DAYS: Discussion for the month of October

[Ann_SS]

I was disappointed in Nicole's responses to E.J. She should have been cleverer. Overall, I enjoyed the scenes though.

[SouthOfSoap]

I think the point was to convey she was caught off guard initially and it took a while for her gain her footing to deflect EJ. I think thats more realistic than her being prepared for EJ's verbal assualt always. Shes been playing this game so long, she started coasting, becoming sloppy recently thinking she has gotten away with it for so long that the standard responses would work forever. Clearly EJ has finally grown a brain. I knew Ari Zucker would deliver in those scenes, but I always have doubts about James Scott - I find his performances, while sometimes hit and miss, more lacking a certain something. I think he was perfect in those scenes though. Can't wait for tomorrow.

[JackPeyton]

No, i didnt care because for far to long now its been close calls and near miss' with these two. I knew thurs she was busted friday and didnt really care. When he played the tape i didnt care. When he pulled out the belly, i knew what it was.

and nicole being busted by ej isnt a rooting point for me, because the entire nicole/ej thing was so blahh for me. it was sudden, out of nowhere, and i never bought that he really loved her. i also never understood why when in the past he has been so smart and whatnot and he was just a moron in this story. the rooting point for me is when Mia finds out what nicole did. when Sami finds out. even when Brady finds out the entire story. and when Sami finds out Mia & Brady knew part of the story and all of that. And hopefully it leads to someone killing Nicole.

[soapfan770]

How soon before Kate rips out Chloe's hair too?

[Toups]

Another great episode today! I can't wait to see how Carly/Lawrence's marriage fell apart. I wonder if Lawrence is keeping Nikki, or maybe another child, away from Carly and that's who/what Lawrence was talking about before he passed out, "You will never find....." Kudos to James Scott and Ari Zuker again for today's riveting scenes. EJ was scary when he put his hands on Nicole's throat. I only wish that their scenes were longer. That's one of the things I don't like about DAYS, too many short scenes, too many Acts (they really need to take one out, no other soaps have 7 acts).

[soapfan770]

Considering Nikki came back to Salem in the form of Victor Webster for a good year or so I doubt Lawrence is keeping him from her. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility of there being another child. To this day I've never been thrilled that Carly wound up with Lawrence in the first place considering throughout their time in Salem up til her burial she despised him and tried hard not to let him stir up old feelings/

[PhoenixRising05]

I agree they should get rid of one act but Days still does have long scenes when the material calls for it. There were quite a few long Nicole/EJ scenes on Friday and a few today.

[JackPeyton]

they can de-soras him ala Mike Horton, who was in his late 20's-early 30's for like 20 years it seems, lol.

[JackPeyton]

I loved the Brady & Mia scenes. When did Mia tell maggie the truth? Did i miss that? I also really like Chad & Mia, a lot actually. perhaps more than will & mia. when he said "i just dont want you to hate anymore" and she started talking about crying when she sees a baby, and wanting to go to homecoming and just have fun i really fell for these two. CD & TS have nice chem thats growing as time goes on. "ill, uh, see you in class" chad is such an ass, i love it. but damn, then at the end with mia/will, that was also great.

ha, i wish ej woulda beat the [!@#$%^&*] out of nicole. i really hope someone kills her once the whole truth is out. "i did all of this for you" she claims, please, nicole is a selfish bitch who did all of this for her own personal gain.

Sami & Maggie <333 ... humm, i wonder why they are not working Peggy McCay, why isnt Sami taking a job at the pub with her bff Ari? I dont mind tho, because i love Ali & Suzanne, and having scenes with Joe M was a treat. I love sami/stefano and stefano/maggie. lol. i am loving sami looking for a job... oh, and there they discussed sami working at the pub, lol. oh man, that moment where sami admitted to maggie about being scared the twins will see how much she miss' grace was great. and oh man, Maggie bringing up her past with kids... great stuff. Thank you to TPTB for giving Suzanne Rogers something to do and using her so much, i really hope they keep it up.

Oh, and Carly... im loving this slow build. i love that we are unsure of whats going on. its great. and the Bo/Justin scenes were good too. "i have never been this angry in my life" poor bo, it will be ok because as carly said... "im going home.. to salem".

[Cat]

You know a soap is good when out of the handful of ones that you tape, you FF to that show first. Days is that soap for me and it's on fire! It didn't even have to crash a plane to do it (although those were really good scenes last year). I didn't FF once, not even through the Mia scenes which I usually do.

First of all, I like the way "filler" scenes are not really filler but have the same emotional weight as those used to advance plot. Yesterday, Days had Chloe and Philip (Line of the Day: "Awkward...isn't it? I don't know what to say. Sorry my mom tried to kill you?"). And it had Mia and Brady. Loved Brady's big-brotherly concern when he realized just what Mia had sacrificed in order to keep Nicole's secret. It saved him from being completely Nicole's lapdog. IA with jp about Chad & Mia. The two actors click better together than Mia & Will. Wonder if Days will answer the call of chemistry (which they do, sometimes, to be fair) or stick with the script?

