A Critic’s Review of Days of our Lives: Good Soap, Bad Soap, All In One

When it comes to Days of our Lives, every fan has their own opinion – and Soap Hub is no different. For five days we sat and watched the good, the bad, and everything in between, and now we offer you a handy review, and a cheeky critique, of the Days of our Lives week that was.

Days of our Lives: A Critic’s Week In Review

Imagine sitting someone who has never seen a soap opera before down and having them watch Thursday’s Days of our Lives episode – an episode in which Xander Cook (Paul Telfer) and Chanel Dupree DiMera (Raven Bowens) bemoaned the fact that he’d been dumped by a woman wearing a mask that made her look like his fiancée whom that bad woman had shipped off to a desert island and that she’d been dumped by a set of twins (one male and one female) after they’d been possessed by the devil.

Do you think that you’d convert a novice into a fan with that? I certainly don’t think so. It’s story points like those that give serials a bad name.

Luckily, that very same show included far more relatable scenes like Nicole Walker (Arianne Zucker) and Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering) plucking up the courage to tell Nicole’s precocious daughter that they were engaged, only to have their thunder stolen when Holly Jonas (Elin Alexander) blithely explained she’d already clocked mommy’s shiny new ring.

And then there was the subplot concerning Paulina Price (Jackée Harry) and her determination to take the fall for an arguable justified homicide committed by the daughter she’d given away in the hopes that she’d have a better life.

Now that’s some good, soapy drama, and but a taste of what of Days of our Lives can do when they aren’t resorting to flights of fancy or outright supernatural horror.

Let’s have more of that. And more of that delicious Gabi/Jake/Ava/Li quadrangle. Personally, I could take or leave the farce that is Belle/Shawn/Jan/EJ, but that’s probably because I can’t stand how dense they’re writing the character of Shawn Brady (Brandon Beemer – obviously Ciara Brady Weston (Victoria Konefal) got all of Bo and Hope’s smarts – and how loose they’re making Belle Black Brady (Martha Madison). I’d really hoped the years had matured that one, but it seems I was wrong. Apparently once a cheater, always a cheater.

Further DAYS Musings

* Someone FINALLY Said It:

Jake: I’m just as much a DiMera as [EJ and Chad]. Neither of you were raised in the family.

Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Salem, check out all the latest that’s been posted on DAYS spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.