DAYS: March Discussion Thread

[Cheap21]

Are you kidding me? Billie has Hope on the line and she's screaming that Bo is dying? Talk about insensitive. I know she wasnt thinking about it, but still....

IMO Im not sure Id want them to drag out the truth that Austin slept with Abby. For him to continue lying after getting caught, just doesnt seem to make alot of sense and Im glad it all came out at the same time. I think whats dumb is that where do they go from here? Id prefer had nothing came out at all today. Are they going to use this as an excuse to push Carrie with Rafe? Austin clearly doesnt want Abby. Instead of writing her so psychotic, Id have had her be more manipulative, devious and malicious about her actions. Id have had her stalk Austin and torture Carrie by sending her stuff and hinting, w/o outright telling her that Austin has cheated. They had the makings for a Fatal Attractions style story here with Abby being more of a villian, but the way it was all handled was quite poor. They didnt do enough setting up for the next stage of the storyline.

Personally, I think the Alamania stuff is boring and stupid and it feels like they've been there forever when in actually they havent. Nothing is going on there and it all seems like a waste of time. Probably would have been better had they made a bigger event out of it, complete with location shoots and building up more stories which could have brought on more characters there. (but with budget restraints of today, that wasnt going to happen) As it stands, it just seems very bland and not interesting at all.

[PhoenixRising05]

I don't think it's a case of rewrites in either story. This is typical MarDar. It's all part of their "contemporary" storytelling. They seem to enjoy writing story arcs and not actual stories. I always said you can't tell stories the way soaps once did anymore so I understand the need for soaps to move fast. The pacing does have to be much faster but this is way too fast. The pacing on this show has bugged me for months. I think it's the biggest issue the show has right now. I wanted MarDar to go with a Ron Carliviti pace but, clearly, they are worried about viewer attention spans and taking things a little too far. If they insist on this pace, I wish they would fix the story balance. Yes, the airtime is balanced but I think they have gone too far with that too. Often, you see story beats rushed into one episode when they should play out over a few episodes (kind of like the Sami/Marlena/Will/Rafe/Ej/Nicole stuff a few weeks ago) and it seems the show is more worried about making sure the same people and sets aren't used more than two episodes in a row rather than making sure the story beats are properly played out.

The only rewrites I believe occurred were to the John embezzlement story in December and to the Sami/EJ sex story last month. There is no way that reveal was originally planned for last month. You had Sami, Marlena, and Will going on and on about Sami telling Rafe the truth and the next episode Rafe learned the truth halfway through the episode! I don't care how fast your pacing is...there is no way that happens without a rewrite. I think they pushed that reveal up as well as the mayoral election.

[JNewt]

I haven't seen today's episode yet but I'm hearing its a must see since Abby got in Carrie's face. I CAN'T WAIT!

[DRW50]

Great to see you post here!

I hate a lot of the Sami/EJ stuff and how it was handled. Ultimately it was totally pointless. If you are going to try to hide your stories behind "history", at least borrow the good things, like proper pacing and followthrough.

In some cases the pacing is too fast and other times it's nonexistent.

[Toups]

I disagree about Abby/Austin/Carrie. It was close to being 90's Reilly triangle and I miss those triangles. It obviously didn't quite get there now that most of the secrets are out after only a couple of months, and what's Abby going to do now? In my head, I had this huge storyline that would take years to play, so I was hoping M&D would something like what I had in mind. I saw so much potential here.

I don't think the Alamania deserves to get the "hacked up as it gets" tag. It hasn't damaged any character or done anything bad long term. I feel like there was something that was suppose to happen instead of John/Hope trying to get their passports back.

[Toups]

As a wannabe Reilly protege, () I refuse two of his proteges believe in short term arcs instead of long term story, or writing quicker paced storylines are better. How can anyone who worked with him for so long believe otherwise? LOL

[DaytimeFan]

Abby/Austin/Carrie: here's my rationale: it isn't Reilly at all because Reilly's characters had shades of grey and you could see each character's motivation, even the insane character. 6/10 I was rooting for Sami and 9/10 I was rooting for Kristin. They were complex characters played by actresses who could deliver complex acting. Kate Mansi is not that kind of actress, she is leaden and wooden. She appears to think that flaring her eyes and smiling widely is enough for the viewer to feel Abby's descent into madness...a descent which also has absolutely no explanation because Jack and Jennifer are not characters that have been shown to screw up their child mentally. I am not invested in her at all and so the story falls flat on its ass. And then you have Christie Clark and Patrick Muldoon attempting to recapture chemistry they haven't had since 1995. I can't get past Muldoon playing Austin, none of the interaction with Abby makes sense, logically, it doesn't make sense because visually it doesn't make sense.

