Supercouple Fatigue

In January of 1990, there was a headwriter change on Days. Anne Howard Bailey was fired, after being there for less than a year, and replaced with the team of Anne Schoettle and Richard J. Allen.

Bailey was fired due to a ratings decline, and executive producer Al Rabin had this to say about her when she left:

“[Bailey is] a wonderful writer before she got here. She was a wonderful writer here and she will be a wonderful writer in her next project. It’s just that the emphasis shifted slightly from romance to adventure. Since we preferred the audience that we had, we will be shifting back.”

Knowing future events, that in just a few short years the show drastically veers away from the supercouple formula, this quote is very interesting. It shows that Al Rabin was himself a true believer in the formula, not surprising considering he was an executive producer of Days throughout the 80’s. (He left in 1992, replaced by Tom “the era of the supercouple is over” Langan.)

But more crucially, I think Al Rabin, and whoever else made the decision for a headwriter change, was very aware of one drawback of the supercouple formula, perhaps the major drawback: without a constant supply of new couples, after awhile you run out of stories. (I’m not saying it is impossible to write dynamic stories for established couples, only that Days has never been able to do so.) This is what was happening to Days in 1989. And even though Days had been following the supercouple formula since roughly 1983, it really was the first time the show faced this problem. Because Roman “died” and then Marlena “died,” Pete and Melissa were permanently broken up, and Bo and Hope left town, there was never a significant bunch of established couples crowding out air time, and new couples could come along in their turn.

But in the fall of 1989, Steve and Kayla are broken up, Justin and Adrienne are broken up, and Shane and Kim are broken up. Steve and Kayla have the “back from the dead” spouse story plus a pregnancy story, Justin and Adrienne have the “scheming third party” story (with fertility problems thrown in), and Shane and Kim have the “presumed dead so the surviving spouse moves on” story. These stories have been decently well-executed, but they lack freshness and originality. It’s clear that none of these breakups is permanent, and eventually all the couples will reconcile—okay, then what? Start the whole dance over again? What’s left?

How about new couples? A new character had been brought on for Roman, Yvette, but it wasn’t clicking. Nick and Eve seemed to have run their course, Mike was gone (sob, Michael T. Weiss), and Nick and April weren’t catching on fire. The show hadn’t committed to either Jack or Emilio for Jennifer, and their stories were mostly going around in circles. The show needed fresh blood if the supercouple formula were to continue, or they needed to find a new formula.

The quote above shows clearly that from 1990-1992 they decided to stick with their formula, and toward that end they got rid of their headwriter, and directed the new headwriter to find some new couples, quickly. I’ve already discussed how in December 1989 and January 1990 there is a significant shift toward Jack and Jennifer. Isabella is brought on and eventually she and Roman/John have a successful love story. Bo and Hope come back and Hope just as quickly dies, so Bo is free to move on with Carly. (The whole “Cruise of Deception” story seems an attempt to recapture the magic of Stockholm with the new generation of couples.) Marlena returns in 1991 and is torn between Roman (and Supercouple) v.1 and v.2—which I have to admit, is pretty clever. Justin and Adrienne leave with a happy ending in 1991, Stephen Nichols leaves in 1990. And though poor Shane, Kayla, and Kim are then given the dreaded “Shayla” story, this era really does represent the last gasp of the supercouple concept.

I always wonder what Sheri Anderson and her team, the originators of the formula, would have done with the “established couples” problem. Would she have been better at writing for longer term couples? Maybe so. I actually think that she also might have been more ruthless about breaking couples up after the stories weren’t there anymore. She did it to Pete and Melissa, after all—and though in retrospect perhaps they were a second tier couple, at the time I didn’t perceive a difference between them and Bo and Hope. Ironically, Sheri Anderson did come back in June of 1992. But Al Rabin left in the same month, and his replacement Tom Langan and Ken Corday hired James E. Reilly in December of 1992. The era between June and December of 1992 would probably be very interesting to watch, to see what Sheri Anderson’s writing was like without Al Rabin and the rest of team she had behind her in 1983-86—but my DVDs don’t go that far, so I won’t be able to find out.

Before leaving in April of ‘93, Sheri Anderson actually worked as co-headwriter with Reilly—a fact that always makes my head explode.

 

It’s Official

Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans have been let go.

I knew this might be coming, and still I feel heartbroken and filled with helpless rage. Mostly, I feel indignant on their behalf. I saw them on Soap Talk right after their return, and they were reminiscing about their last run on the show, obviously relishing the thought of working together again. Stephen Nichols laughed and turned to the camera and said, “Get ready for part two.” It’s painful that all that anticipation come to nothing. There was so much story to tell.

