March 16-20, 2009

[MikeGoldy]

We may be seeing a different show. There are several stories that are developing, that feature characters that are familiar to the audience. The Brady-Nicole-EJ-Sami-Rafe story, the Daniel-Chloe-Lucas-Kate story, and the Stephanie-Philip-Melanie story can play out for several years. As these stories are developing, you have the Will and Mia connection, who certainly will gain a couple of teenage friends by summer. We still have Stefano, Kate, Maggie, Caroline, Victor, Abe, Lexie.... The show isn't brilliant. But there is a clear vision and I have to agree with where they are going.

[MikeGoldy]

I couldn't agree with you more about Maggie, Victor, Caroline and Kate working great as supporting players while also bringing that "vet" feel, which you could never get from Drake, Dee, Stephen, or MaryBeth, because the demand would always be that THEY should be the stars of the show.

[twnkathy]

The difference with Gary Tomlin is he has not been messed with like the others were IMO,there was a clear vision set up for Days when Scott was fired so i'm not tooting Tomlins horn .

[JackPeyton]

I agree. The pat was holding them back because fan bases wouldnt allow them to move forward. J/M and P/K had to be front and center everyday all day in an amazing storyline right out of the 80's otherwise it was crap. yet when they did the campy OTT 80's bullshit it also failed. Im glad they cut them out and are moving on.

Oh you know me so well.

But really, i woudlnt. I would be happy if people came here to discuss Days, but they dont. FYI, i do post at other boards where people like days. I dont just disagree for the hell of it

that is EXACTLY what Days is. and i love it.

very well said, i agree.

Days has placed the cast well. The vets like Stefano, Victor, Maggie, and Caroline may not be front and center, but they are being used. And not just handing out menues and talking to someone in a random scene. Kate is a major player in a b storyline. Maggie is a supporting player in that story. Victor & Stefano are driving storylines.

And just because they are younger doesnt mean that Sami and Lucas are not vets. Ali has been here for almost 20 years now. Further more they are using other people with about 10 years history like Philip, Nicole, etc... and using people with strong ties like Stephanie and EJ.

Days is doing something that no other soap is right now. Gaining people - lots of them - and keeping them.

and i am sure it will fall next week, it always does after a major gain. but then in about 2 weeks it steadys out and does well and does end up keeping most of what they gained.

[Toups]

I can 99% guarantee Ken Corday is going to meddle with Tomlin/Whitesell/Higley somehow. When something abruptly stops.....when a storyline all of a sudden goes into another direction......that's Ken Corday. He did it to Brash/Cwikly in 2001, he did it to Reilly in 2004, he did it to Sheffer in 2006, and he's gonna do it again.....it's only a matter of time.

[Toups]

Glad you see the Reilly-isms too. The slow pacing, the storytelling, the clear vision, the false tags, the flashbacks (God, I hate seeing those Dan/Chloe sex flashbacks), the fantasy-fakeouts (ie. Nicole knocking Sami out in the church, Kate reveals the truth to Chloe on the plane, EJ finding out the truth, etc), the dumbing down of characters (EJ).

The best thing about the Chloe/Lucas/Daniel/Kate storyline is watching Kate's POV and her messing with Dan/Chloe. But when you watch from Lucas, Chloe or Dan's POV, it's dreadful. Kate finding out was the best thing to happen to this story. It went from a F to a B.

[twnkathy]

I agree Toups.Do you think the ratings increase is due to March madness.I was looking at the ratings increase and wanted to compare it to last year at this time at it was interesting.March 10 to the 14 had a 254,000 drop with 2,644,000 VIEWERS then the next week March 17-21 had a 306,000 viewer increase with a viewership of 2,988,000 thats about what happened this year.

[SouthOfSoap]

I don't think JackPeyton's opinion is all that contrary - it might just appear that way on this board. I happen to agree with him - I haven't enjoyed Days this much since B&C's tenure in 2002. To me the soap is JER-esque but with better dialogue, pacing and acting but with storylines less "ground-breaking". It ticks over very nicely and has interesting character intersections that remove the "different day, same dialogue" angle.

Regarding the huuuuuuuuge fanbases that were meant to be tuning out when J/M & S/K were fired: To be honest I thought there would be a small decrease, not a huge impact. I never thought the ratings would improve. I have often gotten the impression that DOOL fanbases are very active and vocal to compensate for their true lack in numbers together with the fact that they only tuned into the show when their favourites were on and often mentioned F/F the rest anyway - as far as ratings go, they were already "out of the numbers".

The reason the ratings haven't dropped and have actually improved is as JackPeyton says because the deadweight of the show has been removed. It worked on Days because (a) the new stories are well crafted ( those old vets were played out (yes some may disagree there is still plenty story in those characters left. Maybe for Marlena by herself there is. Maybe Patch's backstory there is - but as couples, its just a boring remix of the old tune...)

To say that there are no vets left driving story is nonsense too that reflects a bias towards certain other vets. At what point do you consider someone a vet? Just because they aren't over 40, doesnt mean they cant be a vet. Why is Lauren Koslow who has been on the show since 1996 a vet, yet Ali Sweeney (joined in 1993), Bryan Datillo (joined in 1993), Ari Zuker (first joined in 1998, 11 years ago), Nadia Bjorlin (shudder, originally joined in late 1999) are not? Yes, these actors are young, but if you aren't familiar with them now you may have memory problems (or ff'd from day one never giving them a chance). These actors driving the A-stories are certainly a part of the Days fabric now - one that is a decade old.

