Happy Thanksgiving

I challenge any Days fan, past or present, not to tear up at this one:

And I’d like to send out a thank you to all my readers. I started this blog in November of 2006—three years ago! It’s changed a lot since then—not watching the current show will do that—but I am so grateful to have connected with people who love this show like I do. Who would have thought that I could find such a wonderful group of intelligent, insightful people who share my passion for storylines from 20 years back?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

 

The Days Diet

(I hope y’all don’t mind if I share a personal story today.)

After my first baby was born, I was about 10 pounds heavier than before I’d gotten pregnant, leaving me weighing about 150 pounds. When my baby was 18 months old, I joined a gym and changed my eating habits and lost all my baby weight, plus a little extra, leaving me at a very happy weight of about 133. I maintained that until I had my second baby, and then I found myself back at 150 again.

I meant to rejoin the gym and reclaim my pre-pregnancy eating habits, but somehow between having a toddler and baby and working 4 days a week, it just all seemed too difficult. Nearly three years later, last April (2008), I still weighed the same 150. During a visit with my mom, we were lamenting how neither of us was exercising regularly. Listening to myself make my excuses out loud, I heard how weak they sounded (“but I’m so busy …”).

At the time, I was at a peak of frustration at Dena Higley’s Days, and was nearly ready to give it up. I resolved to give it a chance through May sweeps. It was hard going. It dawned on me one day, as I sat there watching, annoyed, frustrated, and bored, my finger itching over the fast-forward button, that I had found my time to exercise.

So that’s what I did. As I watched Nick get thrown under the bus in favor of Max-the-bartending-genius, Chelsea make google-eyes at Daniel, and EJami vs. Lumi go through another round on their merry-go-round, I did push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, squats, and jumping jacks, whatever I didn’t need any special equipment for. A month later, I joined the gym. In August 2008, I started the South Beach diet. Since then have gained a new appreciation for vegetables and fresh food, cooking from scratch, and using whole foods.

Well, two weeks ago I weighed in at 128. It took me a whole year, with lots of bumps and ups and downs along the way. I’ve changed my life a lot in the last year, really trying to make this a lifestyle change. But for getting me started on the path, I owe it all to Dena.

Pictures!

I wasn’t able to find a really good “before” shot, but here we go. As you can see from the size of the baby in the sling, it was taken not long after baby #2 was born:

And here I am in a new dress purchased to celebrate my new, smaller size. My older daughter took this picture this morning. (Ever notice that everyone always does the “hands on hips” pose for “after” pictures? I don’t know, but I did it too!)

Thanks, Dena!

 

Recidivism

It was the summer of 2007 that a bunch of us on the Television without Pity Days board—which is a single thread forum—noticed that, in terms of total posts and pages, we were slowly gaining on the boards for All my Children and One Life to Live. We thought, hey, why not catch up? So we talked. A lot. We talked about Hogan Sheffer vs. James E. Reilly. We talked about the various recasts of Belle and Shawn. We talked about supercouples from the 80’s and the supernatural plots from the 90’s, and how they affect the show today. We talked about Shelle and Chick, Billie’s dysfunctional history, whether Lucas was salvageable, and how they should have handled Steve and Kayla’s return; we discussed the merits of smashed couple names, we talked about our dream pairings, we counted Marlena’s gasps and Claire’s bows, and we debated EJ’s rape of Sami (over and over and over).

Even before we set this meaningless benchmark for ourselves, and then after we passed it, the board was usually hopping. Not that we all thought the show was great, far from it. But there was always something to talk about. We coined words like sweeeeevil (sweet + evil, first applied to Victor) and the verb to shawn, which meant “to deliver,” from Shawn’s short-lived job working for EJ. We did “schematics,” which are somewhat difficult to explain, but involved representing something about the show in picture form. Here’s one I did during the kidneynapping storyline.

To handle disagreements, we started different “tables” representing different points of view. This started after EJ’s rape of Sami, when things got heated. We ended up forming six or eight different tables representing the different perspectives on EJ. Then suddenly the tables multiplied, and it became a popular way to introduce a dissenting opinion, or any opinion. The Table of Moral Bankruptcy (TOMB) was a big one, I remember. We set up the Bar of Indecision (started I think by someone who couldn’t decide which EJ table to sit at) and were constantly sending drinks back and forth to each other.

Hee, I guess it all sounds a bit silly. But it was fun. And, it being a single thread forum, it was hard to keep up. Those of us who were regulars didn’t want to miss a thing, so if you went out of town for a week you were faced with reading fifty pages of posts before you could post again.