Apparently, they will not be given an exit story. They will just quietly fade into the background of Salem life. At first I was enraged and thought this was disrespectful—that they would just disappear like dayplayers. But then I remembered the exit story that Nick had, and that John and Marlena had, and I figure I’ll count my blessings. At least I will be able imagine them living happily, working their jobs and raising little Joe, and still seeing their family and friends—but never on the holidays, of course.

I really enjoyed their scenes today. Stephen Nichols as always does some of his best work opposite someone lying unconscious in a hospital bed. And I loved the expression on Kayla’s face when she woke up and saw her family all around her.

I wish them all the best.

Here’s to not having to put up with Dena’s writing anymore

 

Action Alert

The whisper on the wind is that when/if the show gets renewed by NBC, big budget cuts will be part of the equation. Further, the whisper is that Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans may be on the chopping block.

So if you spend as much time online as I do, and if you like having Steve and Kayla around—even in the current environment—it doesn’t hurt to let TPTB know that. If you are cruising around a message board, and you see a Steve and Kayla thread, drop in and post a quick note. If you see something you like on the show, drop a line in a postcard or to one of the soap magazines. If you like banners and avatars, a Steve and Kayla-centric banner might be a good one to have right now. The more presence and discussion TPTB see devoted to Steve and Kayla, the better.

This isn’t reasoned analysis. One important thing to remember is that the goal is to be positive, and to be positive about 2000’s Steve and Kayla. It’s not to reminisce about how great they were in the 80’s, or to complain about the writing has never tapped into their full potential. (True as these things may be.)

To help centralize all these efforts, some fans have put together a website with contact information and links. They make it very easy to know where to post, and who to write to. Here’s the link:

http://www.moresteveandkaylanow.com/index.html

 

Gossip

The message boards have been buzzing about an item on a gossip site, that says that Days producer Ed Scott has been rewriting the show for “weeks and weeks.” There is more to the rumor, but you can read the rest here.

(Spoiler-free types be warned, there are some storyline spoilers also in that column. For myself, I can hardly bring myself to care about being spoiled anymore.)

I think Higley is covering her ass. I am not inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, given the way she scabbed for Days during the writers’ strike, but weaseled herself out of being penalized for it. I think this item is clearly slanted to make her look better. In any case, the writing of the last few weeks has certainly been an incoherent mess (S&K fallout scenes aside), but before that it was an only slightly less incoherent mess.

I am worried that this type of infighting makes it more likely that NBC will pull the plug. I hope Days can sort itself out and get in a headwriter that Ed Scott can work with. I hate to sound callous, but if all this results in Higley’s departure, I would have hope for the show again. (Not a lot of hope, but a little.)

Honestly, I think Days’ problems have been years in the making, and the lion’s share of the blame lies at the feet of one man: Ken Corday.

ETA: I see my fellow blogger Tripp has also posted about this, saying nearly the same thing I did. Here’s her take.

 

Relieves Cramps and Bloating!

One of the things that makes Days particularly vulnerable is the fact that it’s on NBC. It is the sole remaining daytime soap on that channel, so it is not protected by being part of a daytime lineup. Its ratings surely suffer from not having an appropriate lead-in (in my area, it follows a noontime news hour). Also, unlike ABC, NBC doesn’t own the show, Ken Corday and Sony do. NBC has to pay for the broadcast rights. Since Soapnet is a part of the ABC company, ABC can also make money from the broadcasts on that channel. NBC has no other way to make money on the show other than the ad buys during its weekday broadcast on NBC.

Given all this, I have long thought that product placements might be the way to go. Since each Days episode airs three different times (once on NBC and twice on SoapNet), plus who knows how many times in internet clips, a product featured on the show itself would have much more exposure than a single ad on NBC. And if Steve and Kayla clip viewing is any indication, who knows? People could still be viewing the ad twenty years later!

So consider me in favor of product placement as a concept. But I think I was imagining something a little more casual than last weeks’ ad-within-the-show for Midol. It was jarring, and it took me out of the scene. I give the three actresses credit; I thought they were very natural in their delivery of their lines. But anyone remember The Truman Show? Jim Carrey played a guy whose life was a TV show, but he was the only one who didn’t know it. Laura Linney, who played Truman’s wife, would turn to the hidden camera and display a featured product, grinning like Vanna White.

