?!?!?!?!

I'm getting back into the swing of watching Days of Our Lives regularly. I kept up on recaps and clips and I watched bits and pieces of the Sunday marathon, but since, back in the days of yore, Days was on Soapnet at 11pm (the ancient time of "two weeks ago"...), and I am the oldest soon to be 24-year-old in the world, I was usually asleep before I heard "like sands through the hourglass..."

So I've been watching regularly. And I am both surprised and disappointed to learn that it wasn't the time of night that was making me fall asleep, it was the show itself!

I just...like, if I were basically on borrowed time because I knew that the network was just itching to cancel my show, I'd do my best to make it not be boring. But Ken Corday and Hogan Sheffer seem to just be like, "Eh? Meh." And Hogan and I had gotten off to such a great start last year. I was going to buy him a fruit basket! I thought we had something good going on. Hogan, baby, where did our love go?

There are bright spots, no doubt, and the show has great raw material to work with and it is so blissful to hear people read lines that makes them sound like humans having conversations. So it's still a great deal better than it was for the last decade. But it's like--?!?!?!?!?! So much of it is just bizarrely ?!?!?!?!?!

For starters, the damn hairbrush. Seriously. Enough. Enough with the damn hairbrush. Is the hairbrush on contract? I think it's been onscreen more than the infamous Gloved Hand of 2006. And at least the Gloved Hand did hilarious things like pump his fists and be a menace to society. The hairbrush just sucks the interesting out of everything. It's stupid. It makes Chelsea stupid, it makes Nick stupid, it has to do with Willow, and that makes it even more stupid.

Speaking of Willow: I'm totally over her. There were days when Evil But Twinless would rage against Willow's continuing existence, and I'd stick up for the crazy ho, because in some misguided way, I thought that unstable hookers were entertaining and since she pissed Belle off, what was the harm? But it became more and more apparent that she was just not entertaining crazy, but crazy crazy, and also pointless. Watch her flit about from story to story, flaring her nostrils to convey anger! Watch her hair get worse by the minute! Watch her utter the line "Shawn, my baby's daddy" without Maury Povich sitting anxiously next to her.

I also had an epiphany that she could be a White Chick; that may have something to do with my newfound distaste.

Who knew Gabby was a hidden crazy?

More importantly: WHO CARES?!?!?!?!?! It would be physically impossible for me to care less about Belle and Shawn's saga than I do right now. Shawn is useless and annoying, which makes me wonder if he is actually Bo and Hope's child, since they might be many things (chief among them "dopey" and "far too thin") but useless and annoying are not among them. Belle is useless, irritating, smug and prissy. Oh, and stupid. Don't forget stupid. Island storylines are useless, maddening and have the unfortunate habit of getting the theme song to Gilligan's Island stuck in my head. So let's combine them all and throw in another crazy girl who falls in love with Shawn because it's not like we have EFFING WILLOW ON CANVAS WITH THAT SAME EXACT PLOT LINE OR ANYTHING.

Lucas: It's just a little weird. You've been chasing Sami so long. How'd you find time to hook up with somebody else?

Considering the fact that it would take all of thirteen seconds for EJ to get a girl to agree to marry him, I found this piece of dialogue baffling. Have you seen the man? Mental issues and laundry list of crimes aside, the man's a sex god. The English language hasn't even come up with words to correctly express the extent of his sex godishness.

He completes me.

So he can't die. And he certainly can't die due to poisoned lipstick! When Celeste was all, "It's the perfect plan" I actually YELPED. It's not perfect! It's even more imperfect than Kate's hair! It's dumb! It's the type of thing that The Soup would dream up to make fun of how bad soaps are! What on earth?!?!?!?!?!

POP QUIZ: What year is this picture from?

Technically, it's from 2007, but I wouldn't blame you for thinking it was from one of the eight other instances where Sami kept a secret from Lucas and Lucas was too dim to see the guilt radiating off of Sami. How's that for originality?

It's quite nearly as original as Chelsea and Abby's fight, which was akin to watching a dramatic reenactment of The Babysitter's Club #4: Mary Anne Saves The Day where the babysitters fight over something dramatic. Tempers flare, people say something they regret and girls have to spend time with young children (or, in Chelsea's case, a 24 year old with the mental faculties of a young child)

In case you couldn't tell, Chelsea is the BAD one (Exhibit A: Her razored Joan Jett shag) and Abby is the GOOD one (Exhibit A: Angelic long blonde hair).

