Artificial Idiocy

I know that the common thinking out there is that it’s Sheri Anderson who’s been leading the writing team since strike material began airing (and of course, deposed Executive Producer Albert Alarr was driving much of the storytelling before his exit)… but I’m starting to think we have our first television show written by ChatGPT on our hands. How else do you explain the utter randomness of stuff like Kristen and Alex hooking up?!

Sure, it sounds like a soap opera — but it’s really just two characters being thrown together with motivations that barely make sense from scene to scene. Kristen is doing all this because she wants Brady back? Then maybe just stop acting like such a beast (shoutout to the original Kristen, Eileen Davidson!). I’m sure him finding out that you’re banging his halfwit relative will lure him in much better than being nice to him and spending time together with your child would. And nothing against casual sex — plenty of people have casual sex and enjoy it, and it’s great! — but a zillion random hook-ups that go nowhere doesn’t make for great dramatic storytelling. Alex has been onscreen for, what, two years? I think this is the seventh woman he’s slept with. Think about when someone like Justin or Lucas was introduced. Or, hell, Brady himself. None of these guys racked up that many lovers that quickly. They’re just hurling him through women and situations. Remember when Stephanie was his One True Love?

The only thing stupider than this hook-up was the idea that Kristen Blake DiMera would be asked to chaperone an elementary school field trip. Yeah, whatever, she was pardoned, but she still threatened an entire wedding’s worth of people with a gun and took a young woman hostage a few years ago. And held Nicole hostage and stole her identity. And shoved HaleyChen to her death. So that’s dumb. Now that I think about it, so is Maggie thinking for even a moment that marrying Konstantin would be a good idea, and so is whatever the hell they’re doing with Everett, whose story almost sounds like a good soap until you try to string together some logic, and then you realize none of it fits. See? ChatGPT.

Another Brief Return Announced

This one is also connected to the tribute to Doug Williams and Bill Hayes set to air next fall. Go behind the cut to see who we’re talking about…

Daytime Emmy Nominations Announced

The nominations for the 51st annual Daytime Emmy Awards, which will air the evening of June 7th on CBS and Paramount+, were announced this week. Days scored noms in the big categories — Outstanding Daytime Drama Series, Directing, Writing — as well as some technical nominations. (And boy, was this less stressful to track than the years when Beyond Salem was also a thing.)

The acting nominations for Days of Our Lives are as follows:

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Daytime Drama Series — Actor: Eric Martsolf (Brady Black)

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Daytime Drama Series — Actress: Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali)

Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Daytime Drama Series — Actor: Wally Kurth (Justin Kiriakis)

Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Daytime Drama Series — Actress: Linsey Godfrey (Sarah Horton) and Emily O’Brien (Gwen Rizczech)

Outstanding Guest Performance in a Drama Series: Dick Van Dyke (Timothy Robicheaux)

I mean, sure! Why not! Throw a bunch of names into a hat and see what happens! Eric Martsolf has absolutely graduated to a lead after all these years, so that’s fine, and Wally Kurth is a staple of both Days and General Hospital, so I can’t be mad at him. Tamara Braun — who previously won a Daytime Emmy in the Supporting Actress category for her portrayal of Ava in 2009 and for one of her General Hospital roles in 2020 — is nominated as lead, and I… I just… Ava should not be a leading character on Days of Our Lives. I’m sorry. I like Tamara Braun. This character has not been developed in the manner of a long-term, rootable, interesting lead. She’s just a random lady saying “mob” and “fettuccine” and “Tripp” without any writing to back it up. I fear this will only encourage the bizarre and unfounded belief that Ava belongs in Salem in this sort of role. As for the two Supporting Actress nominees… whatever. Sarah annoys me less than she used to, but maybe that’s because so many other things are annoying me right now, and they spent 3+ years flinging Gwen at the wall before admitting defeat and putting a bad wig on the actress so she could play another part, so that kinda says all that it needs to say. On the plus side, 98-year-old Dick Van Dyke has become the oldest Daytime Emmy nominee for his stint last fall, and that’s pretty cool!

