DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[DaysFanatic777]

I have read your posts for years on this board, and another message board I post on.  You never disappoint. I agree with all of this.  

 

I remember my mother's reaction to the Brady invasion.  She HATED it.  She loathed watching them hijack the show. She kept on watching, but she was never satisfied with Days again when the show shifted gears.  

 

I see it this way...soaps evolved and moved to prime time.  I ADORE "Game Of Thrones", and yes it is a soap opera.  Soaps have not bit the bullet, but daytime dramas are indeed dying from self inflicted wounds.  

[KMan101]

 

Before I delve into my reply, I want to say

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 thank you for the compliment!! I never know how I come across sometimes, LOL, so it's nice to hear. I have such a passion for daytime drama and it's stunning how wrong they get it so often. And I enjoy your posts as well. I love posting here because we're all so passionate. Even when some of us disagree we always end up finding common ground, LOL. I love our little community here  

 

Agreed so much on "daytime dramas are indeed dying from self inflicted wounds" SO SO SO SO TRUE. They only have themselves to blame, really. They spend a lot of time being annoyed by us who demand better instead of actually giving us better ...

 

Thanks for your mom's reaction to the Brady invasion. It seems no one ever wants to be critical of that era but soaps have been suffering the same problems for a very very very long time ... I think it was just a different time so more fans just accepted it and enjoyed it (it irks me to see the death of Don and Marlena as a couple, but I always felt Don was too controlling, personally; and couples during the 80s eras were kept apart by really really really stupid things and misunderstandings, things Reilly just only doubled down on in the early 90s ...)

[jam6242]

Some of the 80s stories (and performances) do seem cringe-worthy now, but I continued to watch, even after my favorites left.  I do think Sheri could still mine warm moments from the OTT stuff.   I thought the scripts she wrote in her latest stint with Days were good but those were too few.  I suppose she didn't want to remain at that capacity.  She seemed to have little, or no, influence on Ron, as far as her consulting position was concerned.

 

@DaysFanatic777I always enjoy your posts too, wherever I may find them. 

 

 

[DaysFanatic777]

Passion is one of the many reasons I started posting here more.  Plus, I enjoy intelligent dialogue that goes deeper than I hate this said character or whatever scene.  I want to engage in thought provoking discussion, and this is the place to do it!

 

Tropes helped kill soaps as well.  This little genre couldn't move past certain tropes and stereotypes.  Ron Carlivati is the absolute worst when it comes to this, and any show he helms will suffer under his pen, eventually. 

 

It seems every show he writes for goes in this order:

 

Doppelganger

 

Back From The Dead

 

D.I.D.

 

Cartoon Villain Crashes Wedding

 

Back From The Dead Again

 

Then We Arrive at MASKS......That's where we are now in his little timeline.  

 

OH....and don't forget rapemance.  Ron just has to do a rapemance.

 

It really gets tiresome. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

When I think of the 80's, I always remember the dog wedding Calliope put together.  That was HORRID!  I was just a kid, and it insulted my eight year old mind.  People lay all of the blame at Reilly's feet for Days turning into a shitshow.  While he made a massive contribution that cannot be denied, this show started going downhill long before he arrived. 

[jam6242]

Yeah, that was awful.  Poor Robert Clary had to sing for them!  I wonder what he thought about that?  I was more interested in the CBS soaps in the 80s and 90s, but that gradually waned too.  The soaps started copying each other too much, and not in a good way (e.g., Reva being cloned on GL; I'm surprised that JER didn't come up with that one first).  I mostly stopped watching soaps all together in the late 90s, then a co-worker got me into watching Days again, around 2006.  I've stuck around out of habit since then, but they've almost lost me.  I'm barely watching now.  I was not familiar with Ron's prior work, so I tried to give him a chance, but I finally had to admit that he's terrible.  I'm afraid we're stuck with him until the end though.  I don't know how soaps will ever again attract the new audience they need to survive (and they've alienated many of the old audience).  There are just way too many other quality options now.

[DaysFanatic777]

Daytime Soaps refused to evolve.  It's that simple, really.  After Reilly pulled his supernatural BS in the 90's, soaps just went back to trope after trope.  

 

Ron is so weird.  He loves history, so he'll do fitting tributes like the one for Susan Hayes back in December.  I can really get behind that.  He has certain characters he just "gets" (Sami, Marlena, John, etc..).  However, when he misses the mark, it's nothing short of atrocious.  Just take a quick look at Hope Williams Welch Brady Jennings Hernandez.  Like I've said, he didn't start said character's demise, but he gave her a massive push over the cliff.  I can't think of a way to repair her at this point.  Even Bo riding in on his motorcycle couldn't make her tolerable.  Watching her is like getting a colonoscopy with no anesthesia.  

[Khan]

It's like what @KMan101 said: '80's DAYS might have been dumb, at times, but it still had heart and a sense of community. You felt like TPTB as well as the cast cared about the work they were doing and truly wanted to entertain the audience everyday.  You don't have to bring back the lavish sets and costumes to make me fall in love with this show again; just give me stories that show you still give a damn about us and what we expect.

[KMan101]

 

SO dumb at times, LOL!!!

