Paula's Soapbox

For those of you who were undoubtedly worried about my sanity after reading my first blog post about Rafe 2.0, worry no more, because after this week's episodes I am officially disenchanted with him. Just as I predicted DOOL has gone too far with the evil twin thing, although much sooner than I expected. Rafe 2.0 was pretty good at providing some comic relief the first few days he was on, but this storyline keeps getting progressively worse and Rafe 2.0 keeps getting more evil. In short...I hate him. I never liked the fact that Stefano and EJ were threatening to take Ally away from Sami, but I thought, or perhaps hoped these were just empty threats designed to make Rafe cooperate. I never really expected them to risk raising suspicion by following through. Granted EJ had a change of heart, but he didn't put forth much of an effort to ensure Ally's safety. I'm sure Stefano would never be able to reach her in Hong Kong if he wanted to. At this point I'm not ...

Like a lot of viewers I looked forward to Natalia Livingston's debut on Days as Nicole's sister, Taylor. I was already a fan, having seen her play both Emily and Rebecca on GH. And she seemed like she would be a good addition to the Days cast. When her first scenes aired a few weeks ago I initially thought that Taylor would make a good love interest for Brady, until I saw Natalia's scenes with James Scott. Then I became enchanted with the whole idea of an EJ and Taylor pairing. On the surface their meet-cute probably seemed a little cheesy to some, the whole idea of them falling in love at first sight. However, this is something that we haven't seen on soaps in a while. There was something very sweet and sort of old-fashioned about their first meeting, a complete contradiction to EJ at the moment. And I liked the idea of him being paired with someone who brings out his best qualities, as Taylor likely would have. Regardless of how much chemistry he might have with Nicol...

If you are like me and grew up watching Stefano manipulate and otherwise destroy the Bradys in various science fiction inspired plots, it wasn't too difficult to see the Rafe double coming. Once I realized that Stefano and EJ were planning to bring in a Rafe replacement I thought "great, here we go again, the evil twin plot." While this plot device is another soap staple it is also often used by critics of this genre to point out the absurdity of it. And since DOOL has a tendency to go overboard with this sort of thing that opinion becomes difficult to refute. I can still recall each of Eileen Davidson's 5 simultaneous roles on the show and I was not looking forward to the prospect of Galen Gering repeating that history. I have to admit though that after seeing this "evil twin" in action I am cautiously optimistic about this additional Rafe. I'm not thrilled with the fact that Stefano and EJ are using Ally as a pawn, in fact I hate it. I'm tire...

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...

I hate to say this about one of the best soaps on tv, but I think Days has "jumped the shark" in the EJ/Sami/Sydney/Johnny/Rafe/Nicole/Brady saga. I know that Sami and EJ have this inherent need to constantly one-up each other but their latest competition has gotten a bit ridiculous. I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse than Sami shooting EJ in the head and him taking her kids away; but that just proves you should never assume things can't get any worse. I meant to comment a few weeks ago on EJ's ludicrous idea that Sami somehow caused Johnny to get cancer. It was one thing for him to blurt that out while he was so upset, but he actually tried to make a case for it, saying that Sami caused Johnny's cancer by stressing him out when he moved in with him. First of all no one person can just give somebody cancer. Moreover Johnny had the cancer before he moved into the Dimera mansion it just wasn't detected. The pictures that Gaby took at Rafe and Sa...

I've been hoping that something would happen on Days to put a stop to the Sami/EJ/Sydney/Nicole baby swap roller coaster extravaganza because quite frankly, haven't we all had enough? There has to be something else that can be done with these characters that doesn't all stem from Nicole switching Sami's baby out. Nicole tried to make EJ think Sydney was their child. EJ found out what she did and kicked her out of the house. EJ then made Sami think Sydney was dead because she tried to keep her from him. Then he fell back in love with Sami, then she found out what he did so she shot him in the head. Then EJ found out that Sami shot him so he took her kids away from her and is milking the pain for all it's worth. Did I leave anything out? Here is what I was hoping would happen to resolve this mess: (1) It's almost Christmas so let EJ realize he is hurting his kids and that they are better off with Sami. EJ will seem more redeemable this way and Sami's heart ...

Days' baby switch storyline should have ended weeks ago, but since it was discovered that Sydney was indeed Sami's child there have been countless contrived efforts to keep the suspense going, beginning with Nicole kidnapping Sydney. However, I think the show has gone a little too far with E.J.'s sinister plot to make Sami believe that her baby is dead. There are far too many real life cases involving the discovery of a missing child's bloody clothes for the show to use that scenario in a twisted storyline such as this. This is particularly unsettling considering that at some point they will undoubtedly try to redeem E.J. again in an attempt to reunite him with Sami. It is as if Days has forgotten that many, if not most of their viewers are women, many of whom likely have children. As I have said in previous posts there are right ways and wrong ways of involving and depicting children in these types of storylines. Soaps can be shocking and sensitive to their viewers at ...