Bizarre soap scenes

[Mitch]

Grosser then that was the two of them having sex in the Spaulding study (just why was Beth still living at the mansion???) and breakfast is laid out of the Spauldings, Alan comes in unaware of them just having sex on the desk (and when I watch this kind of stuff, all I can think about it, uh, dont you two need to take a shower or something now...) says something rude to Oneil (RR's Alan was so toothless the only thing he could do was act constipated and insult his enemies) and then we see a close up off him popping some food in his mouth, as Jeffie and Beth smirk....I have no idea what they were trying to imply was on that biscuit but it nauseated me for days!

Ah, remember the good old days when the Spauldings still had a living room, (before it became the set for Carmen's lair of evil) and Beth used to have endless scenes humping the Spaulding couch and molesting the Spaulding liquor cart. I always thought Chamberlin should have gotten an emmy for acting with inanimate objects.

[Mitch]

LOL.. I have read some of FR's interviews, and she was the complete opposite of Alice. I have no reason to believe that JER wanted Alice dead after reading an interview with FR when, they ask about JER wanting to get rid of all the old people, she says something like "Its not like he's a teenager, that old fat thing should look in the mirror!" LOL..go Francis!

[Khan]

I might have the timeline wrong, lol, but here's what I think:

KC is the sort of EP who stands by his HW's vision, right or wrong. He might not have appreciated what JER attempted to do with the SSK story - namely, to reduce costs by firing several veteran actors, one from each Salem clan - but he went along with it in order to keep DAYS on the air, hopeful that the buzz surrounding the big reveal would make it all worth it.

Unfortunately, when Marlena was revealed to be the killer (this was when she "murdered" Doug, right?), DAYS got reactions it hadn't anticipated. Either viewers hated it, saying it diminished an already beleaguered character; or, they scoffed, pointing to it as indicative of how ridiculous DAYS had become, and asserted it was either really the work of Stefano or the devil, take your pick; or, both. (I think there were even some who said they saw the twist coming, which just made the "mystery" even more laughable!)

At that point, and taking fans' reactions into account, KC wanted to pull the plug on the whole idea ASAP. However, the scenes depicting Alice's "murder" were "in the can" already; and as it was, the show probably had to work round-the-clock rewriting material that would get them out of the mess, eating costs (and maybe losing sleep) in the meantime.

It has been said KC persuaded JER to rewrite the ending to the SSK story, prompting the creation of "Melaswen" and the return of all of Marlena and Tony/Andre's "victims." Now, I'm not saying that didn't happen. However, given reports of the acrimonious relationship between HW and EP, I think the more likely scenario was KC demanding rewrites and JER telling him to eff off, leaving the question of how to undo the damage to his team of associate/breakdown writers.

[Khan]

Love that comment, too! :-)

It's not so much that JER wanted Alice dead, necessarily, but that he didn't like or respect what made DAYS, DAYS. (He took the job the first time, IMO, not because he was a fan of the show and always wanted to write for it, but b/c it was an opportunity to have complete control over a show after having served as a Co-HW or Associate Writer for so long.) By extension, that included Tom and Alice Horton.

[Mitch]

Which is weird, as first time around he was pretty respectfull of them,( he was writing when Tom was still alive right) even with all the crap happening around them. His kind of writing demanded a Tom and Alice and a contingent of "normal," characters, (like Maggie) to ground the crap. Look at Passions. There was no stablizing force and the show was just off the wall(and I was a big fan of the goofy part of the show, Tabby and Timmy and their antics, and HATED the boring "traditional," side of the show with a bunch of untalented teens acting serious.)

And when he was one of the writers on GL he was most definitaley writing for Ed and Maureen and a lot of things happened in the Bauer kitchen, but maybe that was Curlee.

[Titus Andronicus]

That's probably why I love this blooper reel so much.