Those glory days are gone. Nowadays, while still being snarky and funny, things are very, very slow. (I bet OLTL could overtake us easily!) Even when I’m not watching Days, I still read the forum, and some days go by with only three or four posts, the whole day. And many times these posts aren’t even about the episode. So even though I’m reading the board partly to keep up on what’s going on in the show, sometimes I can’t really tell. People just don’t have much to say.

But, over the last month, two running themes have emerged: Melanie is involved in every storyline, and EJ’s hair looks terrible.

I watched two episodes this week to catch Nick’s last scenes, and I must admit that in spite of everything it was gratifying to be back in the loop. So, you might be hearing from me occasionally—very occasionally—about today’s Days after all. (What is it about soaps? There’s no other show that I would watch when it offers so little in quality or entertainment value.)

Boy, those TWoPers weren’t kidding about that hair:

The other storyline that has sparked some discussion is Danloe, in the “it’s so disgusting I can’t look away” category. I watched their big love scene this week, and it managed to be both sleazy and cloyingly saccharine at the same time. That is not a combination I thought possible.

I finally have a bead on Dena’s writing strategy. It’s not complicated. It’s to create as many new couples as possible in as short a time as possible, leave them together long enough for them to acquire a couple name and a few fans, and then give them the most damaging and character-destroying problem you can think of. Grannysex! Sex with another man at your engagement party! Faking a pregnancy and stealing a baby! Then lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Marypickford Regrets …

This is a difficult post for me to write.

It pains me to say it, but I find I just can’t keep up with today’s Days anymore. I don’t want to go into the reasons why, because I think many of you probably share my frustrations.

Part of it is, simply, time. I started watching Days again when I was on my maternity leave with my second child. Being the mom of a baby and a toddler kept me around the house a lot, perfect for Days watching and checking in with message boards. Now that “baby” is three (with no SORASing!) and my older daughter is in school, and our activities often take us out of the house. (Oh, and I’m also working full time.)

However, I love writing this blog, and I can’t quite bring myself to abandon it completely. I really enjoy all my readers and the intelligent, civil corner of the internet that we’ve created here. So I am going to keep up my posts about the DVDs I’m watching from from the 80’s and early 90’s. (I’ll keep posting YouTube clips for those who don’t have access.) I hope some of you will stick around for that.

Thanks, everyone.

 

Thanks, Mom (I think)

My mother is visiting for two weeks, so I get to watch Days with her again.

I’ve mentioned here before that I watched Days as a child because my mother watched the show. She started watching in 1969 when my oldest brother was a baby. By the time I was born three years later, she was firmly addicted. She remembers when Mickey met Maggie, when Addie died, and when baby DJ died of SIDS. She is a longtime Marlena fan, and loved her with Don and Roman I, but it’s Drake Hogestyn she loves best.

I have to be grateful to Mom’s Drake love, though, because I owe my Steve and Kayla addiction to her. In 1986 I was taping Guiding Light and wasn’t motivated to pick up another soap. But when the school year ended, I would stumble out of bed at 10 am and find my mom camped in front of the TV, watching intently. This was right after John was revealed to be Roman, just as Kayla moved to Salem. And thus I was hooked. My mom’s Drake love also meant that she had some tapes of his pre-Roman days lying around the house, which is how I later watched the West Virginia storyline, and bits and pieces of Steve pre-Kayla.

She remains a devoted John, and J&M, fan. She has never been more than lukewarm on Steve and Kayla. She loves EJ (“He’s so complex and intriguing”) and is rooting for EJami. She hates Lucas, loves Nicole, and thinks Stephanie is adorable. She was upset when John “died” last year, but other than that she doesn’t worry about the quality of the show. She accepts that sometimes it’s good and sometimes it isn’t. Watching is just is a part of the fabric of her life. Unlike me, she doesn’t endlessly analyze what the show is doing right or wrong. Honestly, I think she is somewhat bemused by the fact that I keep this blog.

My mom is also spoiler free, by default, because she never reads soap magazines and has never visited a Days message board. When we watch together, we like to speculate about what is going to happen and call out to the characters on screen. Last week, my mom shouted to Daniel as he moved in to kiss Chelsea, “Get away from her, you lech!” Heh. I love watching Days with my mom.

I must admit, though, that when your mother is sitting next to you, it takes a little bit of the glow off of watching James Scott and Arianne Zucker sex each other up.

 

The More Things Change

Since today is the Pennsylvania presidential primary, and since I find myself with very little to say about Days today, I thought I’d take a little detour for today’s post. I have lately been eagerly following the Democratic primary race.

