Daytime Bloodbath Pt. I

So my poor little laptop contracted some sort of computer crotch-rot seconds before the most exciting stuff to happen to Days since Cassie Brady fell out of a piñata exploded.  I’m still in the process of getting my system back up to speed, which is why it’s taken me so damn long to update, and also why I wasn’t able to create any sort of accompanying, Days-related graphic for you.

Here, instead, is a picture of Sean Connery from the movie Zardoz.

Anyways, my thoughts on the subject(s) are all still rather disorganized, so I hope that doesn’t put you off too much.  I’m probably going to touch on a whole bunch of nuPTP stuff over the course of the next couple of days, so bear with me.  Well…it’s a blog.  You don’t really have to bear with me if you don’t want to. 

If you’re interested in baring with me, however… Nevermind.  I’m sleepy and I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.

 
Aaaaand, here we go!

Daytime Bloodbath: Pt. I


We should have seen this coming.  No, really.  We all know that whenever there are changes behind the scenes, they manifest themselves on our screens in the form of returns, exits, additions, etc.  And I should have figured Carly would go if only because it’s an idiotic decision and I’ve come to expect that from good ol’ KC.  Still, it took me by surprise.  Will I never learn?

I’m neither a Carbo nor a Bope.  I’m pro-Carly.  I could honestly have watched her in any pairing you could throw my way.  I hated that she was only brought back to act as a speed bump on the inevitable road to Bope (which didn’t have to be quite so obviously inevitable – as I’ve mentioned in the past, that’s what makes a love triangle engaging).  When I read that she was going to be in her own storyline, my expectations were, as usual, low, but I did like the thought of Carly getting her own story instead of standing in the background while Bo has Wayne and Wanda-esque visions of he and Fancy Face manoeuvring the high-seas via hypnosis.

I wasn’t expecting The Man with the Golden Arm, but I also wasn’t expecting that Carly would be driven to drugs after being dumped by Bo.  Carly was the relatively sane (by soap standards, because you’d have to be a little nuts to forgive someone for plotting to push you down an elevator shaft), non-pitiful woman on the show.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before her Brita filter expired and she started drinking the same tap water everyone else in Salem’s been drinking for the past couple of years. 

Now I know there are a lot of Bopes out there who loathe Carly and would be happy to pay for her rehab and the bus to get her there if it means security for their chosen love-match, but there’s no denying that Crystal Chappell has a huge fan base and is the grand poobah of an Emmy-nominated web series that’s garnering more and more fans (both straight and gay) every day.  With an upcoming gay storyline about to hit the scene and an Emmy possibly working its way under Ms. Chappell’s belt, wouldn’t you want to keep even just a sliver of that fan base hanging on if it meant keeping your favourites on your television?

Days is in dire straits right now.  As we all know, ratings are abysmal, and even with new writers and executive producers coming in, it’s hard to get back viewers when you’ve caused such devastation to something that means so much to them.  Soaps are already dropping like flies and Ken Corday is already begging for viewers to stick it out through a long, not-so-hot summer’s worth of craptacular soap fare (which still boggles the mind).  Losing Crystal Chappell and Nadia Bjorlin (don’t get me started about Louise Sorel getting shafted) at this crucial point in time is a very risky gamble, even if it’s for freeing up dough to bring back John and Marlena.

 

John and Marlena are…well…freakin’ John and Marlena, but newer viewers won’t know (or care) who these people are.  With spumours already circulating that Carrie and Austin might ride in on the same wagon, that’s already two couples whose fooled-around-and-fell-in-love stories have already been told sucking up airtime (and, in my humble opinion, the latter is just about the most boring pairing in the history of the show) after KC announced that Days would focus on fifteen characters (cutting down from approximately thirty).

Ken Corday doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the term “happy medium”.  It looks like he’s about to go from one end of the spectrum to the other via comet.  First Ken Corday tried to gain new viewers by bringing fresh (or unfamiliar) faces to our screen while shipping out old favourites, and now it seems he’s going to do the exact opposite - bringing back some older viewers with older characters, thus alienating most newer viewers (when he said that it was wrong that we saw so little of Roman on the show over the past season, I’m sure you could hear my jaw dropping from just about anywhere across North America and parts of Europe).  A newer viewer wants to be able to enjoy watching some love stories unfolding without having to do too much time-travelling.  Hell, I want to be able to watch a few love stories unfolding without having to take a refresher course via Youtube. 

If Ken Corday and the new writing team can find a way to balance all this out, I’ll be a happy camper.  I can have my Jack and Jennifer and my Chad and Will (It’ll happen.  It simply MUST).

More ranting and raving to come.  Wear a helmet.