Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Madison James: Independent of Independence


"You're siding with Madison! She's new in town, and Brady
definitely needs a fresh start. A smart, sharp woman, Madison
can keep up with Brady in business AND romance."


It’s no secret that it took forever for me to be won over by the reset after my initial excitement over the promo.  Things started disappointing me right and left.  Boom.  John and Marlena playing I-Love-You-No-I-Love-You-More.  Boom.  Austin moving into the Smugnest with Rafe, Sami, and her fifty kids.  Boom.  Nicole and EJ yet again. Boom.  A tedious triangle with Daniel, Jennifer, and Jack.  Boom.  Pacing slower than me on ether after a milkshake and an episode of Mad Men.
One pretty bloody big boom was Madison.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Ejami: Sex, Death, Sound, Light, and Colour

Okay. 

Did I win a contest?

I'm not talking about the poll I won in regards to whether or not Sami and Rafe would make it a year out from under Cordiglay's thumb.  I mean some sort of contest I may have forgotten I'd entered that won me the best two back-to-back episodes of Days I've seen in the longest time.
 
 
James Scott and Alison Sweeney were magnificent.  I'm not sure how much choreography went into those fight scenes, but the whole thing had me awestruck.  They were circling and striking out at each other like a couple of cobras, hoods flared, spitting venom.  I loved every second of it.  From the moment EJ crashed to the ground, Sami flying to his side so they could comfort each other, to the last lingering look that passed between them before Sami rushed home to see Johnny, I found that the whole thing progressed naturally, and it was VERY EJ and Sami. 


Sami and EJ in the moment.


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Saturday Night Fever: November Promo Unleashed



Um...WHAT?!


Because I chew spoilers up and spit them out, I knew about Jack and Jennifer’s kiss. It was already spoiled that Fancy Face and Beauregard were going to find a “gift” from Stefano to Mrs. H amongst her belongings. Hell, if you were looking for it (I was), you’d even have already known about the attempt on John’s life.


But – What the fuck?! – Where the hell did that kiss between EJ and Sami come from?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Emperor's New Clothes


 "Am I making you uncomfortable in my current state of undress?"


I’ve seen the emperors naked, and it ain’t pretty.

I kept wondering if there was something wrong with me. Have I become so jaded over the past couple of years that nothing Days can do will ever make me happy?  Is good stuff happening right in front of me, but I’m missing it because I can’t see for all the black clouds circling my head?

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Horton Squared: September 27th PBP

So I watched the big reset on Friday and I was somewhat...underwhelmed.

I know, I know.  It was all about bowing and scraping to history, celebrating new Days to come, et cetera, but...well...I found it all kind of tedious.  I'm sure that's partly because I already know what's going to happen.  I'm not watching it from the point of view of someone who has no damn clue that Jack isn't going to fall into a cake until Wednesday, or that Hope's big surprise was John and Marlena.  Maybe if I'd been "unspoiled", I would have enjoyed it more.


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

I Like My Coffee Black and My Days Grey






I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, things are never black and white.  Things are very much shades of grey.

-Brian Molko
 

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bad Milk, Brady, Art Films, Nicole, and The Elephant Man



My excitement after watching the September promo has ebbed.  That didn’t take long, did it?

Okay, here’s the thing…
I understand things can’t change overnight.  I understand it will take some time to steam all the imitation velour wallpaper off the walls, prime and paint the room, and sell the old, outdated furniture to some frat boys via Craigslist.  I get that.  But there were a few things I expected would change.  I’ll touch on just one of them today.  The most immediate one.
EJ and Nicole.
Really, guys?  Again?


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

EJAMI vs. BRICOLE: A Tale of Two Couples







Tell me Bricole versus Ejami wouldn’t be awesome.  Actually, don’t bother.  I won’t be able to hear you because the sheer volume of amazing storyline potential is blowing my mind.
Why is Days wasting all the chemistry here?  I’m not just talking about sacrificing EJ’s chemistry with Sami for the tepid, coma-inducing Sami/Rafe pairing, or wasting Nicole’s chemistry with Brady on EJ and Nicole’s third spin on the not-so-merry-go-round.  I’m talking about Sami and Nicole, and Brady and EJ. 



