A Critic’s Review of Days of our Lives: YOU Can’t Have It Both Ways

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

At the beginning of the week on Days of our Lives, prior to the publication of future plot spoilers, this column was going to be dedicated to a complaint concerning Johnny DiMera’s (Carson Boatman) intention to bring The Sami Brady Story to film – because it’s a proven fact that Douglas Sirk-esque melodramas haven’t been popular with the movie-going public for quite a few decades.

No, instead, we were going to suggest that what Johnny should be committing to celluloid was the struggle his grandmother faced when Satan took possession of her soul – because even forty-three years after The Exorcist’s debut, possession movies are big business.

And then came Friday’s show, and we got to see Johnny take great delight in reading all about the dance Marlena Evans Black (Deidre Hall) shared with The Devil. Oh, and Days of our Lives also let us in on the fact that Old Scratch is back in Salem…and he’s hitched a ride inside loveable Doug Williams (Bill Hayes).

So, we’re course correcting, and instead focusing on a topic that has left us bemused: the ire of soap fans.

Spend a day perusing the comments section, and you’ll soon discover that soap fans are a contradictory bunch. The majority gripe when their favorite actor/character is sidelined, and then, when they are put on the front burner, the majority complain because the story isn’t to their taste. It’s sorta a case of damned if the writers do, damned if they don’t.

Case in point: DAYS Doug’s possession. Fans have longed cried out for Doug – and Bill Hayes – to be given something of substance to play, that doesn’t involve him reacting to wife Julie’s (Susan Seaforth Hayes) myriad of faux pas, or healing her various medical maladies with heaping doses of TLC; and now that the 96-year-old has been given something he can really sink his teeth into, to the keyboards fans fly, and complaints they do register.

You can’t have it both ways. You can not have your cake and eat it too. Life does not work that way. What SHOULD be happening is fans rallying around this beloved performer, and saying thank goodness he’s been given a story – any story. And you should also be thanking your lucky stars that DAYS did not pursue the avenue we were frightfully afraid they would.

In the past few years, devotees of The Young and the Restless and General Hospital have had to say goodbye to two beloved, veteran characters who succumbed to Alzheimer’s. In both cases, the performances wrung from the various players were revelations, but the end result was the same: loss.

Be grateful that not only is DAYS (re)investing in the character of Doug, but they have no plans to force us to watch him become a shell of his former self before passing away.

Further DAYS Musings

* Now we know where Sonny Kiriakis gets his forgiving heart; not only is Justin Kiriakis (Wally Kurth) committed to seeing Bonnie Lockhart (Judi Evans) cleared of her double murder charge, he’s still planning to make her his wife.

* A Little Research Goes a Long Way: David Lockhart’s corpse was discovered in the basement of a church, not Bonnie’s backyard.

* Best Use of (Actual) History: DAYS’ Ben Weston (Robert Scott Wilson) and Ciara Brady Weston’s (Victoria Konefal) getting the unexpurgated tour of Oak Alley Plantation.

* Biggest Surprise That Shouldn’t Have Been A Surprise: It was all a fantasy; Gwen Rizczech (Emily O’Brien) really didn’t come clean with Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford) about her miscarriage.

* How does Lucas Horton (Bryan Dattilo) possess the necessary readies to invest in Johnny’s film? What does he even do? Is he even employed somewhere?

* We’ve asked this question before, and we’ll ask it again: Why does Gabi Hernandez DiMera (Camila Banus) assume that Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston) will hand the reigns of Titan over to her if/when Philip Kiriakis (Jay Kenneth Johnson) is ousted?

* Does anyone, even for a second, believe that EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel) should have emerged the victor from his bout with Xander Cook Kiriakis (Paul Telfer)

* Why is no one, especially her children, questioning Sami Brady DiMera’s (Alison Sweeney) whereabouts? As if Will (Chandler Massey) would really swallow her upping sticks, and going incognito.

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.