Alamania: Whatever you think was supposed to happen...it didn't. And here we are with Hope and John pacing around a hotel room worrying about characters (Spencer!) who we don't know or care about. It's boring, it's a waste of time and it doesn't show either actor/character in an appealing light. As far as I'm concerned that is damaging to the show because it turns viewers off.

[VirdenEMT]

Ok, I have to laugh about the plastic surgery threads. Lisa's & Lauren's lips look like competing Macy Parade floats. At least Lisa is honest about her work.

Why does the makeup department keep weighing down older actress's eyelids with HUGE false lashes. They look like fools.

Is John still Stefano's half brother? And a cousin to Roman, Bo, Kayla, Kim?

[juniorz1]

I see the correlation, but Michael Damian's voice is far more affeminite than Pat Muldoon's.

I can't help but still love Muldoon as Austin. But I do agree that this particular story beat is stupid. I just don't like that once again, Austin has "forgotten" that he slept with a girl that he didn't even sleep with. And I say girl because it's always someone who's far less mature than he is who dupes him, only it's worse this time because Austin's gotten older and Abby's maturity level is on par with 90s Sami. Not good.

I wish they'd put him back to sparring with Rafe- DAYS has never had a male rivalry like this and it'd be an interesting thing to keep playing with. I actually think that he and Galen Gering bring out the best of one another, so why not?

[Cheap21]

The Days writers half ass everything. They've had what 6-7 months to build this story up? The connections between the various characters just arent there. They have a great skeleton for a story but no meat and that describes alot of whats going on across the board

[PhoenixRising05]

I think they beleive in telling story that way and would if A.) It was 10 years ago and B.) They had complete control. I agree that you have to play stories like this out much longer but you can't tell story the way Reilly did in today's climate. You don't even know if the show will be around long enough to play a story that long and the audience won't wait that long. Hell, you see fans today get mad when stories last two weeks. The pacing has to be like RC's OLTL or like Days was in 2009 with the baby switch story and 2010 with the Chloe/Philip affair story. Those stories built up for most of their respective years and that is the best your going to get.

I also think we are still in setup mode for the Alamainia story. MarDar have been dragging their feet on this story all along. I think the only rewrites to it were the bank statements discovered at Alice's in September and what they were about. I think this Alamainia story is the one thing they are sort of pacing right. They just could stand to be a bit less repetitive with it and could actually give us something to tide us over until they kick it into high gear. They've foreshadowed pretty heavily that something more is going on beyond John and Hope's marriage though. I think this is stll in the beginning stages so I wouldn't call "rewrite" on this story yet.

[DaytimeFan]

EXACTLY

All these writers have made is skeletons of stories, nothing is fleshed out. NOTHING. The lone story that I enjoy of theirs: Sami/Kate and now Sami/Lucas/Kate works for 2 reasons: history and talented actors.

Alison Sweeney, Bryan Dattilo and Lauren Koslow have history together and chemistry that never fails and is largely uninterrupted. Continuously, Sweeney has 19 years on the show, Koslow has 16 years and Dattilo has 14 years on screen. You can't fake that timeline and it's because those three actors know how to work with each other perfectly that their scenes seem so much better than everything else on this show. The actors add layers when there aren't there on the page.

Take last week, Koslow and Dattilo's first scene together...a wonderful scene consisting of greeting each other and then the reveal that Lucas is there to support Sami. It was a winner of a scene and it's because those actors MAKE IT WORK.

[Michael]

I... honestly really enjoyed the Abigail/Austin/Carrie scenes today. Were they the best things I've ever seen? Nah. But they were suspenseful and surprising, because I was waiting to find out how far Abigail would go in revealing things and shocked that she actually spit out the "truth." Carrie wasn't acting like an idiot (for once), and Melanie's reactions were hilarious.

The Billie/Daniel encounter was good, too, in that it touched on the Chelsea affair without having them regurgitate a bunch of crap that both characters obviously know.

I have no idea what is going on with Alamainia, but Hope's "I was a pretty good art thief... but back then, I went by Princess Gina" made me laugh, too, though I suspect that wasn't supposed to be funny.

[quartermainefan]

This was a really good episode. One thing I always like about Days is the way they play everything with a straight face as they make every scene melodramatic to the point of farce. Hope getting through to Bo's room just to find Billie and a convulsing Bo is ridiculous;y OTT but it works for Days. The whole Austin/Abigail stuff is fun too. Poor Austin can't catch a break and he didn't even sleep with her.

[gtru1981]

Hopes over acting is starting to get on my nerves...way to be a soap cliche of over acting..