Paula's Soapbox

In case I neglected to mention it, "Days of Our Lives" has gotten a lot better in recent months, despite the baby switch storyline debacle in which EJ made Sami think Sydney was dead. I still think that crossed a line. Aside from that though, DOOL's storylines have been reminding me of the way soaps used to be when all the stories were character-driven. That's not to say that other soaps don't still produce character-driven storylines, in fact I am sure all of them do to a certain degree, but there seems to be much less emphasis on producing those types of storylines these days. Instead, many storylines seem to be created simply for the drama they can provide, so it is refreshing when soaps tell stories in ways that are both entertaining and plausible, at least within the framework of that soap. I am especially enjoying what is going on with Phillip, Melanie, Nathan, Chloe, and Daniel. I left Stephanie out on purpose because I can never tell when she is being sinc...

I need to backtrack on something I touched on in an earlier post about the paternity test for Chloe's baby. I thought that it was completely unrealistic that Cane would use Phillip's blood for that test, primarily because I thought Cane was the type of guy who would take responsibility for his own child. I guess Cane was more scared of the prospect of being the father of Chloe's baby than I thought because Monday's Y&R explained that Cane used Phillip's blood to exclude him from being the father of Chloe's baby. This is without a doubt the first explanation I have heard on Y&R in months that actually makes sense. After hearing this explanation I re-read my post titled Raising Cane and it is clear that all of the DNA tests had me somewhat confused. I guess I should probably let myself off the hook for that considering that it seems like almost all of the storylines on Y&R have included multiple DNA tests with varying results. Let's hope this rev...

One of the most important rules of good soap opera writing is that you cannot re-write recent history, not if you want viewers to invest in the storylines. For years Y&R has set the standard for quality soap writing but lately it is as if they have forgotten the basics. It was one thing for the show to introduce us to Cane as the real Phillip Chancellor. Most viewers can suspend the reality of disbelief with a revelation like that because enough time has passed since the supposed baby switch happened that most people cannot say with absolute certainty that it did not happen. Soaps cannot, however, expect viewers to believe this type of story then completely change everything we know about it in a way that makes other stories seem less credible. This is what happened when Y&R decided that the real Phillip was actually alive and Cane was an imposter. This might have made sense if Cane had not recently taken that paternity test that did not exclude him as the father of Chloe's...