Friday, July 22, 2011

Love in the Afternoon






I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I’ve been somewhat...oh, how shall I put it… disenchanted with Days lately.  Fans of the show (myself included) wondered aloud why the powers that be didn’t just make the decision to pull the rest of the summer (ie. Dena Higley’s writing/refuse) and show classic Days episodes.  Then some very, very clever women suggested that since I can’t stomach the show long enough to do episode commentaries right now, I should just take advantage of YouTube and show some classic Days myself.
Since we’re told we’re going back to the days of “love in the afternoon”, I decided there was something I needed to come clean about.
I hate soap sex.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Define "Reset"





So who’s excited?
I have to admit, I’m kind of swinging back and forth between being really excited and being somewhat skeptical.  Now granted, there are new writers and a new executive producer to take the place of the unholy trinity that was Dena Higley, Chris Whitesell and Gary Tomlin, and I take into account the fact that it just isn’t possible that the show could get any worse than it is right now.



Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tony DiMera: The Original DiMera Dark Prince


Pardon me while I geek out for a moment.

You may or may not remember all the hype when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was about to come out in theatres.  A lot of the promotional merchandise centred on Darth Maul – the big baddie with the dual-bladed light sabre (which looked positively nerdgasmic).  All the trailers showcased the majestic martial artistry of Scottish stuntman Ray Park, the man behind all that red and black make-up.  We (well…I) couldn’t wait until our heroes came face-to-face with Darth Maul.  It was going to be epic.



Friday, June 24, 2011

Mike Horton: That other male doctor that didn't sleep with all his patients.



With rumours floating around out there that Carrie and Austin might be the next announced old-schoolers set to return to Salem, I started thinking about other characters who might get brought back.  Then I thought, "Nuts to the ratings, endgame pairings, and so-called legacy characters.  Who do I want back?"

So in between rants and raves, I thought I'd also do a couple of short entries to talk about several characters I wouldn't mind seeing back in Salem.



After groaning about what a colossol error I think bringing a couple that never really transitioned well into adulthood back to the show is, I was reminded of how much I miss Roark Critchlow's incarnation of Mike Horton. 


Friday, June 17, 2011

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.





Saturday, May 14, 2011

SUPER-SIZED!


SUPER-SIZED!  Four days worth of Days in one sitting!  I'm doing it so you don't have to! 

 

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Mommy, can we keep him?

You're not going to need to buckle your safety belts for this ride, guys.


Personally I prefer cherry-flavoured

EJ and Taylor talk in circles until I wish I'd taken some Gravol half an hour before going into the episode.  Taylor wants to leave town.  EJ wants to divorce Nicole.  Taylor wants to leave town.  EJ wants to divorce Nicole.  Or something like that.  


Eventually, all I’m thinking about is how Taylor is barely the width of EJ’s forearm and how much it’s creeping me out.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Idiodyssey

It's been a while, hasn't it?  I gave up masochism for Lent which meant going Days-free and, as you can imagine, found that while I was gone I hadn't missed much.  Surprise, surprise.

I'm a little rusty, but without further ado, I present to you...yeah.


Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The DiMeras: Awesome Sauce



Don’t fight it. You know it’s true. Just admit it.

The DiMeras are cooler than the Bradys.

And despite the fact that they’re supposed to be treading the dark side, they’re actually far less dysfunctional.


Friday, March 4, 2011

Days Don't Know Jack



“Ask anyone in this town!  Ask them who I am!  They’ll say I’m Jack Deveraux – Harper’s son!”

"You are not –!"

"Jack Deveraux – Harper’s son!  One wields a pen, the other wields a sword, but deep down it's all the same!”

“You’re wrong!”

“No, I’m not wrong!”

“I don’t believe what anybody says!  I don’t even believe you!  I believe in you.  And I believe what I feel…with my whole heart.”


Before there was EJ DiMera, there was Jack Deveraux – a character that got his real start as a villain but slowly became one of the most beloved Days characters of all time.  Like EJ, whether you loved Jack or you hated Jack, the show just wouldn’t be the same without him, and right now Days really isn’t.  It hadn’t been so glaringly obvious until Jennifer returned to Salem without him.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Romancing The Home: Why has Salem gone from happy homes to homewrecker-happy?


Jack and Jennifer

So a combination of the Oscars’ too short homage to Gone With The Wind and Days wedding disaster after wedding disaster after wedding disaster, got me thinking about another huge reason the show sucks sweat socks right now.  You'd sooner find Vivian burning cookies with Chloe before finding even a lick of romance on this thing.

