Children in Jeopardy

If last week was a fun revisit that made me a bit nostalgic for the current show, this week reminded me of all the reasons I quit watching.

Actually, that’s not quite fair. The show does feel more cohesive, less disjointed. Plot points seem to happen in ways that generally follow the logic of storytelling instead of lurching all over the place in the way I used to find so maddening. It feels like the show actually has a mapped out plan for what is going to happen (as a soap should), and is executing it.

That goes a long way with me. I can enjoy the most tired, cliched storyline if it is well executed. But, this week, Ciara’s kidnapping has been absolutely excruciating. I think a lot of it had to do with watching the little girl who plays her:

With a creepy guy occasionally fondling her bows.

Kristian Alphonso has done very well playing the strung out, terrified mother, and I give her props for that. But by putting a child in jeopardy and stringing it along all week and then ending with Bo’s vision of Ciara being shot, the show went for the cheapest, laziest way of jacking up the emotional stakes.

Speaking of children:

Why, oh, why, Days? I have no idea how old Molly Burnett is, but I know Melanie is 18 and looks and acts younger. (And terrible—why does she look so terrible?) When she and Phillip were in bed together it truly looked like Phillip was in bed with a child. When that inevitable Days sex sax music kicked in, it was like something out of “barely legal” porn. (Hm, I await the many blog hits I’m going to get with that phrase.) And the really creepy thing is that this was all presented as though Melanie could be a legitimate point on the triangle with Stephanie. Yes, I know she got smacked down by Phillip the next day, but the show never acknowledged how weird and wrong it all was. Obviously, they don’t think so, and that’s what creeps me out most of all.

I don’t like being all doom and gloom and negativity, though, so I will point out that it was wonderful to see Stephanie, and to see her be flirty and lighthearted with Nathan, and standing her ground with Phillip. I think Shelley is looking gorgeous:

So is Ari Zucker:

And I’ve been meaning to post this. I love Wally Kurth’s sleek new haircut, but let’s not forget his contribution to the Pantheon of Days Mullets:

Screencaps NBC

 

Fresh Look

This week, I’m a Days watcher again.

My mom still watches the current show, so when she is visiting me, as she is this week, we watch it together. I haven’t been following recaps or message boards at all lately, so I really got to approach this with a fresh eye and very few preconceived notions. I have to say, it was fun.

Justin!

Wally Kurth is looking good. I was so tickled to hear him say “Uncle Vic” again. Nice to see him join the ranks with EJ and Chris Kositchek of “suddenly I have a law degree” Salemites. And I thought the teasers about his problems with Adrienne were fairly well done. A gradually introduced breakup is much better than a “by the way, we’re divorced” fait accompli. It (potentially) gives Wally Kurth something interesting to do and gives fans of the couple some time to get used to the idea of them splitting up.

My mom has switched her allegiance from EJ to Rafe for “hottest guy in Salem,” and I guess I can see what she’s talking about:

I thought he was working the sad, soulful looks pretty well in his breakup with Sami. That “dead fiancee’s sister put up by Stefano accusing him of murder but he can’t tell Sami the truth because he has to protect Arianna” plot twist seemed, um, a bit contrived, though. (Just me?) Couldn’t they come up with a more organic breakup than that? How about tensions arising from dealing with Grace’s death?

Speaking of that—when Ken Corday said that he learned from Zach’s death that “you don’t kill children” he forget to add the corollary, that “unless it’s the baby of a minor character that no one cares about, in which case they’re disposable.”

Three mothers, two fathers, three babies. Then two mothers, two babies. Now one baby. In a way, I have to admire the soap logic here, the mathematical precision of it. But killing Grace off reveals, if it wasn’t obvious before, how truly these babies have been introduced as plot contrivances and pawns to be shuffled around.