The full list of soap-related nominees can be found here.

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

I’m sorry. You’re gonna have Aunt Lisa from Sister, Sister steal a snowplow and drive it across a bridge to an island dressed like this and not show it happening?!

Come on! If you’re gonna be stupid, be stupid! I’ve known this was coming for a while, and I thought we had a camp classic in the making here. Instead it was just… lame, even with a completely improbable snowstorm in April. (Where is Smith Island? The Yukon???) And don’t think I’m going to give them credit for this being some commentary on climate change. It was simply idiotic. Though I am surprised that rickety old cabin is still standing, considering we had scenery chewers extraordinaire Paulina and Julie up in there…

…although I have no idea why Julie was a part of this. I guess because something might come of her being exposed to Paulina’s radioactivity? (Even Marlena telling John, all deadpan, “She’s radioactive” wasn’t as funny as it could’ve been!) But it made no sense how she was all flustered being at the Kiriakis mansion with kids running all around… the same two kids she and Doug have been babysitting for years on end and recently lived with! I’m also a little concerned that she went looking for rum that Tom Horton “always kept on hand.” The man died 30 years ago! Either that shit got drank by now or it needs to be poured out ASAP.

Chanel and Johnny are like, “…how exactly did we wind up here?”

Other thoughts from recent episodes: I think I now have PTSD from Wendy and Tripp’s kidnapping ordeal, or at least the constant references and flashbacks to it… I don’t want them to hook up or anything, but I always enjoy Nicole and Chad together lately… and I can’t figure out why Maggie would agree to marry Konstantin (even just as “an arrangement”) or why they bothered casting and featuring a maid we’ve never seen before.

Casting News Round-up

There’s lots going on behind-the-scenes, which is nice because whatever’s happening onscreen is the televised equivalent of taking an entire bottle of NyQuil. Today we have some casting additions — both new and familiar — to discuss. Info behind the cut…

Bless This Mess

Huh? What’s that?!

I caught up on two weeks of Days in a matter of 72 hours and I am still functioning and healthy? How is this possible?? But boy, do you notice how inconsistent the show is when you go from a reasonably entertaining episode featuring the folks pictured above to the absolute slogs of Ava/Harris/Tripp/Wendy days. I really did appreciate how many people we got in a single place for the christening, and Holly’s confession plus its fallout was all very solid. Sure, there are some gigantic holes in this thing. Why was EJ so intent on pinning this on Tate when he knew who was actually running the drugs (and he hates both Stefan and Clyde)? Why are Tate and Holly suddenly some Romeo & Juliet-type couple when they were barely beginning to date at the time of her overdose? Why did Eric ever think his wife would want to have their child’s christening in the home of his ex-wife who recently kidnapped said baby?? But, putting aside some of those contrivances, there’s been some good stuff here, even if I find myself praying that we never have to endure another scene of Leo fawning over that baby again. I particularly liked how messy and complicated things got between Nicole and Holly, when Nicole tried to lay down the law and Holly lashed out at her. There was some great, timely stuff about teens and their phones (take it from someone who teaches 10th graders!), and Holly’s attitude toward her mother is the stuff great soap characters are made of.

I’m also glad that Jamie Martin Mann got to play out the end of that particular story thread before Leo Howard stepped in as Tate. And — look. Very cute guy. Seemingly a decent actor. Good chemistry with Eric Martsolf. But it feels like Tate got SORASed to 21 overnight, or like he might be running out to get a beer with Johnny. It feels like the casting switch is going to force a shift in Tate as a character, but we’ll see how this works out.

Nice to see that the Horton house got cleaned up so easily!