[All My Shadows]

I'm sorry for bringing up SSK/Melaswen over and over again, but the whole thing was BIZARRE. Remember the force field perimeter on the island? Ol' Horse Brady thought she was Wonder Woman and ran into it, assuming it would break because she's awesome, then she just got shocked and fell flat on her ass. Hilarious.

Marlena, John, Roman, Hope, and Abe all puttering around that island like idiots was just too much.

[Khan]

That was one of those times where I seriously believed JER was mocking DAYS and everything about it.

[EricMontreal22]

But surely he MEANT it to be bizarre. I hope? The original topic is scenes that weren't meant to be particularly bizarre or outlandish, but came out all weird... Though with JER by that stage in his career, I honestly am not sure he knew what was what. As others have said, he basically dropped the more grounding plots and characters that during his first run made the bizarre stories more entertaining/tolerable.

[soapfan770]

Funny how this thread has become about all that went on during JER's second stint on Days, lol.

Actually there in 2003/2004 there was strong rumors that he was making Passions look good by comparison. Passions was really cleaned there in '04 as it got rid of some dead weight and moved away from supernatural and with more hiring of well known daytime stars it turned into Sunset Beach 2. I remember we finally found out what was in stupid TC's damn shed! Boy was I disappointed! Heck I remember people commenting for both Xmas '03 and Xmas '04 Passions had the best and most heartwarming family oriented Christmas show out of all the soaps. This would have also been the same time which the story of Julian and Eve's road to couplehood began and in my opinion was the best story Passions ever did. I really had to appreciate the efforts of Ben Masters and Tracey Ross there.

[EricMontreal22]

I remember people saying that about Passions too, though I had long given it up by then... Umm what was in the shed? Of course Passions went complete ape [!@#$%^&*] shortly after.

I didn't watch after the first year (except a few episodes). At first I was disappointed that the gothic, even scary soap the teasers promised was just out and out camp, but I prob would have enjoyed that (I loved Sunset Beach when it was at its best). My problem was, unlike Sunset Beach which was fast paced with clever dialogue, too often Passions relied on endless, seeminingly repeated dialogues and the same scenes, and was SOOO slow, which I know is a JER trademark.

[Khan]

Now that's bizarre!

[JackPeyton]

the always moving forcefield that nobody would see when they first introduced it then decided to make it standstill and visable? lol

i think he thought it was brilliant and people would love it.

[lovely_m]

Kevin and the chipmunk and maybe Colleen's acid trip heaven on Y&R.

[Mitch]

Okay back to unintentionally bizarre....the mob story on GL contained all kinds of suck...most of which involved making "sensitive," Danny a tough mob boss. There was a scene where Cassie, with her big ass 70s hair was being harrassed by a bunch of thugs and Danny and Tony the two most unthreatening mobsters ever (hey Tony just cause you got a pair of balloons for man tits doesnt make you all scary..) intervene and beat the crap out of the guys, all of whom were two times the size of either one of them.

Also, Maria aka Abuela, the mob boss granny, who actually was scarier then Tony and Danny combined, comes in to threaten Seleana (Selena was a whore who screwed Carmen's husband so Carmen had him killed..ugh, I cant beleive I remember this stuff) and we have seen her the whole time on the show in a wheelchair, gets up out of the wheelchair, walks around while threatening Selena, goes to sit back down, and we never hear anything about her actual ability to walk again. This was during May Maresie the FBI agent who goes undercover literally to get her man, Blake becoming a mail order minister, Olivia wrapping herself in plastic wrap to seduce Josh, etc. I never understood why people thought Labine was a good writer?? But the weirdest thing was that the ratings dropped when she took over (even from the dreaded E & so MADD fired her on Friday and on Monday rehired her as the ratings report came back in and the show inched up a bit. MADD gave a ridiculous press release (this was during the Bush vs. Gore ballot thing) where she is quoted as saying "The ballots are in and a recount took place and we are happy to have Claire stay with the show." Just proved no one at Televest knew what the hell they were doing.