The temptation to compare the race to the show and and bring out that hoary cliche that “it’s all one, big soap opera” is far, far too easy. Besides, this is not a political blog. I can’t resist one parallel, however. One dilemma facing Days executives is whether to court change and maybe draw in new, younger viewers, or concentrate on older, long-term characters with a built-in, proven fan base. Do you take a chance on the unproven future, or look backwards to a secure past? I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

I haven’t been spending much time on Days discussion boards lately, and instead have found myself getting sucked into the parallel universe of political blogs and boards devoted to the primary race. And it truly is a parallel universe. The bickering, the hyperbole, the flame wars, the panic attacks, the paranoia, the periodic pleas for civility and reminders that “we’re all on the same side!” Anyone familiar with the Sony board could feel right at home. The feeding frenzies that break out over the latest poll shift, surprise loss, or overblown candidate gaffe resemble nothing more than the “sky is falling” speculation threads at S&K.com. (Unfortunately I have not found an equivalent to TWoP.)

For “airtime” read “media bias.” For “ratings” read “polls.” For “Screw this, I’m never watching this show again,” read “Screw this, I’m voting for McCain.” J&M vs. S&K have nothing on Obama vs. Clinton.

I think I just said that the process for selecting a candidate for the most important job in the United States, maybe the world, is nothing more than the ultimate fanbase war.

Eh, I’ll stand by it.

Next time: Days, I promise.

 

Chick sighting

Days, why do you toy with me?

The signs were all there that Chick was over. First, there was Chelsea’s insta-crush on Dr. Jonas. Of course, that could just have been the beginning of a standard “third party obstacle” storyline for Chick. What clinched it for me was the near-total absence of Nick, especially compared to Chelsea’s ubiquitousness, and that started even before Dr. Jonas arrived.

Even including the grant proposal scenes with Max, Nick has not been a significant part of the show since Higley took over. Through the resolution of the Ford Decker debacle, he showed up briefly a few times to play the generic supportive boyfriend. (This coincided with the downturn in the quality of the dialogue, which made me think cynically that the new writers weren’t smart enough to write for a brainy scientist.) When the drama surrounding Bo’s illness started, and everybody and his brother were at the hospital except Nick, his absence became even more glaring.

So Chick, clearly, was dead. Okay, I thought, I can deal with that. I’m not the type to throw fits and sulks on message boards about how important my couple is and how the show should cater to no one but me, me, me. If the new headwriter couldn’t see the great potential she has with Chick, who was I to kick up a fuss?

We’d always have Toronto, right?

This mood of philosophic detachment lasted until today (3/19), when Nick showed up at the hospital and was greeted with enthusiasm by Chelsea. He was his sweet, dorky self, giving her a teddy bear from his childhood to help her through this ordeal, and joking with her about having joint custody of the bear. He was the only one to point out that Chelsea does not have to be Bo’s donor, also the only one who seemed the least bit concerned about the fact that she is risking her life. (I can only guess whether his comment that he doesn’t want to lose her is an anvil that he’s about to do exactly that.)

screencap courtesy chit-chat-haven

After that, it was also a treat to see him play poker in the hospital waiting room with Steve, Max, and Stephanie. The camera focused on his reaction several times, highlighting his concern for Chelsea. Could Chick be in the cards after all? Could the (I assume) upcoming separation be part of a long-term plan to define them separately as individuals before putting them back together? Do I dare hope? Well, do I??

Too late. The trouble is, with renewed hope comes renewed distress. Shipping a couple is like being a junkie. I thought I had been cut off by my dealer. No problem, I can kick the habit. But then you get that one hit of smack, that one little scene that makes you remember why you loved this couple. And then, suddenly, you want to do things like gouge a certain doctor’s attractive eyes out and hiss, you’re way too old. Or maybe shake a certain girl with hero worship issues who can’t see the great guy right in front of her. Or start a flame war with “Chan” supporters.

Sigh. My name is marypickford, and I am a Chick shipper. Help me.

 

Bashers only!

Soap viewing at its best is a communal experience. The internet has revitalized this aspect of watching a soap. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of places—fansites, message boards, blogs—to discuss soaps online every day. It’s wonderful to be able to discuss the plots and the characters with other fans, get new insights or new opinions about what is going on. This is the substitute (or the supplement) to the family living room or the college common room.

But there’s a dark side, too.

What can happen is that people of similar opinions gravitate to one another and mirror and amplify each others’ opinions until they become “facts” which any idiot knows. It’s not the same thing as fans independently writing in to the powers that be all hating the same storyline, or the same character, because these fans have all egged each other on. This is mob thought in action.

