Inconsistent writing on Days of Our Lives

            I have been an avid viewer of Days of Our Lives for probably about 30 years, having started watching it when my mom turned it on at noon, though she “didn’t watch it”.  Yeah, right, Mom.  And your mother didn’t watch it, either.

            There have been some complaints in the past about inconsistent writing, and I have noticed just recently of some examples of this.  I do not know who writes each scene, but there has been some good stuff and bad stuff recently.

            Take the scene where Bo and Billie are on the Basic Black jet, going to Europe to look for their assumed –stillborn daughter, Georgia.  Bo hadn’t planned on going with Billie, and Billie herself had told Bo that she would postpone the trip.  Well, Billie being Billie, she went anyway, and Bo found out from a phone call he made to her.  He high-tailed it to the airport and got on the plane to talk Billie out of going.  Didn’t take them long to start arguing about Bo not going.  Bo ended up going.  In that entire trip scene, instead of Bo and Billie making the best of it and making a plan to find Georgia, they argued about how mad Hope would be when she found out Bo left.  They argued for the entire trip to Europe.  The trip lasted three episodes, and not once did anything they said move the story along.  In fact, there were so many flashbacks to what had happened before, I started fast-forwarding through those scenes, because it was more of the same thing, and when they returned to the present, I skipped that, too, because it was just more arguing the same point.

 I know they are trying to drag the story out to February sweeps, but to rehash the same argument for three days, the writers could have had them making better use of their time by making some kind of plan.  The plan didn’t have to work out like they planned, because as we know, in soap operas, nothing works out how it is planned.  We got that Bo was upset with Billie, and Hope would be upset with Bo for going.  We didn’t need to be beaten over the head with it for three days.

While there have been some poorly written scenes, there have also been some really well written scenes.  John Black has been in excruciating pain since returning from the DiMera Island.  He had been given pain medication via IV.  Someone had been putting some kind of medication into his IV to enhance the pain, to where Lexie, his doctor, decided that he was having a bad reaction to the pain meds, and stopped giving them to him altogether.  John then found out that his daughter, Belle, would be getting married in the next week or so.  He promised Belle he would walk her down the aisle, but being in the pain he was, there was no way he could do it.  Long story short, he got a hold of some pain meds and was using the meds like an addict would.

At Belle and Philip’s reception, Nicole notices John out in the hallway of the apartment, and sees him shoot up with the meds.  She plays dumb, but tells Brady what she saw.  No way, Brady says, and Kate, having heard Nicole’s accusation, tells Nicole what she thinks about it.  A little later, Brady is standing behind his father, and sees the syringe.  Nicole says that they need to do an intervention with him before it gets out of hand.  Brady and Kate agree, and get John home.

The scenes that followed were some of the best written scenes I have watched in a long time on Days.  It was a true intervention, as I have had to go through one of those with a family member, and this scene was perfectly written.  John’s reaction, Nicole telling them what to expect, and having everything happen as it would in a real intervention.  The way John lashed out at Kate and Brady, saying very hurtful things to them, was dead-on accurate.  Nicole’s responses were perfect.  She knew what she would hear, and she stood there and took it, knowing that it wasn’t John saying those things.  John doesn’t like Nicole, but what he said to her was beyond what upstanding John Black would have said to anyone.  As this story continues to play out, I expect it to be just as well written as these scenes have been.  I just can’t say enough about these scenes; “well done” doesn’t seem to cut it!

      Another example of a scene being well written is the scene of Jack daydreaming about surprising Jennifer when he came home.  Jack knocked on the door of his house, and Jennifer answered.  At first she wanted to believe it was Jack, but in true Jennifer form, she hesitated, knowing that he had come back to her before, albeit in a dream-like sequence, when he was supposedly killed by the Salem Stalker, aka Marlena.  She loves Jack so much, she didn’t want to believe it was him, and Jack, who was daydreaming about this, knew how Jennifer would react.  It was a perfect Jennifer reaction, and the writers wrote the scene beautifully. 

The not-so-ugly goes to Mimi, played by Farah Fath.  She is a delight to watch. She is funny, determined, and can get in your face, while maintaining her poise and beauty.  Her face can register sadness, pain, happiness, and anger, and she really makes you feel it.  Her scenes with Shawn and Jan are great, and I look forward to seeing her in many more scenes, especially as the abortion story plays out.  I know she will nail her scenes with Rex, and make us feel every bit of the pain or joy Mimi is feeling.  I hope she will be on this show for many more years.  She is Mimi.

The writing on Days Of Our Lives has had its ups and downs over the years, and as writers come and go, I’m sure there will be some of the same, but it will always be interesting there in Salem, USA.