JER's DAYS Discussion

[Vee]

Oh, it was a piece of [!@#$%^&*]. It was terrible. Maggie's bludgeoned with a liquor bottle on TV and no one does a thing. Cassie in a pinata. Every single reaction, every beat was broad, over-the-top splatter comedy. But it was relentless and shocking and so it got ratings. The show - or rather, Reilly - was clearly reveling in making every misery a camp joke. It was terrible. And who didn't know it was Marlena several months ahead of time? Who? No one. Because Jim Reilly was the man who turned Marlena into daytime's answer to Godzilla long ago.

[JackPeyton]

Maggie wasnt murdered on TV, she was killed in the middle of the night, and mickey came down but it was to late.

Abe, Jack and Maggies murders were completely different in tone and carried weight that the ones after it didnt.

[Eric83]

I think he means how the killer had a camera on her so that the police could see her as she walked into Maggie's home and killed her. Hope amd Bo were watching it unfold on a tv at the Salem PD.

Honestly I loved the story up until when they killed off Doug and Alice. Had the first 7 stayed dead and he had a better ending I really don't think it wouldve been as bad as what it became.

[JackPeyton]

Yeah, but they were dispatching police there.

The most unbelievable part was Sami and Lucas winding up there.

It was clear to me by the time Doug was killed this wasnt going to stick and everyone would be back. I'd actually preferred they had kept the dead dead and moved on, honestly. I only would have missed Maggie (who shouldn't have been killed as John Clarke asked for it to be Mickey instead, knowing he was going to retire soon)

If you rematch it its clear that there's a shift in tone from the first four deaths to Cassie's. it gets lighter, in a way. More camp. By Doug's death it's basically a sitcom of a soap opera.

[Eric83]

Yeah Bill and Susan said they wouldn't return to be killed off so they knew when Doug was "killed" that the deaths would be reversed. But like you said the beginning was amazing and had me hooked every day back then.

[Mitch]

The beggining of the Serial Killer story was kind of cool...(but I have no investment in the show and that might have made a diference.) It was dark, scary and gothic..I loved the children chanting and Tom Horton yelling out the victims name before they died (in warning??there was a rumor that Tom Horton would come back as a demon but that the family wouldnt allow his image to be used for that...after the hilariously tasteless floating head I am not sure they were just rumors) The deaths had weight and the characters reactions were real and it was interesting, basically two families in a small town being terrorized and it was from one of their own. The trouble was the pacing, Reilly drags everything out but he kills characters off in rapid succession? They should have dragged the murders out and had a real investigation and everyone suspicioius of everyone else. After the stripper looking broad fell out of a piniata we were on to bad 80's splatter camp, and Marlena, instead of being real and scary and evil was a bad Freddy Krueger tossing off one liners that we were supposed to laugh at?? I did think it was enteratining after that, with the bad acting, dialogue, ridiculous murders, ridiculous reactions to murder, ridiculous police investigation (Marlena was the sloppiest serial killer on earth) and the return of bad, campy voice overs (Marlena"Belle, you better be quiet or you will be mourning him instead of marrying him,") which I havent heard since, what the mid-70s. It was all soooo STUPID that it had to be meant to be that way right? I actually liked the twist that everyone was alive (just too bad Days spoofed its own excesses, people back from the dead, on the ever present island) and in fake town..it was just that the explanation for it was stupid and didnt make any sense.

Anyway, the first part of the murders the tone was different, it was like a nightmare...too bad Reilly had no one to rein him in. If they kept it as a real mystery which had consqequeces it would have been cool. But hey, the only Reilly I liked was Passions, and that show was so over the top bad in a good way that I never thought anyone would take that crap peddler serious.

But I will always rever the man who brought us Tom Horton's pissed off floating head chasing Marlena out of the house (never mind five minutes later no one acted like that happened) and Marlena falling of the balcony, in her p.j.'s with a bad special effect of Hall..with her usual helmet hair intact falling and the commentary from a character on the ground, "Marlena is falling, oh no...she hit the awning and is bouncing off it..watch out Sammy") and landing on that annoying screaming Sammy..and BOTH were unscathed. Wow, that kind of stuff can make you forget your worries of the day!

[Gray Bunny]

But at least we learned new things about our favorites that we never knew before. Jennifer apparently does a hair flip thing. Had the faux Jennifer never learned of that, Jack would've figured out she was a sham right off the bat!

And apparently Sami pronounces Kiriakis as "Kerr-AH-kus".

Both character traits were introduced in 2005 and never mentioned again

You're not the only one who got flak from the Reilly Rimmers for daring not to love every minute of the train wreck.

[teplin]

I loved John-Marlena's affair, I admired Reilly's pacing, I appreciated his gothic sensibility and I liked that he rooted most every plot in a love story. That said, I hated what the show became under him. Characters' IQs plummeted, plot dictated character, dream and fantasy sequences got almost as much airtime as "reality," some of the show's strongest actors (particularly Susan Hayes, Matthew Ashford and John Aniston) were shafted, etc. etc. Still, I have to admit that, even though I decried the Mar-Devil and Serial Killer stories, I watched them. Reilly knew how to structure a structure a story -- even if the story didn't belong on the show he was writing. Unfortunately, his structural powers completely abandoned him halfway through the SSK story. All in all, that was the single worst storyline I have ever seen on a soap -- though I suspect he deliberately sabotaged it after being told he couldn't pursue his original plans. (How I wish he had written a memoir detailing what those were.)

Don't even get me started on Passions -- possibly the worst waste of tape in the history of the television medium. (Though I honestly think I might have liked it if I was a 12 year old.)

[sungrey]

I really wish we had found out the truth, too, teplin. I know NBC might have stuck with this show, but if it was their intent to write a new show like Loving morphing into The City, I don't think it would have made it. The end of SSK was mid-2004 and if they didn't bring the dead back, I think Days itself would have been gone within two or three years.

[daysgoby]

I think it has been discussed on here before but the SSK storyline was changed mid-way. I don't think anyone knows what the original outcome of that story was going to be but those characters were suppose to stay dead and Marlena was suppose to go to trial for the murders. Just wish I knew what the supernatural excuse was going to be for why she did it because there was no way Deidre Hall was going to be let go after that storyline,

@ Teplin: After I posted I see you said something similar too :-)

[Eric83]

I doubt it would have ended that soon but it wouldn't be on now most definitely.

[jo.frank88]

Do we know for sure that the Serial Killer storyline was changed mid way? I thought I had read somewhere (maybe Ken's book) that it was their intention to always bring the cast members back from the dead...I think there were obviously some rewrites through the storyline... but I thought the whole "back from the dead" was always intended?

[daysgoby]

I think that was damage control. At the time there was a huge hooha about Days budget being cut. That was why the vets were being pushed out and why JER was brought back to "rescue" Days. I recall reading an initial article when the storyline first started up and either JER or Corday said that was a story in 4 parts and I think the 3rd or final part was suppose to be the trial of the murderer.

[cassadine1991]

Bringing back Tom Horton as a demon?? What was the true path the SSK storyline was going to go? I'm intrigued

[Sindacco]

I remember reading that Celeste was supposed to be the next victim after Tony, but it was changed to Doug when they decided to bring everyone back from the dead.