Viewing Single Post From: DAYS:Daily spoilers for wk of 9/15

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Viewing Single Post From: DAYS:Daily spoilers for wk of 9/15
Flying Monkey	Sep 17 2008, 01:28 AM
Posts: 70 Group: Members Member #2,564 Joined: July 18, 2008 Favorite Soap Opera of All Time Days of our Lives	PhoenixRising05 Sep 15 2008, 04:44 PM Really? This show is still focusing on the same damn couples it was back then so how is that different? Everytime there is a plan to save Days it involves the same old tired devices. Supercouples, Stefano, romantic adventures, and what have you. That is not going to save Days. As I said in my last post, many fans have become selfish. It's all about what they want but not what is best for the show. Any fan can say that what they want is what will be good for the show but that isn't necessarily true. Days was an even better show before the 80's and before supercouples became the end all to be all. The show was about what soaps should be about to this-drama. Good, solid character driven drama. It didn't matter what characters had the stories. The show was an ENSEMBLE. That is what soaps are supposed to be yet, especially in Days' case, they aren't allowed to be because so many fans cry for the same old tired story ideas involving the same old characters. I love those characters but how much shit can they possibly go through? How many times can Bope go on a romantic adventure? How many times can J&M battle Stefano? For heaven's sake, Days had to "kill" John and reinvent the whole character just to give him and Marlena a story that was fresh. How sad is that? The show has relied way too long on the same characters. Does that mean get rid of them? No. It just means that more emphasis should be on the future by now. In the 80's Days recognized that fact and pushed Bope, Steve/Kayla, etc on fans. It's long past time that happen again. Shelle could've led that or even Phelle. The young cast in the past few years is talented enough. Sure, the writing doesn't always back them up but alot of the time some fans don't even give them a chance. They just write them off because they are "newbies" or not one of their faves or couples. Some fans say that it's the show's job to make them interested in other characters and then they turn around and say they only watch their faves or what they want to watch. How can you learn to like any other characters or invest when you don't even take the time to try to invest or get used to them? It's the show's job but there have been times when the show did that job and it was lost on many fans because they only watched what they wanted. The vets are important. They need to be featured but the issue is that many fans limit the story possibilities. Some will get upset the minute their couple has an argument or faces a threat to their relationship. They say they want angst but when they get it, they complain. Then you have the fact that these couples are beyond triangles and if a outside threat is introduced, fans complain that the story becomes more about the threat then the couple. Well, that is kind of the point since the threat to the couple is pretty much driving the story. Let's also remember that these very same fans call for the same things all the time...romance, adventures, supercouples. What many of these fans fail to realize is that not everyone wants that. Look at the ratings. Do you think they will go up if J&M are having their latest roll in the hay? Hell no. The ratings go up if there is plane crash and lives are in danger. Ratings are driven by plot movement and events. They are driven by drama. They no longer are driven by little moments that make soaps what they are. They don't fall at all in line with what many of these fans scream for. Not at all. So, what is the show to do? Well, in no way should it abandon the little moments like family interaction, tradition, etc. It needs those but what the show needs to do is to combine all it's elements. Character-driven, plot-driven, camp, serious drama, supercouples, young cast...combine it all. Balance the cast and balance all these elements. Try to give every fan a piece of what they want. There is no pleasing anyone by focusing on just one aspect because pleasing one group will piss off another. Fans just need to understand that they won't always get what they want from ANY show because no one fan should be more important then another, just like no one character or couple should be. I think some fans, if they ever cared about this show, need to start considering and pushing for what is best for the show as a whole and not their own agenda. This show won't be around otherwise and then no one wins if it gets cancelled. The show does listen but the issue is it has to listen to so many different fans wanting different things. If fans unite and come to an understanding that the focus needs to be on what is best for the show as a whole and present ideas that go along with that notion, then I think the show can take that sort of feedback and present a better product. It does the show no good to keep dealing with what it is, which is fan feedback that is so convoluted and all over the place that it's no surprise the show changes gears as much as it does out of panic. I also disagree hugely with the notion that some characters are just leads or supporting. Soaps are ensembles and I do think any character can lead a story. No one should lead a show but it does not hurt to give characters like Abe, Lexie, Victor, Caroline, Kate, etc a story where they can shine. Those characters always have to play second fiddle to the supercouples and its sad because most of them have close to or just as many years at Days as the supercouples do. They deserve their chance to shine. They've been loyal too and they have many fans that deserve to see them in big stories. They've been part of big story in the past and proven they can handle it. Maybe if they were given big story more often, some of fans complaining about them getting big story would feel differently but they were never given that chance due to more 80's and supercouple pandering. Yes, some characters drive a show more then others but that does not mean you just automatically shove certain characters aside with the thinking that they can't have their own frontburner story. Those characters actually have more story potential as they haven't had as much to deal with so things can be fresher in regards to what material they are given, which helps make the canvas fresher, something Days is desperately in need of. Really? This show likes to trot out the fan favorites every now and again, when the ratings get low. Promising that they will soon be involved in a big upcoming love story. This has come to usually mean one of three things… often the promised story simply never materializes and you’re left empty handed and feeling used… if by some chance they actually do have some story cooked up for said couple, it’s ill conceived and poorly carried out and nothing that either a fan of the characters/couple or the general audience wants to see and it falls by the wayside, totally forgettable… or my personal favorite, the big love story planned for said couple that turns out to be about everybody but said couple. I don’t