Regarding storyline progression, I think the show has laid out the foundation for at least 18 months worth of story after the baby storyline climax and Chloes affair comes to a head. Kiriakis/Di MEra wars, EJ's fallout over Nicole and Sami, Nicole & Brady etc. There is more but don't want to spoil people. Plus some of the B stories will probably swing into A stories.

My crackpot theory is that Tomlin/Whitesell are writing and producing and giving Dena the Bo/Hope stupid story to write (just my theory - I have no proof). As long as the show sticks to its current formula, I think the ratings will be stable to slightly rising for some time to come.

My second crackpot theory is regarding how Tomlin/Whitesell could create ratings and JER 2 couldn't (post SSK) and Sheffer couldn't I think explains how Days works:

I think Corday doesnt get involved in the show unless his co-executive asks him too. When the co-exucutive meddles with the headwriter and has conflict, the show falls to pieces:

Namely - JER vs Steve Wyman. For every accusation about Ken meddling, I think it all came from Wyman. Conflict between JER & Wyman led to storyline rewrites and down the tubes;

Sheffer vs Wyman - Sheffer starts off with a bang - goes pear shaped as Wyman interferes;

Sheffer & Scott - Scott steps in, hits it off really well with Sheffer, quality of show and ratings start to improve

Higley & Scott - Hate each other, ratings and quality tank

(Higley), Tomlin & Whitesell - good working team, results on screen

[jfung79]

Whoa, what a bad week for the P&G soaps when a short week and the high quality of the Parker/Liberty story, featuring popular Jack/Carly, should have at least helped ATWT. And GL was continuing its run of good quality with Dinah revealing to everyone about being in on the kidnapping.

This is depressing!

[Steve]

Thank you for pointing out the truth that AMC's ratings have been relatively stable under Pratt!

I feel the same way about the show these days. There is no more balance. I am relieved to see the ratings go up the week Kendall slept with Ryan, though, and stay steady for Tuesday & Wednesday when they slept together. Maybe now Frons & company will realize this show doesn't need the Zendall fanbase!

[Jane1978]

I don´t think this is true. As a DAYS watcher I really feel the writers are still atleast two steps ahead. I mean, the moment Sami and Rafe grew closer they already started hint at Rafe´s past. And today we will discover something terrible happened to his parrents. What? And who they were? And why is Mia so afraid to tell Will her full name? Could there be a connection?

The show is not waiting with a folded hands desperately dragging the reveal not knowing what to do next. They are already laying foundation for the next conflict after Rafe/Sami ends together. IMO, that´s the right way soaps should operate.

[Ann_SS]

Looking at Days and Y&R in the 18-49 women demo on which the networks base their success, it seems to me that it is hard to definitively say what helps soaps do well with that audience. Y&R depends on its older characters and vets to anchor most of its stories, while Days has tossed their vets and foundation couples overboard. It may all be random. I want to see if these improving demos are a trend or merely weekly fluctuations. It is too easy to over interpret weekly fluctuations as gaining audience when they are caused by something else completely. MarkH should do a graph of the last year of this demo group when the ratings from May sweeps are in.

[Cat]

Now will they fire Guza and JFP?

[Gumdrop]

I think as long as Frons is there, Guza will be there. Frons is the one who needs to go before anyone, as far as I'm concerned.

[rhinohide]

I don't know if it's random, or simply that different formulas work if well executed. There is no solution that is universally successful across the board. It's been said that Frons doesn't want to transform OLTL into a Y&Rlite, and I can't argue with that. OLTL should be distinct from the other soaps (and all of them should be distinct from each other) otherwise there is nothing to separate them except the habit of tuning into this station at this time. They would all be interchangeable.

At the risk of speaking out of both sides of my mouth, I think this is what is missing from OLTL right now. There are too many stories overall (and too many "A" stories specifically), and minimal overlapping of the stories and the pacing of the stories is very mechanical. Obviously, Rex/Gigi/Shane/Stacy are what you would call an "A" story (although in my opinion that's several stories rolled up into just a few characters). They're on almost every episode. It involves Roxy and Rex's "father, and they seem to be pulling Brody and Schuyler into that story more, which should add to the complexity and richness. But they should have the story impact even more characters than that, and it should tie to some of the second tier stories.

The Marty/John/Blair stabber story is another "A" story. It minimally involves other characters as "suspects" or props, but for the most part it occurs in isolation. Why aren't Marty and Blair and Todd, at least, being tied into the baby swap story peripherally? Why isn't the audience being reminded that they're Chlope's grandparents? The only people seemingly impacted by the potential reveal of the baby swap are Jessica, Starr and Marcie, and that makes no sense.

Then there are a plethora of second/third tier "B and C" stories that seem to be playing out in almost total isolation from each other. The baby swap, Mathew's paralysis and Cole's drug addiction, Dorian and Ray's romance, Cris and Layla, Markko and Lola to name a few. These may loosely tie into the other stories, but we rarely see those ties. An example is, Jared and Natalie spent three or four episodes in the same waiting room at the hospital (they even had a wardrobe change, but remained in the same setting) and had basically the same conversation all four episodes, but had only minimal interaction with other people in the hospital at the same time. They had one brief conversation with Rex, none with Roxy, or Bo, or Nora, or Matthew, or Cole. Other than token mentions here and there, you'd think they were unaware that Blair was stabbed and there could be a killer on the loose. We know they got tested as matches for Shane, but it was brought up as an afterthought.

All the stories would be improved by including more characters that make sense, and there are so many opportunities for that to happen that are being overlooked.