And by cleaned up, I mean “went back to looking exactly the same, down to the style of molding and the color of the walls.” I don’t think a little decor update is the worst thing, though, and at least that damn couch is gone. I cannot for the life of me figure out why Stephanie is so tied-in with this, though. She, uh, dated Jeremy and Nathan a decade-and-a-half ago? I continue to think they’re going to find some way to tie Everett/Bobby to the Hortons, given Julie’s entanglement with him. And I don’t know if I missed something, but even with the mystery of his two identities, this doesn’t make any sense, does it? He’s claiming he forgot about Stephanie after his accident, but he would’ve been cheating on Jada with her before that accident. And was this guy living a dual life as Everett Lynch and Bobby Stein, both of whom were journalists in Seattle? You’d think someone in that line of work might’ve noticed. I don’t really expect anything on this show to align with the real world, but this is a bit of logic that doesn’t even align with what’s currently playing out.

I would happily forget that Ava and Harris even existed, but I’ve gotta ask: where is this bed they were in?

Is this supposed to be Ava’s room in the apartment that she shares with Tripp and Wendy? They mentioned going “through the living room” to get their food delivery, but– you know what? I don’t care and I’m going to stop thinking about them entirely.

One other thing that had me tearing out what little is left of my hair this week: why was Paulina — a woman who hardly a year ago was chatting with her “dead” pal Kate through a damn urn — asking Marlena — a woman who has been both possessed by Satan and gone to Heaven — if she believes in ghosts? If you two are still doubting the existence of the supernatural after all the nonsense you’ve been through, then I really don’t know how to help you.

Another Return from the Distant Past

Weirdly, there was some chatter about this one in the comments of this very blog quite recently. Talk about a blast from the past. Head behind the cut to see who we’re talking about…

Long-Ago Actor Hints at Return

This is a fun one! It’s not exactly confirmed yet, but I’d heard this rumored earlier, and the actor is the one offering up the info, soooooo…

Recast of Current Character Confirmed

This one’s been floating around in the virtual ether for a while, and finally we have confirmation of a new actor stepping into the shoes of a character currently on-air. Go behind the cut to see who’s in and who’s out…

(P.S. before you check out the news, I’m posting this here for all to see: I haven’t watched any of this week’s episodes because I have my big credentialing project for my teaching program due this week. I’ll be back with episode recaps and ridicule soon!)

Did You Do It?

I have been crazy busy, and you know what did not seem like a top priority this week? Days of People Walking Around Doing Nothing.

I’m sorry, but John is so stressed about possibly having committed a murder that no one actually witnessed that he plans to turn himself in to foreign authorities? No one is coming after you! I guess Konstantin is being nasty about it, but like… even Steve doesn’t know for sure that you did this. You don’t remember it. And based upon this photo, it looks like Konstantin’s daughter was alive as recently as 2008 or so.

There was potential here, but it’s all so surface-level and dumb. They’re hitting on something interesting about John, who has found out so many troubling things about his past and is so determined not to cause pain to others… but it comes off so deeply stupid. Why hasn’t Steve mentioned this in the last 40 years? How many times are we going to have to hear Konstantin wail about “Mahhhhhh-gie”?

They’ve also been doing this thing where there are very similar situations going on in unrelated stories, but instead of threading them together in an interesting, thematic way, they just… happen at the same time, which makes it feel like the scab writers only had about four ideas. (I think they only had four ideas.)

This entire Harris/Ava/Stefan thing is unbearable, primarily because I don’t care about any of these people or what happens to them. They touched on a couple of intriguing notes between Stefan and Chad, when they talked about what Stefan did to Abby, but these relationships ring so false, and they don’t bother digging into why Stefan has any interest in being part of this family or why they give him the time of day, so it’s like… what’s the point?

I also have no idea why Sloan is okay with having this christening celebration at the home of Eric’s ex-wife who kidnapped her baby, but maybe she’s been told that there are only eight places she can host it and one of them serves clam chowder and two of them are Marlena/John and Steve/Kayla’s living rooms…