But if it’s the price I have to pay to keep my show, I’ll take it. And I’ll look on the bright side; it was more subtle than all the “green” talk I was complaining about last time.

Don’t mess with me, I’ve got cramps.

screencap chit chat haven

 

Recasting sweepstakes

Where else in popular entertainment can you recast characters, sometimes multiple times? James Bond, Doctor Who, anything else?

Let’s take a look at our current cast. For characters who have been on at least ten years, only Alice, Maggie, Doug, Victor, Marlena, Abe, Tony, and Lucas have never been recast. (Look at Lucas in there with the big boys!) In the 5-10 year range, we add Anna, Nicole, and Chloe to the list of singles. You get into grey area very quickly with this, by the way. We could count John, except he was played by another actor for several months when he was “the Pawn” all wrapped up in bandages. Or how about flashbacks? Steve was played in flashback by little Aaron Nichols (Stephen’s son), otherwise we could count him.

There have been two Chelseas, two Bos (four if you count flashbacks), two Kates, three Kaylas, three Romans, three Carolines, four Julies, four Mickeys, and five Lexies. When characters join as babies or children, all that SORASing makes the numbers get very big very quickly. There have been three Stephanies, four Maxes, five Hopes, six Phillips, and eight Samis (including Stan—hee!). Will has been played by four actors already. And of course the all-time winner is Mike Horton, who has the distinction of being played by fifteen different actors.

You’ll notice from these lists that core family members, Bradys and Hortons, are more prone to recasting than other characters (no matter how popular they may be). First because core family members are more likely to have been born on screen, and secondly because with soaps’ emphasis on family, the TPTB have a vested interest in keeping the core families alive. We’re much more likely to see another Jeremy Horton sometime in the future, than we are to see another Carly Manning.

Looking at the totals, I always think it’s most interesting when you don’t count all the little kiddies. Mike still racks up an impressive four, Lexie’s total of five deserves another mention. The greatest recasting achievement, I think, is when different adult actors can play the character for substantial lengths of time, with each actor putting their own definitive stamp on the character. This excludes Julie, for example, since the first three Julies were just warmup for Susan Seaforth Hayes, who has played the character since 1968. Looking at it this way, the two different Bos are worth a second look, especially since you have Peter Reckell’s Bo involved in one supercouple with Hope, and Robert Kelker-Kelly’s Bo involved in a different one with Billie.

Then there’s the question of how to handle the recast. Sometimes, years have gone by since the character has been on canvas, so this just means introducing the character all over again. In Kayla’s case, for example, Catherine Mary Stewart left the show in 1982, and Mary Beth Evans came back as Kayla four years later. It’s a little more awkward if you’re in the middle of a storyline. Common techniques are to have a voiceover or subtitle run across the bottom of the screen announcing the recast, or just to have another character pointedly refer to the recast character by name. I believe that one of the Jack recasts involved having one Jack step into the shower, and another one step out—but that’s a little too cute for me.

Then there’s the plastic surgery storyline. I admit it, I have a soft spot for this old chestnut. As a child, I was vehemently against recasting, so if the show was going to foist a new actor on me, I wanted them to have to work for it. Plus, plastic surgery storylines usually involve amnesia, mistaken identity, and falling in love with the wrong person—all the soap staples. When Stefano brainwashed Roman and gave him a new face back in 1985, he also made him taller, hairier, and switched his dominant hand from his left to his right. Shoot, is there anything Rolf can’t do? (Of course all this was retconned away later when it was revealed that John Black wasn’t Roman after all.)

The decision to use the plastic surgery story for some recasts and not others can lead to moments of unintentional humor, like when Kayla came back in 1986 with her (unacknowledged) new face, and expressed her nervousness about seeing Roman’s (acknowledged) new face. When Phillip came back with his face transplant and tried to take custody of Claire, Belle stood up in court and agonized that Claire wouldn’t recognize her father, while Claire’s other daddy with his new face sat placidly by.

Different actors, of course, bring different qualities to the role, which makes for fascinating intersections of character and their function in the plot. Next time, I’ll take a look at the many faces of Jack Deveraux.

 

Reference alert!

For those of you who are following the behind the scenes machinations, as of April 23 we are finally seeing the writers names in the credits once again. Higley and a man named Victor Gialanella are the headwriters, and … what’s that I see? Cyndey Kelly? Bettina Bradbury? Jodie Scholtz? Hogan’s dialogue writers? Can it be?

If you recall, these folks were fired during the strike, which was illegal according the terms of the contract the union negotiated. Corday seemed ready to ignore this, but the union took action on their behalf.

