What are they doing right at Days?

[ChiTownBoi03]

Agreed. Well, except for the part about Jarlena. I just love me some Marlena, since when I was little and first started watching she just drew me in as the face of DAYS. I was pretty bummed out when she left. However, over time I just shrugged my shoulders and chalked it up to 'thats how life is sometimes'. The show must go on, so if a show makes a decent effort to deliver story-wise, and utilize the vets already on canvas, I will likely continue to watch. DAYS has done this. Now personally, I don't believe DAYS to be great--or excellent--right now...I still find myself somewhat bored if I watch every single day, but I can safely say it's *good.*

[Bright Eyes]

The show is also proof that viewers couldn't care less about production or technical values.

[JackPeyton]

dont get me wrong... i LOVE D. Hall and Marlena, but the fans refused to sllow her to grow and change as a character. Id rather see her leave than feel bad for her and thinking Marlena had become pathetic and annoying.

to a point they dont. A soap doesnt need to look perfect and real, but it cant look like GL either.

[Leia]

This post nails it!

[SouthOfSoap]

I agree with everything everyone has said above, but would like to add that compared to say to the last decade, most the characters are behaving with their brains fully intact. The odd exceptions to this are Bo & Hope. But perhaps its not that odd given that are still tied down to the breakup/makeup supercouple formula some people cant let go of.

Alot of people have compared the current writing to JERs. While I do see the similarities, I think there are two major differences: I feel the stories had higher stakes under JER and better pay-offs as mentioned above. I also feel the dialogue, acting and pacing is much better now than under JER. The dialogue is more intelligent, putting a new layer in development to distract from repetition, as opposed to JER where they litterally did repeat the exact conversation. Also as mentioned, characters have brains, something largely absent under JER.

[Michael]

I'm glad to see that others are finding the show to be oddly satisfying lately. I knew the ratings were up, but it's rare to see this much positivity about a current-day soap gathered up in one place!

I agree that the production values aren't amazing or lush, but I sort of feel like I'm watching a filmed stage play. And I don't mind soaps being like that, honestly. If it takes going back to that model in order for these shows to be made on a budget, I'm all for it, as long as the writing's there.

As for the writing -- it's not earth-shattering, but it's strangely satisfying to me. It felt like they were forced to strip this show down to the very core of what a soap opera is, and they've been rebuilding from the ground up for the past year. And this is stupid, but I love those little interstitial bits with the Days trivia presented by the actors. It at least feels like they're not blatantly ignoring 44 years of history when I get to hear things like "In the 70s, Maggie adopted a little girl named Janice" said onscreen.

[quartermainefan]

I don't think they are doing a tremendous amount different from say 2007 or so, it is just for some reason people are willing to give the show a second look. It did hit a bad patch with Belle and Shawn on that island forever, but those days are thankfully over. It is amazing that the hack is lauded for writing a good soap, and Emmy winner Hogan Sheffer wrote stories that tended to be truly dull. He was shackled my financial considerations and had to ignore half the cast, but even the ones he wrote for were dull.

[SouthOfSoap]

It wasn't just Belle/Shawne island mess. Touch the sky, Ejami rapemance, sorority house rape, Colleen and Santo, Lucas shoots EJ were all rubbish too.

I dont know if the hack is writing this, but regardless of whoever is writing this, they have even tighter financial considerations than Sheffer had and yet the show utilises its entire cast, which isn't so small anymore (I count 28 contract players plus John Aniston and Rachel Kimsey), in a very balanced way. So that argument doesn't fly. Hogan Sheffer also ignores half the cast on Y&R - that show is very unbalanced in featuring its cast as well. Defenders of Sheffer will blame it on instructions from higher-ups or financial considerations, but Days has a smaller budget and can achieve it. The truth is Sheffer cant write a balanced soap, he has his favourites and ignores the rest. He did it on ATWT, he did it on DAYS, he is doing it on Y&R (and you can blame MAB all you want for that because she allows it, but the root of it is still Sheffer). He didnt have to ignore half the cast, he chose to ignore half the cast.

The Hogan Sheffer fan club also like to say that Corday forced him to write certain stories. Given the similarities between Amber/Deacon and Sami/EJ stoylines, I think its a safe bet to say that was not one of them. Sheffer likes his soap dark and depressing , rich in rape and mysogyny. So if the hack or whoever is being lauded for writing good (not amazing) soap and Sheffer was slated (by the general viewing public switching channels, not this board), it really should come as no suprise. Its hardly amazing really.

[DRW50]

When Sheffer does remember to think of what viewers might want to see, he tends to only think of them in how to shock or demoralize them. Or he focuses on his idea of a manly man. There were big mistakes. EJ raping Sami, Sami spending most of 2007 weeping and being rescued by EJ/Lucas and their eternal shouting contest. Patch in the nuthouse. Phillip as a rageaholic. Phillip obsessing over children he would forget within a few months. Phillip and Belle in a torrid affair, when Belle was about the least sexual ingenue ever. And the degrading, meaningless stories he gave Nick, completely squandering any potential that character had.

The show as it is now seems much more like classic soap to me, and they actually manage to have heroic characters like Rafe who aren't self-righteous monsters. There's a good balance in the cast and most of the characters seem to be written close to what I would expect from them. It's also nice to see more of the vets, and to see good pacing, and seeing people interact and their lives affect each other. I also think the teens on here are generally better than on most other soaps.