I still can’t figure out who EJ is supposed to really be in love with, and I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with mourning a baby he never knew was his while she was alive. I see Nicole is still acting like a desperate dishrag, but also that Ari is still selling it. I did enjoy Stefano sneering at her for her qualms of conscience for stealing Sami’s baby when she isn’t going to do anything to make it better. I was pretty surprised to see Nicole and Sami acting all buddy buddy, but it does twist the knife for Nicole to have to watch a “friend” (for lack of a better word) suffer, and know that she caused it. There is something satisfyingly soapy about that, but again, just like with Grace’s death, seems to go too far—this time in crucifying Nicole’s character for the sake of Sami’s.

I guess that’s nothing new.

I see Lucas is still at it, throwing judgments around and blaming other people for his problems:

Why is my nephew such a tool?

In addition to blaming Maggie for not telling him, or rather re-telling him, about Chloe’s infidelity (which I noticed he didn’t apply the same standard to Kate), he took my breath away when he said casually to Sami, as his justification for shooting, EJ, “Besides, EJ deserved to die.” All the while convicting Rafe on the flimsiest evidence for supposedly killing his fiancee. I suppose if Rafe had pulled Lucas aside and said, “But Lucas, she deserved to die,” Lucas would have said, “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”

Screencaps NBC

 

Poor Steve, again

Since I’m a little pressed for time this week, I thought I would just post a scene I referenced last time that I think is well worth seeing. It’s part of how the show slowly builds our sympathy for Steve, basically by kicking him around for a few weeks. Steve finally gets back from Italy and he’s trying to get to Kayla, so he goes to the house. He is very surprised to find Jack there instead:

YouTube link

(I’ve also included the setup scene, where Steve firmly rejects Marina and the hospital in favor of getting home to Kayla.)

When Steve stumbles up to the house and then finds the door opened by Jack of all people, Stephen plays Steve’s utter shock perfectly. I love how it’s clear that seeing Jack at his house amps up Steve’s worry about Kayla. When Jack says “She’s gone,” Steve pauses for a minute and we can see all the possible interpretations of that phrase run over his face. And then when he decides Jack must have done something to her, it really does seem like the most logical explanation.

Matt Ashford does a beautiful job playing Jack’s sympathy for Steve here too. He looks sympathetic but helpless about it, knowing he can’t help (because he doesn’t know where Kayla is) or will probably even be allowed to try. But the best moment is as Steve is doing his usual lapels-grabbing thing, and he just falls apart. First he accuses Jack of preying on them when they are having problems and trying to make things worse, and then he just starts to cry, pleading with Jack to help him find Kayla. The fact that Steve is breaking down in front of Jack shows how low he’s sunk. It’s so heartbreaking. And then when he collapses I love how Jack catches him.

 

Goodbye

Today was Steve and Kayla’s last day. It was nice to see overprotective!Steve with Stephanie, and to see flashes of his dislike of the Kiriakises. It reminded me of Steve repeatedly warning Adrienne away from Justin. And I have to remark on the irony of Kayla worrying about FancyJudgmentalFace and Hope and Bo’s latest breakup, when part of the reason she came back to Salem three years ago was because of their last breakup.

They were good scenes, but certainly nothing befitting the sendoff of a popular couple. I just have to keep telling myself that it’s better than being paralyzed or turned into a murderer.

What do you think of our exit story, Steve?

When I look back on the whole of their second run, while it is assuredly filled with disappointments and missed opportunities, there are a lot of good things to remember as well. The reunion scenes. The babymaking scenes. Steve as an undercover agent at the DiMansion. The beginning of BSC Steve. The deprogramming scenes. The fallout scenes from the Ava storyline.

But, ironically—-ironic because of all the times I have trashed JER as a hack writer—one of the best storylines they had was a little mini-arc in 2006, when JER was still writing the show. When Nick Stockton arrives in Salem with Jack, he is not sure he wants to dive into Steve Johnson’s life. But, eventually, he is persuaded to try to find out what happened to him all those years ago. He and Kayla team up and go to Cincinnati, where Steve was living as Nick Stockton, to look for clues. When they go to Steve’s Cincinnati hangout, with all his friends welcoming him and calling him “Nick,” (including a girlfriend, Della) Steve suddenly feels comfortable again, for the first time in weeks. He tells Kayla this is where he belongs, and he won’t be going back to Salem with her.

