DAYS: EJ NOT Recast

[AlexElizabeth]

Here's one thing that is a fact: James Scott is not returning, meaning this discussion is completely pointless.

[Michael]

 

You're making my point for me, though. I'm not disagreeing that Sami and EJ, as a pairing, generated great interest. I was responding to statement such as "Sami and EJ were a thousand times more interesting than Sami and Lucas." That is not a quantifiable thing. You CAN definitively state something such as, "The ratings for Sami and EJ's wedding were ten times higher than for Sami and Lucas's wedding," or "Sami and EJ's fan event drew ten times more people than a Sami and Lucas event," but you can't measure something like 'interesting' or 'compelling' in a concrete way. It's your (perfectly valid!) opinion that Sami and EJ are/were a more interesting pairing than Sami and Lucas, and that's fine. 

 

For the record, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I enjoyed Sami and Lucas a ton, but I didn't like how Hogan's quick turn into making Sami more of a traditional heroine wound up transforming Lucas into an Austin-lite character. I agree that Sami and EJ had great chemistry and made a big splash, but I found the storytelling for them wildly inconsistent and unfocused, likely because there were almost yearly writer changes and because... Corday. But I have no way of definitively declaring that one pairing was objectively superior to the other. And there were probably a ton of less vocal fans (like me) who didn't really care which one emerged as the victor, because I don't necessarily watch the show for couples and just want the storytelling to be interesting.

 

Did Sami and EJ garner more outside press for the show? Very possibly, and that's a statement you could make, given the "data points" (as you put it) to back it up. Of course the show wants people to be talking about the show and its content. But you took my example about reactions to Daniel on Twitter and totally twisted it -- mentions and conversations do not necessarily equate to something being "better," which is exactly what you say in your response before completely contradicting yourself. You're right that, in a broad application, "interesting" means something has garnered attention. There are plenty of things that have outraged and annoyed people into posting on social media that would technically count as being "interesting." And while you say you aren't interested in declaring something better or worse than something else, that's exactly what your posts about EJami vs Lumi seem to be aiming for. You say EJami are/were "more interesting," and then you go on not to give examples of why/how that's the case, but instead talking about how and why her pairings with Austin, Lucas, and Rafe didn't work and why her pairing with EJ did. Whether or not they worked isn't the same as whether or not they interested people or got attention, so I hope you can see why people (not just me) are confused as to what point you were trying to make.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Michael

[slick jones]

Much like the seven pages of Brenda Barrett talk in the GH thread.  There's no point going on and on about stories that aren't happening.........   except for certain posters to talk about characters the rest of us realize won't be back anytime soon.

[Skin]

 

I think I understand this more, after walking away for a bit, and reading your response. My statement was admittedly hyperbolic. That being said I disagree with the argument that you can't measure show engagement, fan engagement and general viewing behavior and enthusiasm as an indicator for impact. I just completely disagree with that notion. This is the foundation for Nielsen existing, why Q scores for television series exist, why net promoter scores are used to understand engagement with services/products/television, why market research is a thing and why the ratings themselves are used to direct advertising dollars. It's all more or less borne out of fans willingly sharing their viewing habits and what television series they watch, and using that information to extrapolate how larger audiences feel about their specific shows, in order to measure attachment to the content they are viewing. That's basically what surveying in essence is. We can certainly derive and measure interest from many of the things I laid out in my previous arguments. 

 

 

I think I am understanding the reaction at this point. I was making two separate points (1) EJ and Sami created a response in Days fandom that was notable and generated interest that was unlike her other pairings and (2) In my opinion they were better suited for each other from a narrative perspective. I saw those two statements as exclusive and separate, and not a combined joint statement. My bad for not making those two points separate and clarifying that in my post I guess. I thought the paragraph break made that overt, but it wasn't read through. 

 

I completely get the idea that there are fans in the middle who could care less about shipping, but that also kind of makes my point. Ambivalent watchers don't care either way. Of the two pairings audiences responded more to EJ and Sami from the sources of evidence I already provided. Of the two pairing options the EJ/Sami pairing generated more enthusiasm, interest and excitement. From that response they received significant attention to outside soap viewers and achieved primetime notability. That, is my main point, those indicators are not arguable. That doesn't make them a "better" pairing by itself, it just means they generated more interest and were the more interesting (*ah that controversial word again!*) couple for soap and general audiences. Again using the "interesting" qualifier as a proxy for attention-getting and popularity/notability I guess :shrug:

 

 

Yeah, that's my personal opinion and is separate from the "interesting" statement. I get it, thank you for explaining this to me, because I didn't get why people weren't connecting the dots. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Skin

[Michael]

 

Thanks for clarifying! The two distinct points make perfect sense on their own.