Fan wars.  Nasty, right?  Much like the Countess Bathory believed she could retain her youth by soaking in a tub of virgin’s blood, Cordiglay seems to feed off the blood shed by the slain soldiers of fan wars.  How else could you explain why the women of Salem bounce around from one man to the other like pinballs?



Thursday, February 24, 2011

Correction: Whose mind is the scene of the crime?



Since the leaked footage of Sami shooting EJ hit the internet like a shit storm, people have been speculating that anything and everything that’s happened since that fateful night in the no-security home of the DiMeras is just someone’s nightmare (I mean someone aside from just myself and about ninety-nine percent of Days’ viewers).  Now that the show has finally hit infinitely ridiculous proportions not seen since the Salem Stalker fiasco with this whole Rafe/Efar disaster, the saccharine suppository Ken Corday decided to administer in the form of the EJ/Taylor love story, and Chloe’s leap off the pier (possibly in an attempt to escape the show), the speculation that this could all be a dream is our dream.



Monday, February 14, 2011

The Case for Chloe



There was a time when I really loved Chloe.  And I still love her, I guess, despite the huge rift between us right now.

Like just about every character currently on this show, I'm chalking up her extremely out of character behaviour to something or someone poisoning Salem's water supply - a twist that will be revealed some time within the next three years, or when Dena Higley is asked to pack up her little laptop with "Hard as Hell" and "I am woman - hear me bore" decals on the lid.

If you're reading this, O Powers That Be, take note.  This can all be fixed with someone waking up and proclaiming that the past few months were "all just a nightmare" or "someone has been tainting the town's booze supply".  I know it's sort of the same thing that would happen in a story written by a twelve-year-old once the twelve-year-old lost interest in it and just wanted to hand the stupid thing in, but really - is the current situation at Days so different?


Thursday, February 10, 2011

Hello. It ain't me you're looking for.

I've come down with a bit of a cold, which sounds like a bad thing.  But it isn't, because this way I get to go from this:

 


To this:

 


Which I'll need to get through this:


Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Nicole: Never Fucking Ever Land

Nicole has been one of my favourite characters for some time now, and I have to say I'm really unhappy with what's been done to her over the past couple of years.  The EJ/Nicole sex yesterday pushed me over the edge.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.




Nicole was once a force to be reckoned with. I mean what's not to love? Funny, clever, sharp-tongued (and often fork-tongued), tough as nails on the outside but with an ooey-gooey centre, that, unfortunately, has been dipped into a few too many times (particularly over the past few months).  Nicole is my lady-crush.

Nicole, much like EJ, hasn't been allowed to grow up.  She's stuck in Never Fucking Ever Land.  The only suspense left in her story these days is whether or not she's going to escape the endless cycle of meaningless sex, get over her obsession with Sydney, or go two weeks without blackmailing anyone, being called a whore or having her porny past thrown up in her face.


Friday, February 4, 2011

Jane, Rochester, Janet, Brad, Rocky...


Well, hello there.

Another day.  Another Days.  Another daze.

Career Change

Rafe believes that EJ's plan is to leave a note for Sami saying he had to leave town to take care of some urgent police business then try to make some moves on Sami in an effort to win her back.

EJ chuckles.

"Oh, Rafe.  I think it's about time you considered a new career."


Jesus, me too.

While Rafe's plan would have made more sense (by Days standards, of course), one has to wonder if Sami wouldn't have figured out what was really going on in a matter of nano-seconds based on the fact that Rafe's urgent police business has not only never taken him out of town, it's barely taken him out of his apartment.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Dena Higley Through the Looking Glass



Rereading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' is always a treat.  They're both the sort of books where you discover something new, or relate different passages to things happening around you.  And in the past little while I decided I could apply it rather nicely to my Dena Higley ranting.

'That's the effect of living backwards,' the Queen said kindly: 'it always makes one a little giddy at first--'

'Living backwards!' Alice repeated in great astonishment. 'I never heard of such a thing!'

'--but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways.'

'I'm sure MINE only works one way,' Alice remarked. 'I can't remember things before they happen.'

'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked.


Friday, January 28, 2011

What Rhymes With Orange?


"Dr. Walters?!"

Evidently Jen  is less shocked that the love of her life abandoned his wife and children than she is that Ben is involved in this organ-snatching circus.  Still.


Substitute "circus" for "disaster".  "Circus" suggests that any bit of this storyline has been fun to watch.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?