And, best of all, it had Sami and Maggie, which didn't seem like filler at all. It felt like groundwork for some kind of Kate-Stefano-Maggie story. I just love it when characters you don't always see together interact because it shows another side of their "personalities." I wish Sami had gotten a job with Maggie because A. it would have meant seeing Sami waiting on Kate and Stefano, and B. it would have given Maggie some more airtime other than being Mia and Whatshername's shoulder to cry on.

EJ & Nicole -- everything has already been said here. I got goosebumps in their scenes. James Scott, especially, brought IT. Wonder if he secretly thanks a certain star at AMC for having had him fired -- and therefore allowed him to develop potential at Days? Who'd have thunk it at the time?

Am sad that the Carly & Lawrence fantasy in my head has been well and truly knifed to death. I loved those two. But I am psyched that Carly is already coming to Salem. I am trying to remember which Bo Crystal Chappell had more chemistry with -- PR or RKK? I do remember RKK and Lisa Rinna having scorching scenes together.

[JackPeyton]

I would kill for a Maggie/Stefano fling. LOL! Days needs to kill Mickey Horton, like 4 years ago.

And IMHO, CC & PR had the ebst chem, but she and RKK also had it. KA only had chem with PR and LR had chem with PR but she sizzled with RKK.

[DRW50]

I LOVED that brief Kate/Maggie faceoff.

Kate: "Don't you have any words of comfort?"

Then Maggie says, in a complete deadpan, something like, "Oh Kate, I'm so sad. At least this time you didn't actually kill him."

Seeing Suzanne Rogers get to play some of that feistiness is great fun.

Most of the scenes really clicked. I even liked those Sami/Will scenes, it's nice to see Sami being relatively normal and yet not being weepy or clingy, seeing her and Will try to be strong for each other.

[DeliaIrisFan]

This is so surreal, to not only watch (ok, fast forward through 75% of) DOOL three days in a row, but for Dr. Carly Manning to be back on the show. How fun! There were soaps that were so much better done at the time, to be sure, but I was fascinated by Carly back then, and the fact that she has been gone for a decade and a half and probably mentioned no more than a handful of times since then makes her all the more alluring. And Crystal Chappell has actually grown as an actress in the past fifteen years, with an Emmy to prove it. This could actually be really good! Plus as an adult I can look back and say that her story was so bad when she left that it could actually be improved upon even if today's creatively barren daytime climate.

Speaking of which, not to speak ill of the dead, but has CC (or Michael Sabatino) ever given a candid interview about being forced out in the '90s and their feelings about James Reilly? People say he was great at payoffs, but he sure wasn't at the beginning! I don't think I was even a teen at the time, and I seem to recall that school started shortly after Carly had been exhumed, and I must have tuned out. Imagine my surprise the next time I caught an episode and learned that Carly got her memory back and left town with Lawrence, but I never saw how it played out and I just assumed I must have missed something. Now having actually seen those scenes on YouTube, I can say with certainty that it made no sense whatsoever. Not only did it go against everything that had happened on-screen, but after the enormous success of that story, CC's Carly should have been tormented by Louise Sorel's Vivian for years to come, and she should have become Lawrence's "Queen of the Night." I might have actually watched that. I really wonder what was going on backstage at this show at that time? They had the campy buried alive story, which I am very ambivalent about but thanks at least to CC and LS I will never forget it, but I also stumbled across Billie's murder trial on YouTube recently, and the show seemed to make such an abrupt shift into a darker, grittier direction (well, dark and gritty for DOOL) in what must have been a matter of months. But then a year later they were back to being over-the-top, with the possession story pushing the envelope even further. What the hell? Was there a tug of war behind the scenes? Between Corday and Reilly, I would assume? Does anyone have any insight?

Anyway, back to this week's shows, I just have two more comments: Lawrence had better really be dead, or Carly - a doctor, who was once mistakenly declared dead and ended up buried alive because of it - will be completely ruined as a character for not recognizing he was still alive. And could that child that Lawrence told Carly she would never find be Bo's? I can't help but think that somehow it will be revealed that Carly was pregnant when she was drugged with magical herbs and subsequently declared dead and buried alive, only to almost die for real from lack of oxygen in her coffin, and she still managed to carry the baby to term...

[DRW50]

I think CC had issues with Deirdre Hall, as Crystal was queen of the lot at that time and Deirdre had recently returned and been given uneven material. And she supposedly wasn't close to RKK either.

I've seen some fans who came back saying how upset they are about this with Lawrence because he would never treat Carly that way, but after 16 years, how do you know?

[DeliaIrisFan]

I have to say I have a twisted appreciation for the irony where Deidre Hall is concerned. As for RKK, they tossed him aside less than two years later, so again I have to say, the left hand didn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.