On Thursday (4/24), there was a sly reference to Sigmund “Mr. Phallic Symbol” Freud’s famous line, when asked about the cigar he constantly smoked: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

Welcome back, guys!

 

Strikeout

Since I have been writing about the strike off and on, I might as well give the latest update. First, the good news: the strike is officially over!

Second, the weird news: Hogan Sheffer and Meg Kelly went fi-core, that is, they gave up their union status permanantly. That means that Kenny is not obligated to bring them back, as he would be if they had stayed with the strike.

Why would Hogan do this? Going fi-core means he can never get back into the union. He may have just committed career suicide, because there is a stigma to going fi-core. Some people are saying he wanted to write for Days so much that he thought it was worth it. Others are saying he just wanted to be paid the rest of his contract. Neither choice makes sense to me. The timing suggests the latter (he went fi-core only a few weeks before Kenny made his announcement that Hogan was fired). But why would he jeopardize his chances to be hired by another soap (which I feel sure would have happened) just to be paid out the rest of his Days contract?

Either he just wanted to stick it to Kenny—which I can understand, though it’s incredibly short-sighted—or he plans to get out of the writing business. Or maybe Kenny manipulated Hogan into it, and this is some grand conspiracy by Kenny to get Hogan out and Higley in while the strike was in place.

There may be hope for the other fired writers. Word is that the WGA is investigating their firings.

Higley, on the other hand, has come out of all this smelling like a rose. Her husband, Mark Christopher, also a soap writer, went fi-core, but Higley did not. Speculation is that she wrote for Days during the strike using her husband as a cover. So she got her stories in place during the strike, she is still a writer in good standing with the union, and is eligible to be named the new headwriter. I only hope her plotting on the show matches what she can do in real life.

 

Whiplash

The writer’s strike looks to be over. The WGA (Writers Guild of America) board voted to approve the new contract, and will send it to the membership for ratification. It looks like all writers will be back to work starting Wednesday.

All week I’ve been trying to reconcile myself to Hogan being gone, all his scriptwriters being gone, and Higley being the new headwriter.

Now that all might be for naught. Variety reports that industry sources say the WGA contract reached with the majors “includes a provision that will allow scribes who were force majeuered from ongoing series to return to their old jobs.” “Force majeure” refers to a clause in their contract that writers could be fired after 90 days of striking—without having to pay off their contracts.

Our poor Days writers even got a specific mention: Melissa Salmon, a writer involved with the negotiations between the WGA and the majors, “told a daytime writer that the staff of Days of Our Lives, who had all been fired last week, were getting their jobs back. And that a striking writer, if fired, had to be replaced by a striking writer. Not a scab, and not a fi-core [non-union] member.”

Source: www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com

If true, this means that Higley–because she was a scab—cannot remain headwriter at Days after the strike is over. Does it mean Hogan is coming back? Maybe, maybe not. Speculation is running rampant over whether Corday will fire Hogan after all (legally this time—that is, buying out his contract), or whether Hogan would even want to stay after being so unceremoniously fired. And naturally the message boards are in a frenzy over who would possibly replace him.

Why would Ken Corday force such a major shake-up one month before NBC makes its decision about renewing Days? Oh, right, because he’s an idiot.

To invoke Sami’s painfully written but appropriate words from Friday: “It is just a confusing mess. And I am really confused and messed up because of it.”

 

The Plot Thickens

Tom Casiello, a breakdown writer for Days (now fired), kept a blog about his experiences writing for the show. His take on being fired (which absolutely broke my heart—sorry to see you go, Tom) included this little tidbit:

I could potentially try and analyze the entire situation, try and find out how a writing team that started off the year doing strong, then ended up in LAST PLACE (due to dictates from the higher-ups), then somehow managed to come back and end the year in 4th place in Households and 1st place in the 18-34 demographic were all summarily kicked out at once.

Read the whole thing here.

I just knew the great stall of 2007 was due to meddling from Ken Corday! And Tom is right, the show was battling back. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but the stories, the production values, the cast balance—and the ratings, dammit!—were all getting better.

I can’t understand why Corday would fire so many writers at once. I know that a new headwriter often wants to have their own team, but this is extreme. Nine writers out the door!

Also, one thing that was always a constant, that Hogan’s team always delivered, was quality dialogue. Hogan’s plots might have sucked (and sigh, they did), but because of the dialogue, the experience of watching the show every day was usually a pleasant one. And dialogue is something that has been noticeably worse since the scab writing started.

Sigh. I want to stay positive, I really do.