DAYS: Joe Mascolo FIRED

[Sindacco]

Okey, but Hogan and his team were the ones that came up with S/C right?

[Roman]

I don't think so. It was something they had to write to include the vets in the story.

[PhoenixRising05]

I never said the Dimera's were played out. I feel like they are played out from the shock value aspect and I feel Stefano is played out. I just feel like there is no excitement there anymore. Maybe it's just me.

I know most of Hogan's stuff never made it to air. Hence why I defended him last year on this board and took flak for it. I had people that told me that all of last year. I know what good things Hogan did and I know he could've did far more. That has nothing to do with my point. I just feel like it's time to get rid of Stefano. Should they have done it this way? No. Should he have gotten a better exit? Without a doubt. I think we all agree on that, which is why I don't get why people are quoting my post and saying things like "there are no words" or "I better stop before I get banned." Why? Because I happen to think Stefano is played out. That's just my view. Not a fact. Everyone is different and some of the posts in response to mine are pretty hostile and disrespectful. Just because I think getting rid of him is a good decision doesn't mean I need to be shunned, especially when I hate the way this was done just as much as everyone here.

[Roman]

Exactly. That and the way it was done.

Over the phone.

I truly think that Days has killed any chance of JM ever returning to the show for a proper send-off, and that is the real shmae, on top of everything else.

[tylerbo20]

so i guess we will never know what happend to Susan, EJ's mother wouldnt she want to see her grandchildren??? or what happend to Kristen can't believe she would just give up on John....oh well..at least we will have tony and anna once a month in a forced down our throats comic performance...yawn...

[Noel]

I wouldn't want Kristen Dimera back anyway unless it was my true nasty Kristen Dimera played by Eileen Davidson. But, what was done to Joe Mascolo was wrong and he deserved better than a stupid phone call. It seems to be the latest trend these days.

[Sindacco]

But Hogan was credit as headwriter during last summer so if he did not want a bad reputation or the fans anger he should have said in an interview that it was not his writing. That's why I dont understand when people blame everything that happend jan-april 07 on Corday. Hogan couldn't write for the "big 4". So what? The stories he did write for the characters that were on sucked. Hogan was the worst writer and I'm glad he's gone.

Anyway back on topic. If this is true, I hope Joe goes back to B&B.

[SoapQueen89]

Um .....

That sounds like you said the Dimera stuff is played out?

[Ryan]

The writers were not allowed to play the "big 4" for four months, and they also were told to make the tinda lau story stretch for 4 months and make the Sami/Lucas drama stretch until May because the wedding had to happen.

When a story is only supposed to last a few weeks and your told to make it last months, it's bound to suck ass.

[dragonflies]

Ryan you say so much with just one smiley

[quartermainefan]

Not surprising. It all started going bad with the hiring of TB. Now the show is morphing into an ABC soap and they are getting rid of anything that makes DOOL special. They hired the right writer for the job of ruining the show, I must say.

But one caveat: Is the Globe a reliable source? I mean, they can tell us next month Joe M is possessed by martians, no?

[Loretta3938]

I don't think the DiMeras were responsible for the low image that some viewers had of Days. I'd blame that more on Marlena's possession, and stunts like the Gemini twins, etc. that Dena herself brought to the canvas. Even the kill-off stunts a few years ago with everyone turning up alive might have been way over-the -top, but GH's Cassidine family was behind the great blizzard that erupted in the summertime in Port Charles (the weather machine), and GH even had an alien from another planet interacting with Anna and Robin on the show.

[quartermainefan]

I think the people responsible for the low image the show has are the people who had the low image in their heads. There are too many people who know that the vast majority of the world sees soaps as idiotic and ridiculous, and even the best soaps tend to be with people coming back from the dead, everyone marrying each other in the same small circle and so on. And with that in mind I think there is a hardcore group of fans who see people looking down on soaps as in some way looking down on them and their taste. So when a soap does stories about possession and whatnot, these people are "this is so horrible, this is why people look down on soaps" and see it as almost an assault on their own tastes.

Soaps though can be about anything. Dark Shadows is inarguably the most famous and enduring soap of all, out on DVD, rumored to be being turned into a motion picture with Johnny Depp, and yet it is about a vampire. I don't see why gangsters on GH is any more legit than someone being possessed on DOOL. It's all just genre, and B level genre at that.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The difference is GH matured at some point, and DAYS just got more and more outrageous. In the 80's, when GH was the #1 soap riding high with the supercouple and campy action/adventure storylines, DAYS was the biggest GH rip-off in daytime. Almost everything DAYS did was a direct descendant of something GH had tried previously. The two shows even shared many of the same writers throughout the 80's.

However, by the 90's, ABC saw that this particular form of storytelling wasn't working anymore and they had to move into a more realistic direction, by this time Y&R and AMC were dominating the soap ratings, and these shows were always more traditional and character-driven.

Anyway, when Wendy Riche came to GH, she said in her debut interview with TV Guide that it was her goal to make the show taken more seriously and follow a more character-driven direction, hence we got a lot more realistic storytelling. Claire Labine was soon hired and GH entered a new golden period where they focused on social issues, family problems, traditional romances, and just classic soap staples. There was some action/adventure, with the return of Luke and Laura and the addition of Sonny and his mob connections, but that didn't overpower the show, and for once in years, GH was taken seriously again by critics and fans, and the show won numerous accolades for its efforts. Even Guza's first and second stints at the show focued a lot on more serious matters, even if the Cassidines had returned and were very over the top. They still dealt with family issues, like the stuff effecting the Quartermaines, and social issues like Elizabeth's rape, which tied into the revisiting of Luke raping Laura.

At the same time, Reilly came over to DAYS and the show got even more outrageous than it was in the 80's. Ratings did rise and by 95 DAYS had risen to #2, but Reilly's approach hurt the show severely in the long run. Characters were never fully developed, they weren't allowed to grow and progress, the storylines were meant for shock value, there was a lot of quick fixes, and the show eventually was looked upon as a cartoon by many critics and even fans. Needless to say, even though Reilly tried something different and ratings initially rose, it didn't benefit the fabric of the show in the long-term. GH by contrast had become more traditional, didn't rely on the supercouple approach as much, and told serious social stories, which IMO DAYS really can't or never could do in the past 25 years or so

[maconrich]

So I guess dena can't write for him either, eh?