Kayla tearfully calls her mother from outside the Cincinnati bar, telling her she’s lost Steve for good. In the meantime, Steve realizes going back to being “Nick” might not be possible. This was one of the only times Nick felt like a real character, a man without a past who had built up this small life for himself. Della derisively calls Kayla “Blondie” and Steve lashes out at her. I love seeing Steve like this, in a dive bar, drowning his sorrows … trying not to think about Kayla. And I love the fact that, as devastated as she might be, Kayla leaves, and once in Salem, tries to pull herself together.

Steve reasons that someone went to a lot of trouble to “kill” him and take him away from Salem, and that someone might be a threat to everyone in Salem—including Kayla. This arouses all his protective instincts, and Della confronts him about the fact that he has feelings for Kayla. Steve doesn’t say much, but next thing we know, he’s back in Salem:

YouTube link

If you watch this not thinking about what’s coming next, or the fact that all of these story threads were immediately dropped, it’s really a wonderful arc. I highly recommend going through the whole thing on OLAB, starting with July 26, 2006 and finishing up on August 7.

Screencap S&K.com
Clip courtesy OLAB

 

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

 

Fab Four

Well, I tuned in on Monday (1/26) to watch the Steve, Kayla, Bo, and Hope scenes. Nothing much happened, but it was nice, really nice, to see them all together again. It was fun to hear them talk about the case, and to hear Bo enlist Steve’s help in finding the mayor’s killer. I also appreciated the Stockholm shoutout.

Since I don’t have much to say about the scenes themselves, I’ll just enjoy looking at them all. The ladies are so gorgeoous:

I think I’m in favor of Steve’s new haircut, though from some angles it looked too much like he’d been to a hair salon. Here it looks pretty good:

I have been sniggering at the idea of Bo having visions, but I admit that Stephen Nichols and Peter Reckell really made me believe in the seriousness of it all. That has got to be soap actors’ most underrated skill: the ability to take ludicrous things seriously.

From way back, Steve has used this patented distraction technique when Kayla asks a question he doesn’t want to answer:

I was tickled to see it again.

Screencaps S&K.com

 

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.

 

Goodbye, Nick

When Nick first came to town, he was a smart kid with a bright future.

And now—well, a picture is worth a thousand words:

I know that Blake Berris, by all accounts, was happy to play a darker storyline and not at all unhappy to leave the show. And I really hope that he can use his work of the last few months as a calling card for his next gig.

But I mourn for the character of Nick. I loved that he was a Horton, to beef up the clan that started the show but has dwindled terribly over the years. He had a different look than most of the actors on the show. He was that rare creature: an interesting, multifaceted good guy. Blake had chemistry with everyone: family chemistry with Abby and Maggie, a brotherly vibe with Max, romantic sparks with Chelsea and Melanie. He was so sweet, so smart, so well-intentioned, so in love with Chelsea for so long. I was really looking forward to a love triangle with Nick in the middle—even one written by Dena!—which seemed to be the original plan when Molly Burnett was hired. His downfall happened so fast—the instacrazylove for Melanie, the pill addiction, the revelation that he killed Trent. And now, Nick becoming the only person in Salem to pay for his crimes.

The courtroom scenes were well done. Suzanne Rogers was great on the stand, and I thought Molly Burnett did well with her part too. For once I was glad to have the show pull its punches with the “pills made me do it” excuse. That meant we got to see the real Nick, here on his last day.

I was glad the show gave Chick one last scene. Frankly, it was more than I expected them to do. Watching Rachel Melvin and Black Berris play off of each other one more time was bittersweet, to say the least. I’m not afraid to say I cried for what could have been—for Nick, for Chick, and for Days.