Days Drama Beat

Nicole tells EJ she's noticed all the noise coming from the basement.  After dancing around it for just enough time to take us to a commercial break, she tells EJ that the jig is up.


When Days returns, leaving me thankful that I didn't injure my knees too badly when I landed on them after tumbling off the edge of my seat, Nicole explains to EJ that she knows what's actually happening in the basement.  He's having a rubber room built for Johnny so at least when the poor kid keeps running into the wall because the one eye he has left can't see past that gigantic costume eyepatch he's wearing, he won't bruise any internal organs. 

Okay, not exactly. 

The point is that she thinks it's some sort of playroom for Johnny and we're supposed to believe that EJ was keeping that a secret from her for some reason.  Oh, wait.  I lied.  The real point is that Days just wasted a bunch of my time.

Why So Serious?



So today I was supposed to do two commentaries to catch up.  So why didn't I do them?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

More Marco (and he's pining for Doritos)

This morning a friend of mine sent me a link to an amazing commercial for Doritos.  I was watching it and laughing my ass off when, lo and behold,  I realized that the "hedge-trimmer" is none other than Steve Bruns (Marco).  This is one helluva coinky-dink, if I do say so myself!


Why not visit Steve Bruns on Facebook and tell him what you think?

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

More Marco (Less Rafe)

I'm still thinking about starting a 'More Marco' campaign, and I thought a good place to start would be to make a banner featuring Steve Bruns, aka. The man behind the Marco.  And, of course, there's a  second banner without the "less rafe" bit, although why you'd be happy with the current Rafe to Marco ratio is beyond me.  I won't judge, though.  Pfft.  Who am I kidding?  Yes, I will.

Got Marco?




Spread the love, people.

Monday, January 24, 2011

So Boring. No, really.

I gotta tell ya, my heart just wasn't in it today.  This episode was pretty wretched, and judging by the underwhelming promo for February up on the NBC site, we're in for a rough couple of months.

I'm sort of hoping that if EJ is going dark, he goes just dark enough to wrap another belt around his knuckles and give Rafe a sweet, sweet buckle-beating a la 2006 EJ.



 

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Happy Days Are Here Again.

Friday's episode was actually so dull that at one point I found myself using my fingernails to clean all the nooks and crannies in my television remote.


Vivian is going to tear Gus' head off...


 ...the same way she got all those bottles open, if he doesn't give her the last couple of ounces of wine.

Friday, January 21, 2011

You win. We lose.

 
Chloe is back, Baby

With fire in her veins, Chloe shows up at Stephanie's place to drop Gammy B. like a stone in a well.  A big, old, heavy, self-righteous, sanctimonious...


I forgot what I was going to say.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Days has lost its mother-buggin' head...

Ejasmic!

Read any February Sweeps stuff yet?  Don't.  Huge drag.

I finally figured out how to make it so that you can leave a comment without having to sign or log into anything.  Phew!  It only took me - what - two months to figure out how to uncheck a box?  Yeah.

Eric knows what Brady doesn't


Brady wants Nicole out of his life for good, insisting that it's time for him to move on.

"What do you mean you have to move on? What? You found someone else already?  Oh my god.  You have, haven't you?"


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

But more than all of this...

Unfortunately a couple of things prevented me from doing a proper commentary for today's episode, however I felt like I needed to make mention of Jay Kenneth Johnson and Shelley Hennig's decision to leave Days.


First of all, no one can really blame them in light of the fact that neither of them has had a decent story since I went from seeing my psychiatrist on a bi-weekly basis to a weekly basis.  For pete's sake, Philip was relegated to being a secondary character in a storyline starring his sperm.  At some point I'm pretty sure Stephanie was being groomed to become the next Nicole Walker, but she very quickly became a one-note mockingbird - a third-tier character in a lacklustre storyline.

FTW

If it wasn't for Vivian and Bo today, this episode would have been a huge drag.


Good Morning, Starshine!

The truth serum begins to make it's way through Bo's system (or at least that's what we're lead to believe).  It's a wild, wild trip.


Peter Reckell really ought to have scenes like this more often.  I'm not saying Bo should go on the sauce or start chopping up mushrooms to put in his Ragu, but Peter can do comedy very well and I wish the writers would let him do it more often.  Intentionally, of course.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

You Don't Send Me Flowers Anymore

So,

No Sami and no Rafe makes this weekend into a long weekend!

