Paula's Soapbox

Days of Our Lives is beginning to look a lot like a reality show, with a barrage of actors leaving seemingly every week. Late last year Lindsay Hartley, who played Rafe and Gabi's sister Arianna exited the show. Now fresh on the heels of Mark Hapka's (Nathan) apparent firing comes the announcement on soapoperadigest.com that Shelley Hennig (Stephanie) and Jay Kenneth Johnson (Philip) will soon be exiting the show as well. Apparently both Shelley and Jay have opted not to stay with the show - no word yet as to whether their characters will be recast. Without recasts it seems impossible to explain the exits given their current storylines. Nathan will likely go to Baltimore, but I'm not sure how they are going to explain Philip and Stephanie's absence without recasting. I suppose since Stephanie is now single she could simply leave town in pursuit of a fresh start; but with Philip being the father of Melanie's baby it seems like a recast may be necessary. All of these...

Warning: This post is dripping with sarcasm. Apparently the Bradys have invented a new game, the object of which is to list everything bad that happens in Salem and somehow trace it back to Carly. They are not really saying how they are able to link Carly to everyone's misfortune, but they seem to be having fun trying. Clearly their animosity toward her stems from the fact that she "stole" Bo away from Hope because they have yet to provide any other plausible reasons for hating her. Kayla and Caroline both claim that it was Carly's fault that Nathan left Stephanie and that Caroline is in trouble for changing the paternity test. Okay, so let's see if I can decipher the reason they think Carly is the cause of all of this. Caroline changed the paternity test after overhearing Stephanie's worries that Nathan and Melanie would reunite if it turned out that Philip was the father of Chloe's baby. This must mean that if Carly had never forced C...

With the Parker paternity storyline now coming to a close, DOOL seems to be giving GH a run for their money in how to bungle the endings of perfectly good storylines. I, like many viewers, assumed that once it was discovered that Philip cheated on Melanie and fathered Chloe's child, and that Stephanie was keeping this from Nathan, there would be a Melanie and Nathan reunion. However, two very important things happened last week that will undoubtedly make that impossible. First, it was announced that Mark Hapka had been fired. Then DOOL released a promo which shows Melanie finding out she is pregnant, presumably with Philip's baby (unless of course they find a way to write in that she slept with someone else). DOOL has been teasing its viewers for months about a Nathan and Melanie reunion and to suddenly drop that as a possibility seems like such a waste. Where is the return on the viewers' investment in watching this show? Of course there is always a chance that th...

After months of waiting and wondering how and when it would happen, finally the truth is out about Chloe's fling and Parker's paternity! Now Nathan is the only one still left in the dark. As far as big soapy reveals go, yesterday's shocker was just okay. Maybe my expectations were too high after so many false alarms where it seemed that the truth was going to come out but it didn't. This is my main complaint with Days, they tease their audience too much so that by the time the event that they have been teasing us with finally happens it's anti-climactic. I think this particular reveal should have happened shortly after Melanie and Nathan left quarantine because I never really understood how they could come so close to death, say their "I love you's" then go back to their respective mates as if nothing ever happened. Typically the "near death" storylines are put in place to bring a couple together, not bring them almost together then have them...