see the fans as selfish, Days isn’t some altruistic organization that requires the audience’s charity. It’s a product, a service and the audience has every right to make their displeasure known as well and their desires. If it doesn’t produce a product that the audience wants to see then it will go under and they will have only themselves to blame, not the consumer. What a majority of fans want is good for the show. Ignoring that results in what we have now, continuously low ratings and cancellation looms. I’ve watched Days since the mid seventies and Days and soaps in general were always about romance and love conquering all, that’s why they used to call it “love in the afternoon.” Days always makes wild promises that they never keep or follow through with, that’s a sure fire way to drive the audience away. In and EMSEMBLE cast, there are lead players and supporting players and the 80’s was all about EMSEMBLE. Every play, every musical, every soap, every prime time show, every motion picture has lead characters and supporting characters, why should Days be any different now? Retelling the same old tired stories lies at the feet of unimaginative writers, not at the feet of the fans. There are plenty of stories yet to be told, the trick is finding a writer who can actually write. And no Days didn’t have to nor did they kill John to create a whole new character. John was killed off by a writer who simply didn’t want to write for the character, despite the fact that the character has a large following. The same writer who stole John, Marlena and Stefano history and gave it to Ejami. Is that the kind of future you’d like to see? Not me. He was reinvented by a writer who also lacks a basic imagination and enough fortitude and smarts to do her homework on who characters are. Now how sad is that? Days has spent close to ten years emphasizing the future. In ’99 when Belle and Brady were SORAsed it was all teens, all the time while the vets propped up the scenery. There has been a steady stream of new, younger characters who were poorly written and introduced to the audience in such a way as to repel rather than attract in most cases. Shelle could never be a lead couple, they simply didn’t have “it”. Phelle was cute but again, no “it”. If they had “it” they’d would still be on the show. The same writing that doesn’t back up these new characters is the same writing that can’t figure out what to do with the fan favorites that you find so boring. I haven’t seen much new talent at all on Days for years now. While some may write off a new character simply because they aren’t their favorite couples but I certainly don’t believe the majority feels that way. New characters have to be introduced slowly, in bits and pieces over time. The audience has to have a chance to discover who these characters are and if they like them or not. It’s a well known fact that the audience takes from six months to one year to become invested in a new character who isn’t rammed down their throats. Thrusting brand new characters into the forefront and giving them oodles of airtime will only result in most of the audience rejecting that character. If a character is complex and interesting the audience will grow to like them over time, there have not been any complex or interesting characters introduced on this show in ages. Yes it is the show’s responsibility to make get us interested and caring about new characters. Fans do not limit the story possibilities, in fact the fans have much better imaginations and can come up with interesting scenarios just off the tops of their heads, unlike the writing staff of Days. I think you like to generalize and lump fans into one single pigeonhole. Most fans love angst and love conflict for their favorite characters from time to time, but conflict and angst are not synonymous with third parties being thrown into the mix. Third parties are fine for less established couples but we all know Steve isn’t going to cheat on Kayla or Hope isn’t going to cheat on Bo etc, etc. The lazy writing use this as their default for creating conflict for a couple. There are plenty of other ways to have angst without having someone screw someone new. The majority of fans have always wanted romance and adventure and that hasn’t changed. I’m not sure what the fans who don’t want to see romance, adventure and love conquering all envision for Days but perhaps they should seek out other shows better suited to their tastes. Plot driven event writing is what’s killing Days not helping it. I believe that the majority of the audience wants to see character driven stories and not just a series of events. No Days isn’t following what most the audience wants to see, that’s clear from the ratings. When was the last time we saw any real family interaction or tradition??? So if just one fan wants to see say Rolf involved in a big love story/adventure then Days should rush to do that? Or should it concentrate on what the will make the majority of the audience happy and keep them tuned in. There will always be people who are unhappy, always someone feeling left out in the cold, but those fans certainly aren’t going to raise the ratings with what they want. People do have their own agendas, that’s clearly obvious some are just better ideas than others. I don’t believe for a second that Days has paid much attention to what fans want since Betty Corday retired. The show changes gears so often because it drifts from one bad idea or execution to the next. When one ill conceived idea fails they are desperate to raise the sinking ratings and thus jumping directly into the next awful idea. Once again, even in an ensemble cast there are lead characters, supporting characters and bit players. Ensemble doesn’t mean that every character is a lead character, it simply means a united performance by a group. I don’t believe I have ever seen a large fan base for any of the characters you mentioned nor any outcry for them to be involved in their own storyline. Actors can shine in supporting roles just as well as lead roles, they just need good material to do it with. Simply giving them a lead story doesn’t ensure that the story will be any good or that it is something that the majority of the audience actually wants to see. All the characters you mentioned have been on Days for years now, the audience knows who they feel about them and most of them have been involved in their own minor storylines throughout the years. Days is in desperate need of a decent writer, having Caroline, Victor, Kate, Abe, Lexie etc in stories written by untalented writers aren’t going to add anything to Days. I think what’s ruining Days besides TIIC are a handful of fans who think that in order to be a fan you must love whatever garbage the show throws at you, blindly supporting it. A handful of fans who enjoy telling other fans that they really aren’t fans because they don’t raise their pompoms cheer things they don’t enjoy and don’t want to see. That handful of fans with axes to grind against supercouples and their fans, who don’t want to see romance and adventure and think that everybody and their brother deserves their own storyline. Edited by Flying Monkey, Sep 17 2008, 02:17 AM.


DAYS:Daily spoilers for wk of 9/15 · DAYS: News, Spoilers & Discussion