It's not a perfect show or even close to it but it's watchable and sometimes great.

[quartermainefan]

I think the king of the balancing act was JER, goofy stories and all.

Heffer I guess pretty much sucked. There was a brief period when JER was gone but before Sheffer arrived that I thought the show was really interesting. I think this was back when Abe caught Lexi and Tek in bed. It is becoming a little time back, and I might be getting my timelines confused. Who wrote the airplane? That was the best, just great stuff. I also loved the stuff crossing 2006 into 2007 when EJ shot John/Patrick held Hope hostage/Lucas trapped in the show. I felt like I was watching a season finale to Dynasty, there was just that much soap packed into one episode.

I forgot all about Touch The Sky. But the campus rape story was good stuff I thought and it starred 40 day players. Was that the hack?

[Vee]

Days is alive but I wouldn't call it thriving. I was tired of the show leaning on John and Marlena too, but to totally wipe out those elders like them and Steve and Kayla? It still feels like a ghost town to me, like it's kept pushing forward by sheer force of will. I don't feel it has much of a sense of identity anymore.

The show is "working" today only because it (it being "Gary Tomlin") knows it must write for a very strict continuum of people: A lot of young kids, a handful of vets, and plot, plot, plot. What is Stefano actually doing? Marrying Kate? Okay. Diabetes? Who gives a [!@#$%^&*] about Stefano getting diabetes? Will Wilford Brimley appear ("last night my illness made me punch my wife, and she's been dead for years. who the hell did I hit?")? EJ and Nicole and the endless baby crap? Serviceable, but I don't care. Sami and Rafe? Why is this dude here when EJ and Lucas are still on canvas? Brady and Theresa? Don't care. Everything to do with Daniel is unwatchable. Mia? Don't care. "Nathan Horton?" Not real. Stephanie? Bad casting. Phillip and Melanie? Improperly used. Carly? Could care, except for the fact that Bo and Hope seem to have broken up over Bo's psychic powers. That's not a story, that's a gag.

Yes, it's nice that CC is back and that Days has some life in it, and that Suzanne Rogers gets a lot to do, though only by virtue of her being one of the last motherfuckers left. But the show seems to me to be in another one of those vague, limbo-like periods in its history where Salem was populated largely by forgotten, transitory B or C-listers, just before someone big came back or someone new took off. It reminds me of the "Valentine's Day Massacre" days. Where's the real drama, the real investment? Why do I care what Phillip and Melanie are doing about Mia or Nathan or Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald? Oh, that's nice that people go to talk to Maggie and Victor, when they're the only people to talk to. How many times can you play the same beats with Phil, Mel and the wrong Stephanie? How much can characters like Chloe and Sami be squandered in mediocre stories? How long before they go the way of Max, Chelsea or Nick, great, promising characters who disappeared because the show has nothing left to hang them on, no foundation to build with or support them? It's not that bad, it's just boring. It's not what Days should be. It's sort of a de-juiced Another World.

[DRW50]

I don't think DAYS has had a sense of identity in a long time, they managed to find the right combination when JER was headwriter, the first time around, but even that was more his ideas which were grafted on and just happened to be well-executed and which were played out by the right cast members. Over the years they have sort of plodded on with various cobbled together portions of various eras, the Reilly era, the supercouple era. I guess I appreciate the show more now because they are at least trying to find their way towards some new identity, possibly, as I think they've done a good job with the new characters they've introduced.

They never seemed to have any idea what to do with Patch or Kayla on their return. I wish they could have stayed but I'm not surprised they were written out. I just wish Stephanie had gone with them.

I don't believe that Max was that great, but I do wish they hadn't ruined Nick. Until Hogan and Higley, he was a really potentially wonderful character, he could have gone anywhere.

[Jane1978]

If you don´t like the characters, you don´t like the show, that´s easy. And there will be always some people like you who are stuck in the past and automatically see the current cast and current characters as something less. But IMO what you are saying is not true, just contrary, exactly because the show was forced/decided to use these "B" or "C" characters more and develop them, give them something to do and put them in frontburner position is the reason the show transitioned so well. Before, no matter what, the "A" players were always the supercouples from 80´s. When they left and TPTB had yet again cut contract quarantees for KA and PR which made them practically unusable for leading purposes, the show had to ask these talented "B" and "C" players to step up and lead the show. And they did and they´ve been succesfull. Why? Because the show writes them as the leads as well so their stories has a weight.

This is the biggest problem the show had till last year. The "A" stories of the show was given to characters who either couldn´t be featured at all, or their use was constantly limited by the contract and budget restrictions. And the characters who could be used freely and occupied most of the airtime was still given the same tired "B" and "C" stories many people didn´t care for.

Nobody would watch DAYS this year if we saw Sami, EJ and Nicol only one or two times per week, while the teen triangle between Mia, Will and Chad was on every day.

[PhoenixRising05]

They broke up over Ciara's kidnapping and how Bo handled it. Bo's visions have been gone for weeks now.

[JackPeyton]

Days has a better use of vets than any other soap right now IMHO.

Maggie, Stefano, Victor, Caroline, Bo, Hope, Sami. They are the vets of this show and aside from Caroline are all used quite well. Maggie is supporting in around 3 stories, Stefano has his own and is supporting others, Victor is supporting all over the place, Bo & Hope's marriage is falling apart for internal reasons for once, and Sami, well girls got a lot going on. And like it or not she is a vet. Shes coming on what, 17 years? Without leaving once.