Carly doesn't tell Chloe to bugger off


With a forced breeziness, Chloe sidles up to Carly and asks how her hearing went.  Carly's first clue that Chloe is looking to ambush Daniel at work is that she goes cross-eyed whenever she makes a concerted effort to demonstrate any sort of interest in anyone's life other than her own.

I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!

So I had so much work to catch up on last night and this morning that I couldn't get the commentary for yesterday's episode up!  I will try to get the entry up this evening.  Fingers crossed it's worth the wait.



I know, Steffy.  I'm so sorry.  You're the last person I want to disappoint.

James Scott's birthday was yesterday and I felt like I should mention that.  Aaaand now I'm thinking about him eating cake.  And now he's climbing out of one.
 
See you soon!

Friday, January 14, 2011

God, Almighty! Make it stop!

Another day.  Another Days.

I had been anticipating this episode for a while now - the so-called "truce" between Sami and EJ (which looks like it's going to last about...hmm...a day).  I'm still not buying what Cordiglay is selling.  I'm trying my best to see things objectively, but it takes alot of energy to do so, and frankly I could put that energy towards something more constructive, like binding together my collection of haikus about Michael Caine, or sharpening the blade in my pill-splitter.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Humanizing Salem

The theme of today's show is "If at eighth you don't succeed, try, try again". 

I'm not sure what the writers are thinking, particularly after yesterday's episode during which Veruca Salt-Hernandez spit a rather long stream of venom at EJ and Nicole.  Today the writers tried to tip the scale again by having Sami launch into her usual, teary "why does everything bad have to happen to me" schtick.  The problem is that Sami's misery up against EJ's lately weighs about the same amount as how much we care at this point, which is pretty much zero, rendering the scale pretty much untippable in her favour.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Squared.

Strange, strange days/Days, my friend.

Today we are witnesses to more of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - Now with extra Bette as Kayla becomes the next Brady woman unexpectedly thrown under the bus at the hands of Higley.  Sami is positively unbearable today and might be beyond redemption.  I hope against hope that isn't the case, but I can't help but worry that these writers lack the talent to be able to write her out of the volcano they sacrificed her to in the name of what might be the worst Days storyline (and biggest waste of the viewers' time) since the Salem Slasher.

Filler includes Nathan and Melanie having the exact same conversation they had yesterday, but this time they're standing on the pier.  Will reacts to Gabi's flirting like Linus does when he finds out his teacher has a boyfriend in the Peanuts' Valentine's Day special.  Bo tries to listen in on Warden Jane's conversation in the woods with the mystery man behind it all while crouching down in the white snow dressed entirely in black.  Daniel and his chest hair testify at Carly's hearing while his necklace remains in mourning.  Jennifer's make-up is still being applied with a butterknife.  Yawn.

Highlights?  A few.
 

Monday, January 10, 2011

Cheese and Crackers

The Day of Misguided Reckoning continues into today's episode.  It sort of made me think of a couple of scenes in Spinal Tap.  Specifically the scene following the Stonehenge disaster (one of the funniest scenes in the movie, as I'm sure most of you know - and if you don't know, you need to know now).



Instead of blaming Nigel for scribbling 11"x11" instead of 11'x11' on a cocktail napkin, resulting in a less than majestic on-stage representation of the mystical Stonehenge, the band blames Ian, the band manager, explaining to him that "it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel".  This is sort of comparable to what's happening to poor Carly in today's episode.  Because Chloe is the dimmest bulb in the box right now, none of the women of Salem seem to be blaming her for this whole paternity disaster.  It's all on Gnarly Carly.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

January 7 Commentary

So I took a very long break from Days because frankly it's just been a big drag.  I've really come to love Carly, so lately I've become a little wary of all the bullying.  Carly/CC is sort of like EJ/JS in the sense that she's doomed to be little more than an interloper for the couple Ken Corday has decided should be endgame. 

Obviously there are many problems with this, the first of which is that there seems to have been absolutely no point to everything that's happened between Bo/Carly and Sami/EJ over the past few months (see my surprise). The second is that you shouldn't ruin the end of a book if that book is going to continue spitting out volumes for at least another two years.  The third, of course, is that it's a huge waste of talent and chemistry.  Whether or not I'm a Carbo fan is irrelevant here.  The thing that makes a good triangle is that the viewer at times can be just as torn between two corners as the third is.  There's a whisper of that with Carly, Bo and Hope so why not take advantage of that, writers?  Why basically tell us that we're going to be riding across the finish line on Fancy's face two years in advance?