 

Happy Holidays

I’m a sucker for Days Christmas episodes. I love the singing, the telling of the Christmas story, and the hanging of the Horton ornaments. I love how characters long departed still get their ornament hung on the tree.

Here’s an mvid I found on YouTube, a montage of Days Christmases, old and new. I love the way the Christmas story is woven together at the end.

YouTube link

Have a great holiday, everyone.

 

Transition team

A soap’s most unique feature is its endless ability to revamp its cast. Characters show up in town, wreak havoc, and waltz out again. Older generations have their heyday and then serve as wise elders (or not, as the case may be) for the next generation. Ideally, this is done seamlessly, with supporting roles with an occasional spotlight for the older generation, meaty storylines for the middle set, and a slow integration of the newest cast members.

Of course, at any given time, in all likelihood it is going anything but seamlessly. Many different factors make this a challenging process. Fan resent their favorites being shunted aside. New headwriters eager to introduce “their” characters throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cost cuts force cast bloodlettings. Aging stars throw temper tantrums. A popular new character gets overexposed. And on and on.

There is also the more delicate question of how to use the aging, yet still extremely popular characters, how to make the transition from being the heart of the show to playing a still vital, but more supporting role. Days of the last ten or fifteen years has had anything but a natural progression in terms of the development of its cast, particularly its supercouples—it’s been more like a merry go round. But that’s not the subject of this post.

Instead I just want to talk about the types of stories that make sense for the characters who have been around the block a few times. Doug and Julie and Mickey and Maggie are good examples of major players of the 1970’s who were turned into supporting players in the 80’s, but who still got the occasional storyline. Maggie’s myasthenia gravis (based on Suzanne Rogers real-life experience), and Doug running for mayor are two examples. Both couples were parents of lead characters who had major storylines from the era, Mike, Melissa, and Hope, so they got to play the parental role. More recently, Doug, Julie, Maggie, and the newly recast Mickey show up here and there in family-themed episodes, as meddlers and advice-givers, and a very occasional role in the plot.

I mention these successful examples because I think transitioning romantic leads is probably the trickiest of all, and these are two examples of a generally successful transition (Travesties like the Maggie/Mickey/Bonnie/dog foursome excepted). I must admit it, though, that it tickles me to imagine a message board from 1982, with threads entitled, “Doug and Julie: the REAL supercouple!” or “Bo and Hope are eating my show!”

Aging villains tend to present less of a problem. They can keep hatching their vile plots and torturing succeeding generations of Salemites. Stefano, for example, can play a major role or a minor role as the occasion requires, and having a particular motivation for anything seems to trouble him not at all. Considering that versatility, plus the presence of the Joe Mascolo, who can play either subtle or cartoonish with verve, is it any wonder that headwriters of every stripe have brought him back again and again?

The more human, believable villains, as they age, often get stuck meddling in their children’s lives. (Stefano does too—only in his case he’s extended his meddling to the whole town.) How many times has Kate broken up Lucas and Sami? Too many. It can be disheartening watching once-great titans fiddling with paternity test results and the like. Currently on my DVDs, Victor is so determined to break up Justin (his nephew, but really a surrogate son) and his wife Adrienne that he has sunk to the level of secretly feeding Justin pills that make him impotent. Depressing.

Needless to say, the problem continues. The brief, abruptly dropped DiMera/Kiriakis docks storyline from earlier this year had some great moments with Victor and Phillip as they wrangled over how to handle the problem. Phillip, for all the subpar writing he has received, is a worthy inheritor of the Kiriakis mantle, and I love to see the two men clash. I can’t say the same about Victor being forced to match wits with the inept Shelle, when he was trying to steal Claire away from them.

To paraphrase Norma Desmond, as played by the incomparable Gloria Swanson: “I am big. It’s the soaps that got small.”