On Days’ boards, it’s the shippers. I hate to say it, because when it comes to Steve and Kayla (and Chick—I’m still hanging in there!), I’m the shippiest shipper that ever lived. It is by no means all shippers, or even a majority, but it is within these bases that you will find the screechiest, the most short-sighted, the most ruthless posters. These are people to whom the show is a battlefield, the stakes are airtime and frontburner status, and every other character is the enemy. If a poster ventures the opinion that Kayla, as an MD, might be involved in helping Bo beat his illness, someone is sure to jump in and say this is BO and HOPE’s storyline, and Kayla should have NOTHING to do with it! (Sometimes the swarming nature of this makes me think of a B-monster movie from the 50’s like The Blob: “Look out! You’ve angered it!”)

Regarding how John and Marlena and Bo and Hope were sidelined last summer, “reading letters” has become a shorthand and a rallying cry. It cracks me up how such an innocuous activity can sound so awful—”John and Marlena were stuck READING LETTERS!”—the context suggesting something on par with “scooping up handfuls of monkey snot.”

Sometimes I wonder too if shippers are aware that they are watching what is, in fact, a soap. A soap depends on conflict, angst, suffering, and drama to fuel its stories. Some people seem to think that a character doing a bad thing means that the show is telling a bad story. Watching people screw up (believably), and get themselves in trouble (believably) is what character-driven drama—what everyone says they want—is all about. Badly done angst can be really, really bad, but if you’ve gotten to the point where any angst, any drama is inherently bad, it might be time to turn off the TV.

Speaking of turning off the TV, what really gets my goat are the people who, for whatever reason, are no longer watching the show, but feel the need to post and repost how much the show sucks. I always think of these posters as being the bitter ex-wives of the show, who can’t stop badmouthing their ex. Any viewer currently enjoying the show is like a much-hated new wife.

Of course I’m not saying that all critiquing, complaining, ranting, and making of snarky remarks is bad. Speaking for myself, there have been times that keeping up with the snark on TWoP is the only thing keeping me watching the show. But when it becomes a steady stream of venom and vitriol, when your hatred for a character spills over into hatred for that character’s fans, when your focus narrows to the point where all your posts are essentially one post, endlessly repeated, I have to wonder: is this supposed to be entertainment or what?

 

No one knows how I suffer

I hope all my fellow Steve and Kayla fans realize how much I’m suffering on their behalf.

I am currently watching the Steve and Kayla clips where he breaks up with her for the sake of Jack/Billy (oops, hope I’m not giving anything away!). I am racing through them on the theory that it’s better to swallow a bitter pill quickly.

I had such traumatic memories of this storyline that when I watched all the OLAB clips (see link in the sidebar) a year ago, I skipped right from the scenes in the stopped elevator—you Steve and Kayla fans know the ones I mean!—to the Jack and Kayla wedding. I just couldn’t stomach watching it again. And all this past summer as I was watching the on the run clips I dreaded what was coming next.

I am an avowed fan of Steve and Kayla angst. But after I had labored through the noncommittal “I’m not avoiding you” hospital lounge scene, the “shore leave” speech and hookup, the morning after breakup, and the scene where Steve asks for the necklace back, I got to his perjury at the Ed Daniels trial (when he says about Kayla, “I knew she would believe any line I fed her”) and my heart nearly failed me. I didn’t remember clearly how long it took for Kayla to marry Jack, but I knew it wasn’t the work of a day. I wasn’t sure how long I could continue to watch this.

But things are looking up. I still hate nuJack with a burning passion, Jo is quickly losing all favor with me, it takes all of Stephen Nichols’ skill to make me feel any sympathy for Steve, and Kayla’s confusion and pain are still breaking my heart. But Jack’s level of delusion in the face of Kayla’s obvious misery is actually becoming amusing to me. And I have to admit it was satisfying to see Roman punch Steve in the face—which he richly deserved, since he was singing “The Thrill is Gone” about Kayla at the time. Also, the Ed Daniels undercover operation is, surprisingly, a hoot. Steve and Shane, who knew they could be so much fun? And Steve and Gabrielle have a surprising amount of bantery chemistry (not romantic, please relax).

And Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans are knocking it out of the park. There is a little nothing scene between them soon after Kayla has told Steve about Jack’s proposal (which she is still considering). They run into each other accidentally in the park, and this is the dialogue they exchange:

Steve: Have you given Jack your answer yet?
Kayla: I was just going over to see him.
Steve: Kayla.
Kayla: What?
Steve: Tell Jack I said hi.

