I’ll admit it. When I first heard that James Reilly planned a long serial killer story that would involve the death of several major and longtime cast members, I was intrigued. Sure, I was intrigued in the same way I would be if someone asked if I wanted to see what the inside of my digestive track looked like, but intrigued nonetheless. Mainly I was curious to see how badly he would screw it up. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to be this bad. Marlena’s reign of terror on Days has been dull, insipid, tasteless, lacking in any sense of credibility or emotional truth, predictable, badly acted, atrociously written and parts have been filmed with all the panache of 6-year-old shooting a horror movie with Legos. But aside from killing 8 beloved characters (for the sake of this argument let’s just pretent Cassie was beloved) Reilly has delivered a nasty blow not only to 38-year-old Days of Our Lives, but to the soap opera medium itself. I’m not ready to sound the death knell for daytime soaps, but they are certainly in poor condition. And Reilly was driving the Mack truck that hit them.
Over the years, Reilly has told some whoppers: The unending and ridiculous story of Carly buried alive by the psychotic Vivian Alamain and the possession by Satan of Dr. Marlena Evans (which ended with hero John Black suddenly discovering he used to be a priest and thus was the perfect man to exorcise her) were the first big splashes he had at Days. Later he created his own soap Passions and proceeded to have his heroine, Sheridan Crane, chased through the Paris tunnel where her “best friend” Princess Diana had been killed a year or so before. Passions also included a witch, Tabitha and her living doll, Timmy, and the constant presence of the “forces in the basement”. All anyone really needs to know about Passions is that Tabitha is the most realistic and multi-dimensional character on the show.
So the guy writes ridiculous stories. There’s nothing really wrong with that, per se. I can say a lot of nice things about the “Clone Reva” story on Guiding Light or Viki’s trip to Heaven on One Life to Live. The thing about those two stories that make them different from Reilly’s is that at the end of the day they were about character. They were about people in outlandish situations still behaving and feeling like real human beings. Reilly’s are simply about outlandish situations. His characters do not grow or change and his main love stories rarely move past a never-ending push-pull courtship and silly contrived devices to keep lovers apart. Sheridan loves Luis but is married to her brother, who will DIE if he finds out the truth. Not figuratively die. The truth will literaly KILL him because of some rare kind of flu, or something, which renders him susceptible to romantic shock. Or something. There’s a lot of “or something” when discussing Reilly’s plots.
His most recent Days story has been without question his worst. All of his faults have been laid bare. By systematically killing off eight core cast members (most of whom had been on the show more than 20 years, including the one remaining original cast member – more on that later) he has certainly created a buzz and ratings have spiked. But what happens when the story is over? He seems to be remaking the show and moving the new generation front and center. But that new generatin is full of callow, unintersting or down-right stupid characters like Belle and Shawn-Douglas who seem to be incapable of doing anything beside whining about virginity or yelling. Even the most shocking twist, that town heroine Dr. Marlena Evans was the psycho killer, failed to do anything really interesting. For one thing, she’s already been possessed by Satan, but for another, she’s been Reilly’s go-to gal for shocking twists for years. No seasoned Days viewer really expected the killer to be anyone but Marlena or Stefano DiMera, the most over-used villain in soap history. His answer to the press is that the story will continue on for years and that it will feature something never before done on daytime. I’m not sure what he meant by that, either the murder of an original cast member or something to do with Marlena’s eventual motive, but the main story has been done before, and a hell of a lot better.
When ABC cancelled Loving in 1995, the plan was to move several cast members to New York City and create a new soap surrounding them called The City. In order to create interest in the waning days of the serial, a host of major or original characters were systematically killed off by a murderer who turned out to be the show’s female lead, Gwynneth Alden. But in contrast to Days, the mystery was tense, the deaths were as respectful as they could be and the ultimate reveal was surprising and dramatically satisfying (consumed by years of loss and heartache, Gwynneth snapped and began killing family and friends in an effort to stop their pain.) Sure, it was a ratings stunt and it was a little bit callous not to let the characters we had watched for 12 years leave our television screens happy. But each death was treated with respect, replete with traditonal funerals and clips packages. And the cops on the trail of the killer were smart and followed logical clues. (Reilly’s cops are the worst on daytime. And when a cop is worse than the Port Charles PD, you really have a problem.)
In comparison, Days’ story has featured brutal murders - compare Loving’s Stacey, dying peacefully in her sleep after using poisoned make-up to Cassie being bludgeoned and stuffed into a pinata - and the deaths have been treated as shallowly as possible. Only in Salem would you have a triple funeral for deaths that ocurred weeks apart (at least in real time, Salem time is a whole other matter). Tony DiMera was mauled by a tiger (his resemblance to Roy Horn added a whole new level of tastelessness to the proceedings). Roman was found covered and blood underneath his own wedding cake. The actors have received absolutely no respect for their years of work on the show. Which brings me to Frances Reid.
From the beginning I suspected this is where it was going. The last victim was beloved town matriarch Alice Horton, played for 38 years by Frances Reid. I never expected Reilly to be as disrespectful as to have her choke to death on a donut which was shoved into her mouth by Marlena, but I can’t realy act surprised. What was even more horrifying was what happened in the press with Executive Producer cracking jokes about how Reid had outlived her agents. As incensed as I was at Anna Lee’s firing on GH late last year, they had the good sense to rescind it and allow her to retire. If ABC had sense (which they don’t) they would hire Reid in Lee’s stead. It would make for a great story and fire a salvo back after Days picked up John Ingle earlier this year. (It was probably a good financial move for Ingle, but the character of Mickey Horton is nowhere near as interesting as Edward Quartermaine even with the jackasses currently writing GH). Reid deserved better. An actress of her age and her years on the show should have been allowed to work as much or as little as she liked. The last original cast member should not be killed by a serial killer. Ever. It’s the lowest point in Reilly’s career, which is already so low it’s approaching the Earth’s core.
There is really only one conclusion I can come to that would cause Reilly to write this story: he hates soap operas. He is incapable of writing the kind of stories that have made the genre so popular for years. His love stories are simply hooks on which to hang his outlandish, “look at me” antics. To disrespect Frances Reid is to disrespect Days of Our Lives and the medium in which it has existed for 38 years. He may believe that this murder story will lure in viewers, but I doubt they will stay long. Once the history is lost, all Days will be is Passions without the witch. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Marlena’s motive turns out to be forces in her basement.
His shows are not soap operas. They are not realistic daily looks at romance and family through a series of interconnected characters. They are excercises in shock and farce. He wants us to laugh at his shows, not with them. Well that’s very ironic and hip, but not a key to long term success. There are only so many times we can watch bad special effects or listen to dialogue Phillip Glass would deem “maddenly repetitive”.
Reilly simply doesn’t get it. He is so caught up in his own outrageousness that he can’t see what he’s doing to the medium. He’s cheapening it, turning it into parody. Modern soaps with their serialized form and mostly everyday, middle class characters are part of a long dramatic traditon that descends from Dickens and Shakespeare and beyond.
Soaps are about carthasis. We want to be drawn in to characters’ lives. We want to experience character’s joy and pain with them as a way to deal with our own. Soap viewers are not detached, they do not laugh when a beloved grandmother is murdered with donuts, they do not find it delightful that a town’s heroine suddenly went psychotic. Good, capital D, Drama, which soaps are a fundamental part of, is about the why and the who. It’s not about shock tactics and ironic humor. It’s not about how daring the writer is, it’s how compelling the characters are.
Reilly really seems to think it should all be about him. But it can’t be. It has to be about the heart. And I’m not sure he has one of those.
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