 

And +1! You felt they cared and were committed to putting on a compelling and interesting show. I can be instantly drawn in yet nowadays I'm turned *off* ...

[jam6242]

I agree about Hope, although the writing isn't the only problem.  I don't know what is going on with KA.  She just seems so remote/emotionless most of the time, and then she seems to be flirty at inappropriate times. 

[Khan]

 

When *I* think of the '80's, I think of those prisms that Stefano needed to heal his brain tumor, lol.

 

Again, though, I ate up that [!@#$%^&*], because (thanks largely to EP Al Rabin) DAYS remained a thrilling, romantic show.  It certainly had more passion than GH, which seemed to be all about the action-adventure stuff, but not much heart.

[YRBB]

I don't necessarily get the sense that the cast is not interested in putting together an entertaining show. Maybe some of them aren't trying, some of them aren't talented perhaps. I just think it's very hard, even for the seasoned veterans, to do much when they have to shoot eight damn episodes a week with no rehearsal time. The pace and conditions are punishing and almost impossible to overcome.

[DaysFanatic777]

Gawd I loved the Prisms.  I'll gladly admit it.  I have no shame. 

 

I'm not trying to say Days was bad in the 80's.  It wasn't.  It had some moments when it was flat insulting to one's intelligence, but it was still a compelling and multifaceted drama.  Yes you had the action and adventure stuff,  but they also still managed to tell stories revolving around contemporary social issues in a thought provoking yet respectful way.  

 

Everything that came after this era truly was a joke.  It wan't a few moments of ridiculous plot points; it was just an endless stream of idiocy. ;

 

[KMan101]

 

I wasn't necessarily trying to imply the cast don't. I feel DAYS actors do try. A lot of actors are checked out (on all four soaps) and it's just so blatant. 

 

The conditions are much worse than they used to be, but back in the day, soaps would also work their actor 14-16+ days ... they're at a breakneck pace now and there's no time for rehearsals or re-shoots, etc. It's just become "it is what it is". But at the end of the day, like the commercials on TV say

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 "just OK is not OK"

 

Like GH fans have remarked that with Oscar's death the show proves it can still put in effort. Like Y&R fans have remarked that with the handling of Neil's memorial, the show can still put in effort, but they just don't the majority of the time. 

 

Not saying you're saying "just ok is ok" trust me I think daytime actors are extremely underrated and very hard working and don't get their just dues because soaps are looked down upon (and at times I fully understand why they are ...)

 

I just think there was more care overall. They aren't given the time or budget now to care as much. And we just don't have quality producers or directors or even script writers like we used to. I can name a handful of those who are still good and I can see the effort when their names are on the credits ... 

[Paul Raven]

IMO the problem is that Days is still trying to write the show in the same style as the 80's and 90's but without the time/budget to do so.

They need to look back to the 60's and 70's when the budget was tight and it was live to tape.

By necessity the stories had to be intimate and personal. Just interactions between a small group of characters.

No master criminals, millionaires, brainwashing etc

Just back to basics.

Trouble is Ron and others knowledge and history of soaps probably only goes back to the 80's and they see that as definitive soap opera.

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by Paul Raven

[KMan101]

 

She's been off on-screen for a while, I see it too. She's very much checked out. I often feel like she plays Hope "lost" (since losing Bo) but of course it doesn't get written that way but that's how I'm choosing to look at it, lol. I think she probably enjoys working with Galen but she HAS to know this pairing has really sunk her and Hope is such a shell of who she used to be. But I guess loss can do that, except they don't play it out on-screen so either Kristian is making a choice or she's just truly checked out. She's so full of life off-screen ... 

 

LOL that dog wedding! Calliope and Eugene were SO bizarre. I like them at times but then I cringe all at the same time. Lawd. And absolutely it started going downhill before he arrived.

 

And LOL at the list of Ron's tropes and it's order. But it's 100% accurate now that you listed it out. Sooooo true. I always thought he could fit DAYS and when he honors history in a good way, it works. He has it in him somewhere (I think a stronger co-hw would go a looong way) but he resorts to tropes or he starts writing petty garbage because he's checked out. I often wonder if writers pitch better stuff but then resort to more outlandish [!@#$%^&*] in order to get it approved ...

 

And yep, we're at the mask phase

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 Just wait folks ... Oddly though it works better on DAYS than on GH ... LOL, but it's still so ridiculous. But JER would be proud. (And I'm willing to buy it in this case, oddly enough ...)

 

He tried the rapemance with "Gabby" and Stefan and it fell entirely flat so he lost interest and next thing you know Mansi is back to wrap it up (I wasn't her biggest fan but a part of me thinks, and it's just an assumption, that Miller bolted because she saw the writing on the wall with the rapemance with Stefan, but I'm probably wrong, LOL) and Chabby are shipped off (their exit was nice though ... I do think Ron has it in him ... but man he's beyond frustrating ... I'm not saying he's great but I've always thought he had it in him somewhere ... I know ... wishful thinking ... his runs on OLTL and GH all sort of repeated stuff ... and he loves his villain of the month ...)

Edited May 5, 2019 by KMan101