Nothing special, right? But Mary Beth Evans does a wonderful job conveying, as Kayla says “I was just going over to see him,” a wild, eager hope that Steve is about to tell her to refuse the proposal. She then reads on his face that he is not, and she turns away, deflated. So when Steve calls her back, she looks only annoyed that he’s detaining her. Then, when she’s not looking at him, we can see him struggling with himself not to try and stop her. And when he gets hold of himself, and says only “Tell Jack I said hi,” Mary Beth makes a very slight dismissive, disgusted sound and walks away. She seems just as disgusted with herself (for having that moment of hope) as she is with him.

So I’m enjoying the clips much more than I thought I would. I just have to remember this feeling when I get to the leadup to the wedding. ::clutches head, starts rocking back and forth::

 

Fanbase Fever

I’m back! I’m still catching up with the shows I missed, but last week as I lay on the beach I took a few moments to ponder the relationship between Days and its fans.

I can think of shows with more fanatical fanbases (like Lost, or The X-Files), but I think that soaps have cornered the market on fans who are fanatical but who all want different things. Different couples have their shipper base: S&K, J&M, Bope, Shelle, Chick, Lumi, and Ejami. These fanbase factions are apt to start duking it out on message boards. (The fights between EJami shippers and Lumi shippers have gotten extremely ugly of late.) Then there are different desires of 80’s-era fans vs. 90’s era fans. I’ve seen Hogan vs. JER fights spring up. And finally, there are those who watch for the whole show and disdain all shipper fanbases.

And of course people can straddle these different positions depending on the day, or in my case which message board I’m on. I’m a proud S&K shipper and Chick shipper but I watch for the whole show. I have an emotional attachment to S&K and Chick no matter how bad their storyline is at the moment, but among the rest of the cast my favorites circulate depending on what is engaging me at the time. Last fall I loved Sami and Lucas and EJ but now I’m engaged by, believe it or not, Stephanie and the whole Touch the Sky crowd (though not Jett), Phillip, and Tony/Andre.

Being a fan of the whole show is generally a happy and comfortable experience. When one storyline is in the toilet, there is usually something else to engage my attention. The Lumi/EJami wars leave me utterly unaffected, except with impatience at reading their rantings on message boards. (I’m not being a hypocrite here. I also hated reading the rantings of S&K shippers last fall.)

And yet—speaking from experience, being part of a shipper fanbase provides the highest highs and the lowest lows. When our couple is happy we are over the moon. When they are unhappy we suffer and tear out our hair. We are a very loyal fans. The storylines can get bad, really bad, and we will still hang in there. And we will—some of us, anyway— scream bloody murder about whatever it is we are unhappy about. (My personal approach is to offer helpful suggestions about how the current storyline could be improved, and of course to provide motivations and subtexts that simply aren’t there—but could be. Fanwanking, my saving grace.)

Given that fanbases are probably the most vocal fans around, when should TPTB listen to us and when should they ignore us? Well, obviously, they should listen to us when we’re right, and ignore us when we’re wrong. But how to tell?

One thing I do know is that you can’t run a work of fiction like a political campaign, responding overnight to what yesterday’s polls say (political campaigns probably shouldn’t be run that way either, but that’s a different story). That old adage about how it is impossible to please ALL people ALL the time applies here. Sometimes I think that Ken Corday honestly believes that he can please both EJami shippers and Lumi shippers, and that’s a dangerous line to try to tread.

For my part, I figure I spend so much time writing about this show, I might as well share my thoughts with TPTB. I’ve written longer letters but now believe that postcards take less time and are more likely to be read. I’ve participated in a few shipper campaigns, I’ve put in plugs for my favorites. But more than any airtime issue, shipper issue, or storyline issue, I’ve come to realize that, above all, I just want a good story, dammit! Attempting to convey this on a postcard is challenging. I sent one to Hogan Sheffer soon after he took over where I wrote, along with some words of encouragement and props for my favorite characters, this helpful piece of advice: “Show us, don’t tell us, that a couple is meant to be.” During the last Chick breakup (the one where Chelsea suddenly fell for Jett), I said, “Obstacles don’t drive the story, desire drives the story.” **

What effect these will have is probably minimal at best. For one thing, I’m sure these are just a drop in the bucket in the flood of shipper complaints. Also, a few weeks ago, after sending in a postcard that said “payoffs are important,” I had to ask myself, if they don’t know this already, is reading it on a postcard really going to help?

But I’ll keep plugging away. If Ken Corday is really blowing whichever way the wind goes, maybe someday my postcard will end up on his desk at the crucial moment, and he’ll pick up the phone and tell Hogan, “The fans want payoffs! Whatever that is, give them some!”

**shamelessly ripped off from another TWoP poster