOOL's trademark. IMHO there is a feasible way to incorporate the three groups into a cohesive show without insulting any kind of character greatly, but they don't seem to want to do this. But in any case, bringing in new viewers from the cold is not where you start rebuilding your show, IMO. Get soap fans into the show by writing good soap.

I have to say in my own opinion, and I know we all have our preferences, I think DOOL does not need a bomb explosion every day. It needs something to happen to someone they care about every day. Over a 30-person cast that shouldn't be that hard. I want relationships, romantic and otherwise, I want friendships and rivalries and foils and all those things. I can handle some stunts, but they have to accent the relationships, the relationships can't be driven by plot. Above all we need actual storylines, we need beginnings, middles, and ends that launch new storylines, we need intersecting arcs and character growth and well paced suspense (not too fast, not too slow) and well defined characters we care about even if they aren't perfect.

I do think it's very possible that some of these things, Hogan is writing 'cause he is trying to be like JER, either because he himself thinks it's what the viewers want or Corday/NBC is expressly telling him to. Some of the story points, like the tarot thing and whatnot, felt very "look it's like the good old JER days" like. He's copied some supercouple storylines and he's apparently ripping off the buried alive thing too. I don't think he can't come up with new things, I think however he's operating under an assumption with some of the s/l's that that copycat stuff is cutting it for us. Which, for me, it's not.

I'm just gonna point to what was said at that Kay Alden talk a while back, that I've put down there in my signature *point* ... whatever plot points you have surrounding it, the reason we tune in is to see stuff happen to people we care about. We need people to care about first and foremost, and then the stuff that happens to them will get our interest.

[billyjill]

Actually wasn't it Langan himself who had issues with Broderick? He wanted to age the teens and she didn't, and then he kicked her off and became the HW himself?

[PhoenixRising05]

By action, I don't mean that type of action. I mean movement in stories everyday. I mean things happening. Twists, turns, events, whatever. Something needs to happen everyday. That is what I meant. I also know romance is more then that. My point was that those simple little moments can not be an everyday occurance and they cannot be what fills episodes on a daily basis. These little things are not appreciated by the general fan anymore. By soap die-hards like us, sure they are. By supercouple fans, sure they are. That is my point. You have to attract the general fan too. The one that flips from show to show or is looking for entertainment. They make up a good part of the ratings too.

I brought up last year because those are the things people want now and are clamoring for and those very things were being bashed last year. The ratings situation was considered a bad situation last year. Many were feeling the same way about those numbers as they do about these. There was cause for concern last year about Days being stagnant and dropping a bit after so many good payoffs and after improving so much. The issue was nowhere near as dire now but it was still an issue.

As for the fans you are talking about, fans on boards like this have reasonable wants. However, you hop over to some fan boards and it's like Nitpickers R Us. Some fans out there called for Hogan's head after his first episode. There are some that are irrational but there are many more who have reasonable wants for the show.

I think you are slighting Corday's influence. I am not saying Hogan is blameless but the track record speaks for itself. Ken Corday has done this before and he is doing it again. If he wasn't involved, I would bash Hogan to high heaven but just knowing he is there is enough for me. Until I hear that man has no power or is gone from Days (never going to happen), I will never believe that anyone but him is mostly to blame for the show's troubles. Just see my post above for my thoughts on Hogan because I am not going to repeat them. I just feel like Hogan has not gotten a fair deal since day one and it's even worse now. Sure, he has flaws but the fact that some are going after him just as much as JER is disturbing in itself IMO.