A Critic’s Review Of Days of our Lives: Harlequin Romance & Gothic Fiction

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: The Critic Ponders

Nowadays (HA!), when I watch Days of our Lives, I wonder whether or not I’m laughing with the writers — because they are very much in on the joke — or at them because they really do think that they’re producing a Dickens-level work of art.

Way back when, the 1980s to be precise, the likes of Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman knew exactly what they were doing — expertly mixing harlequin romance and another genre of their choosing (be it gothic fiction, nimble noir, science fiction or spy-games tinged adventure).

But in the here and now, Days of our Lives seems to be a huge mishmash of disparate story points.

I’m hoping against hope that Bo (Peter Reckell) and Hope’s (Kristian Alfonso) imminent return coupled with Megan Hathaway’s (Miranda Wilson) arrival, Marlena’s (Deidre Hall), Kate’s (Lauren Koslow), and Kayla’s (Mary Beth Evans) return to the land of the living, and John (Drake Hogestyn), Roman (Josh Taylor), and Steve’s (Stephen Nichols) determination to see justice served will go a long way to remedy that.

It all seems perfectly poised to bring about an exciting, near canvas-encompassing arc…hopefully with a unifying tone.

I’m also pleased to say, albeit cautiously, that the characters who won’t be directly involved in the aforementioned shenanigans seem equally poised for the most gratifying adventures.

They’ll be delicious ridiculousness dished up at The Spectator office with Gwen (Emily O’Brien), Xander (Paul Telfer), and Leo (Greg Rikaart) running the show, scheme team extraordinaire ‘EJole’ will be two to watch, and the antics of cohabitating Mr. and Mrs. Bickerson (aka Li and Gabi) will no doubt please.

One big ask: can we PLEASE wrap the whole ‘Stefan (Brandon Barash) Needs To Be Completely Deprogramed’ farce? It’s never been as amusing as the DAYS writing team seems to think it is.

Further DAYS Musings

* I….don’t mind Rafe (Galen Gering) and Jada (Elia Cantu) as much as I thought I would.

* Poor Sloan (Jessica Serfaty). Will she ever attract a man who won’t stoop to riffling through her personal papers?

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