I'm trying really hard not to let Patch Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest get to me, because how great is it to have Stephen Nichols onscreen again, so I should be truly grateful, but...I don't know, it doesn't seem wise to me to bring back one of the most beloved couple's in soap history and spend an entire year with them separated from one another, first because Steve didn't know who he was and now because he's ca-razy. It's not just me, is it? And they do this with all of the couples who are hugely popular. It's like, if you know that showing Steve/Kayla, John/Marlena, Bo/Hope is going to make people watch and since people aren't watching and, in fact, your ratings are in the toilet, wouldn't showing these couples seem smart?!?!?!?!?! And wouldn't it be even smarter to show them happy and healthy, and not in mental wards or comas?!?!?!?!?!

Please, guys. Just do something to keep me awake during this show. Even if it's something as random as sending Belle and Shawn to Kristen Blake's island of white slavery, never to be seen again. I'll send you cheesecake if you do!

Screencaps courtesy of Days of Our Lives 2

- Promising Ingénue

Comments

[Chad]

Having grown up with Days during its Golden Age in the 1980s, I was actually kind of hoping that the end of James Reilly's dark regime and Hogan's emphasis on continuity would give us a Days Renaissance. Yet it looks like it's fizzling out before it even begins. Willow just seems like a third-rate version of Nicole Walker, which is really sad since Nicole was just a half-hearted attempt to create another Eve Donovan.

It seems like in the 1980s Days, while you had your saintly characters, you also had characters who did not fit into neat little packages labelled "hero" or "villain": Rene DiMera, pre-Reilly Jack Devereaux, Anna Fredericks, Eve Donovan, pre-Reilly Tony DiMera, etc. To be fair, Reilly tried with Sami Brady, although in hindsight it does seem really counter-productive to try to write a sympathetic villain but have the rest of the cast reiterate ad nauseam what an evil, irredeemable liar she is. So far it doesn't seem like things are really going to get much better post-Reilly.

Is it just me or is this a problem in most soaps nowadays? As you pointed out with "General Hospital", Sonny and Jason, despite their occupations, are usually portrayed as undisputed heroes (they both need to take lessons from the 1980s Victor Kiriakis!), Alexis has been defanged, and the Quartermaines, the great millionare anti-heroes, have all been reduced to comic relief. Is the concept of multiple characters who are likeable protagonists, multi-faceted, and capable of doing nasty things on occasion become a relic to today's soap writers?

[Mike]

Well said, Chad. I am beginning think that there is more complex thought and writing skill displayed by the bloggers and responders on this website than in the entire ABC and NBC [combined] Soap writing staff -- with the Soap producers thrown in, too.
However, if the Soaps were well-written, what would be all discuss here at "Serial Drama"? Hmmm? We all get a good laugh when we watch our favourite soap and an ever bigger laugh when we read this blog!

[Dr. Sparky]

Sadly, I fall asleep when watching the show too, and I watch it during the day.

It's pretty bad when Sami is plotting murder with Celeste (which could be insanely entertaining if done well), and I just can't wait for the hourglass to show up for the second time so I know I am halfway home.

[zarathelawyer]

Yes, it's really quite depressing, isn't it? I'd got quite behind on my Days watching, but I've caught up quickly with the degree of fast forwarding of the boring bits, ie 85% of the show, that I've been doing.

So much promise, so much progress, then a sudden fall into a big ditch some time right before the start of Feb sweeps.

Such a shame.

[Tripp]

I have to agree, and I can't make up my mind what bugs me most! Shelle on the island, Steve in the mental hospital being a coward or the stupid hairbrush. Since I watched today and dared to read prevuse for tomorrow right now I have to say the hairbrush.

[Celine]

Over on Dustin's Days Page, he's posted this following awesome news:

"Annie Burgstede, who has been playing Willow Stark, is leaving the show. No last airdate was given by the show, only confirmation that she was leaving."

I know, you're just crushed. ;)

[james scott]

james scott is so fucking sexy

[james scott]

i fucking hate lucas on days but ej is so fucking sexy ej and sammy for ever!!!!!:)

[Jafeestartofs]

Do u think that UEFA cup is to die?
IT"S FAIL!!