Reilly on DAYS - a renewed appreciation

[carolineg]

Sami has been shown to be incredibly smart, so okay, maybe she figured that medical stuff out.  I'll allow that.  Finding someone on the black market to kidnap your own sister?  A little less likely.  Marlena/Roman not immediately getting her massive amounts of help when they realize she kidnapped her own sister because she was "jealous"?  Not stellar parenting...

I don't know if I judge Sami more for raping Austin (I do) or the fact she thought Austin was the pinnacle of boyfriend material.

 

I was a fan of the Austin/Carrie/Sami storyline back in the day.  The one thing I couldn't stand about JER is all these women doing crazy, crazy things to hold on to men that didn't want them and were in love with someone else.  Yeah, Peter did it with Jennifer, but it seemed to be almost completely female psycho focused in these triangles.

[Khan]

Soaps are supposed to be written FOR women, so why those who write and produce these shows decided along the way that having women fight like dogs over men would appeal to their female viewers...?  Frankly, it baffles me.

[Khan]

So were a lot of people, apparently.  And I still don't understand why.

[Soapsuds]

What's worse...that or a woman falling for a serial killer and trying to convince herself there's nothing wrong with it by telling anyone she sees that he has changed?

[BetterForgotten]

As crappy as he was a writer and when he later got drunk with power, people forget that Tom Langan was a huge part of bringing Reilly's first stint to life, and had previously cut his teeth under Bell/Ed Scott/H. Wes Kenney at Y&R for a decade prior to joining DAYS. 

[Khan]

God, I hate that damn show SO. MUCH.

Obviously, Langan learned nothing from those men.

[Toups]

I love these type of stories. To me, it’s classic soap.  I like watching the bad guy scheme and doing whatever it takes to keep or get the person they’re obsessed with.  And then it builds up to them getting busted.  That is one of the things Reilly did very well during his first tenure at DAYS and at Passions.  
 

Vivian, Sami, and evil Kristen were so fun to watch.  
 

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[carolineg]

I mean, I liked it back then and I still like it in a rewatch.  As an adult now, I keep thinking why are all these intelligent, gorgeous ladies are obsessed with men who aren't that into them?   And it seemed like a lot of men were in the middle of these triangles.  Looking back it seems slightly misogynist.   But then again, the main villian on the show was obsessed with forcing Malena to love him, so maybe not.  I just can see it from a different perspective now that I am older and all of JER's triangles sort of followed the same formula.   2 good people, 1 psycho.

[te.]

To be fair, I'm not sure it was an attachment to Roman per se, but an underlying obsession with having a "happy family unit", which makes sense since her whole family life had been in turmoil at that point, ultimately spending an undisclosed amount of time living in Colorado being raised by relatives.

[carolineg]

That is fair. I do understand that.  My point Sami should have a stronger attachment to John because that's what we saw on screen previously.  It's just really hard to know what happy family times the Marlena/Roman family unit had because Eric/Sami were shipped off for the holidays as kids and AS came back as Sami in Jan I think? that next year, so they weren't gone long before the SORASing.  It was only a month or so in real time.

Anyhow, I totally see your point.  I just had a hard time wrapping my head around that Roman/Sami bond, but I also think I am overthinking it.

The Sami stuff that makes me cringe is the post-Affair reveal time when she was really clingy with him and Roman allowed it and almost reveled in her hatred for Marlena.  Sami's lifelong obsession with her parents being together long into her adulthood has always been strange to me.

 

[BetterForgotten]

In a lot of ways, JER's first stint is akin to that of Megan McTavish's first stint at AMC - high ratings and the right time/moment, but was never to be duplicated again in successive stints. Also, just completely throwing away the sensibility of each respective show, and there was really no "going back" after that.

Carly being buried alive was also basically JER's version of Natalie in that damn well, lol. 

[KLN]

In it's time, I think the simplicity was part of the appeal. Like a Disney movie. You knew who the heroes were and you knew who the villain was.

