DAYS: Thaao Penghlis attacks the late James E. Reilly

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Port Charles was lower rated for the years PC and PSSNS were on the air together.

[juniorz1]

It was? I always thought PC topped PAS in the ratings.

[juniorz1]

It was? I always thought PC topped PAS in the ratings.

[Rakesh]

Passions had some good demos too.

[dragonflies]

So this "don't speak ill of the dead" mantra, does that to apply to everyone or just Reilly. So we can't speak ill of long dead serial killers(Manson comes to mind) and others then?

[Toups]

Wow....first Hitler....now Manson........yeah....let's mention Reilly, who was just a freakin soap opera writer, in the same breath as those guys. Wow.

Anyway, you guys can say anything you want about Reilly's work. But sometimes it's good to be tactful.

[Kubla Khan]

Well, wow. This post of yours truly takes the cake.

[dragonflies]

And the double standards in this thread truly take the cake......

I'm not the one with the double standards, so it's okay to NOT speak ill of the dead if it's Reilly, but okay for everyone else, be it President, Politician or whatever?

Got it!

[Vee]

He may be nasty, he may be bitchy but he is right. [!@#$%^&*] the haters. Does everybody really want to pretend Reilly did not start DOOL down this road?

[TheRedWarrior]

LOL are you for real? There's more to life than money....

Just reading that made me feel sorry for you. JERk had his millions but in the end they didn't prevent him from dying did they? And what good will all that cash do for him now?

I'd rather have true love than all the millions in the world.

[David V]

SteveFrame, as always, is spot on.

Part of any reasonable discussion of soap history weighs up the positives and negatives of the legacies writers and producers leave to Daytime.

Both Gloria Monty and James E. Reilly warrant such examination, because they both brought a sense of excitement to Daytime and made their shows "must-see TV". However, they also had a deeply negative effect on Daytime that has culminated in the genre being in the pitiful state it is in today.

Monty's action-oriented plot-driven drama and the supercouple phenomenon brought up ratings, but it also had the effect of creating a new trend in Daytime- that people were watching shows only for their favourite characters and couples, and not for the show. And because of this, shows are held to ransom by rabid fanbases- something which Days in particular suffers from. You can see that shows all began copying each other as a result, with the notable exception of Y&R and a few others.

Reilly, on the other hand, began with some over-the-top but not wholly unrealistic storylines like getting buried alive (because you can get buried alive in real life!), but once the Possession storyline captured attention, the stakes rose.

To me, and many others, Reilly's legacy really did tremendous damage to Daytime.

Soaps used to strive to better themselves in terms of acting and critical acclaim, they strove to gain wider respect- which is what Y&R and AMC in particular were always very good at doing back in the day. The realism, social relevance and character development of Y&R were the main reasons the show stayed on top all those years. But the sensationalism, shock value and downright stupidity that consumed Daytime since the 90s and into the 00s has only destroyed the genre, because the stakes in those things are so high, and there are so many risks taken, that you have people coming in to see your latest stupid stunt and then once the novelty value wears off and reality bites, they leave in droves.

Soap viewers are an intelligent and informed lot with the memories of elephants. They don't like their intelligence being insulted. That's why the constant returns from the dead, undoing of history, far-out plots and stunts, etc can only get you so far. Hard-hitting realistic drama resonates far better with ordinary people.

[quartermainefan]

What's the insult? It's far fetched and bizarre, but how is this an insult yet 30 straight years of regurgitated repetitive baby dramas and infidelity not? It's different anyway. No one was saying it was meant to be seen as realistic anymore than The Bride of Frankenstein is meant to be seen as realisitic.

[quartermainefan]

I have to say I found the whole Melaswen story with the force fields and cliff hangers and sword fights and magnetic floors, and John and Brady being sucked into a giant fan and a skeleton with a cigar in his mouth to be a lot of fun. It was certainly better than anything GH, the award winning drama, was churning out with their umpteenth gang war. I don't think you can ever blame someone for wanting to create interest. Someone who creates interest is someone who wants to hook you and engage you and make you want to see more. That's not someone that's insulting me. The one who insults me is the writer who doesn't care his work is dull, typical and uninteresting and isn't willing to work for my attention. JER, crazy stories and all, never rested on his laurels during that period. He gave you an island surrounded by a force field, and then said "you ain't seen nothing yet" and had then had people run into a tidal wave. Then he said "tidal wave shmidal wave, I am gonna take half the people hostage in a castle for months. And then as soon as Marlena gets rescued, I am gonna give her amnesia, and bring back Wayne Northrop, and then I am gonna give the show this, and this, and this, and I am not gonna go with everyone else and give you a wedding where nothing happens...I am gonna have someone ride their motorcycle right through the stained glass window."

Was it all good? No, obviously not. But he tried. He tried to present something for the audience to watch, be it Jan Spears, or the Gloved Hand, or Marlena killing people, or 3 Romans on the show at once or whatever. TP is right in his criticisms of JER making it into a cartoon, but there is nothing inherently inferior about cartoons or genre fantasy or any of it. Was Dark Shadows insulting too? Now GH, that's insulting. Guiding Light and their amateurish production values--that's insulting. Someone trying to be sensational and saying "I want you to watch this" is not insulting me.

[Sindacco]

Good to be tactful? What is okey to say and what is not? Who made these rules?

[Toups]

What? You didn't think mentioning Reilly in the same breath as hitler or Manson wasn't low? And to still call him a "JERk"? It's like, what did he personally do you ("you" as in people in general)? Oh yeah, he just wrote "bad" soap opera. You guys don't feel bad at all that he's dead? If Bob Guza died (just using him as an example of a writer whose writing I dislike), I don't think I can call him "Guza the Luza" again. Sure, I'll still say that I hated his work, but I'd do it in a "tactful" way. These people are just writers - they never hurt anyone, they never ruined anyone's life.