That kind of simplicity doesn't appeal to everyone but for the art of soap opera and appealing to a broad, fanatic audience, I thought it worked well.

I don't like everything he did. He dumbed down characters to the point of braindead. In some cases he changed characters entirely. The crux of several plots hinged on misunderstandings and people not having simple, obvious conversations. But he had great instinct for appealing to the tribalism in people.

As an ultra Catholic, I think he really viewed the world in a black or white kind of way. Good vs. Evil. In a lot of his stories, you saw how characters were punished for what the church would consider "sinful" acts. And you saw how the heroes/heroines suffered for their virtues.

Marlena had an affair and ended up possessed. Later, it was her care for Kristen's baby that kept her from telling John the truth during Kristen's "pregnancy." Mimi had an abortion and ended up barren. Kristen cheated on Tony, later had a miscarriage and lost everything (including her fertility) after betraying all prior virtues for the man with whom she'd cheated. I even feel like he had Alan rape Sami as payback for wanting her sister's boyfriend.

There was some misogyny in his writing that seems to fall in line with his beliefs and world view. Those things didn't bother me then as much as they bother me now. Still, his writing came from a perspective that allowed for villains who were particularly rotten and heroes/heroines that were pure (and dumb) as the fresh fallen snow.

He was excellent at crafting a story and building it to payoff. Maison Blanche. Possession. Aremid. John/Marlena/Kristen and the secret room. Sami/Austin/Carrie.

Jack/Jen/Peter felt more sideburner but same formula. Vivian/Victor/Kate were fun but that was more grey.

Bo and Hope were his weak spot, though I still liked what he wrote for them, minus the Franco nonsense. I was totally engaged in the Gina mystery (pre-SSM) and Kristian in the 90's was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. 

I swear NBC could air this stuff over new episodes and get higher ratings. They need to package these old episodes and put them to market.

Edited December 7, 2021 by KLN

[Gray Bunny]

 

Side note: I know we're talking about DAYS circa '93-'97, but this similar story point always bugged me about Tony DiMera's re-entry into Salem in what, 2007? 08? after being held on an island (with island women to entertain him) for literally 20 years.  Not only was his bumping into John/Marlena on the island totally casual (literally, "Sup guys! What are you doing here?"), but he immersed himself back into Salem society (and even slipped back into Andre's suits) in a blink of an eye with ZERO period of adjustment or a true catchup on what he's missed in the last 20 years. It was so weird. Anyhoo, back to the topic of mid-90's... 

 

As a fan of the SOD Awards from back in the day, they did a lil spoof on the "Rules to Dating A Man" using various soap clips (DAYS was used a lot) which is soooo cringeworthy to watch in this day and age. Their 5th and final rule was literally, "If all else fails, fake a suicide attempt," and they show B&B's Sheila jumping off a building and Sunset Beach's Annie jumping off a pier.  Oy... 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Gray Bunny

[carolineg]

It was weird Tony just integrated himself like it was no big deal.  Back to Anna, back to daily life, he wasn't even confused about the advances in technology over the years.  I guess Tony is just not easily phased by such things.  Plus, he had a pretty good island life.  Roman was in a freakin dungeon lol.

As far as 90's days triangles, I would agree it was like fairytales.  A clear villian and heroine/hero.  It was just a bizarre time where women thought a child was going to make a man love you forever and ever, especially with Billie/Kristen, whose men had children with the women they were up against.  I bag on Days but most soaps had that formulaic approach with triangles.  Rarely was there a triangle with two men and one woman and everyone was a decent human being. The only popular ones of that era I can think of are Sonny/Brenda/Jax on GH, Marlena/Roman/John and maybe Mike/Austin/Carrie on Day.  I am sure there are more examples of course.

[titan1978]

Tony makes no sense to me at all.  They have used the Andre thing to absolve his character of various Dimera schemes and writing regimes, and IMO, he would be better utilized if he was a more sinister version.