So here we go again with more mind-numbing behind the scenes changes, as the show adds a new co-head writer, Christopher Whitesell, to it's ranks. Good or bad? Yay or nay? "I want a change," Ken Corday told Ed Scott - twice. The first time when he hired him and the second when he sent him packing. The problem is, the changes come at inopportune times and the ones that really suffer (aside from the uneasy cast and crew) are US. What I can't figure out, for the life of me, is why would you want a change when things were moving along fairly smoothly? Scott gave the show an exciting new look, and let's not mince words here: I believe it was he who finally made Emmy sit up and take notice of Days after years of snubs. So Gary Tomlin and Whitesell are brought in and I'm having flashbacks. Coronation ball? Good one. The turkey baster story on Sunset Beach? I just had dinner, do you mind? Garden of Eden? Oh. My. God. Lexie Gone Dimera? Yeah, baby. Okay, so these two have been known to crank out a good story here and there - will they do it again? And how long will it last before Corday decides he wants a change? And most of all, just how much patience and loyalty does this show actually think we have?

Okay boys, let us spell it out for you.

While they have their fans, most Days viewers are not buying Chelsea and Daniel at any price, including this viewer. Forget the age difference, forget the maturity level (although that one is closer than you think). The fact is, they are boring. And when I say boring, I mean stupidly boring. Chelsea learns that Daniel and Kate once had a fling and Chelsea runs screaming out into the night. Raise your hand (broken or otherwise) if you've never seen this before. Anyone? Of course you have, we saw it when Nick and Billie decided to get horizontal. What is it with Chelsea's maternal relatives honing in on her boyfriends? One would think to tell these women to get a life, but I've been telling Kate that for years and she has yet to pay me any mind. Anyway, since we've already been there and done that, why are we going there and doing that again?

Then there is Melanie's cloying friend Tiffany. Lose her. Melanie is bad enough, we certainly don't need matching bookends. This story of Max finding his real father and wanting to get to know his admittedly irritating sister could've had some real bite to it, but it's not coming across as such. All we see is silly situations (what are Max and Stephanie in jail for again?). How about a more realistic (for lack of a better word) reaction from Melanie? Yes, people do often embrace a long lost sibling after years of not knowing of their existence. But some people don't. Add in the creep factor of TRENT (giggle, giggle - you thought I was going to say Trevor, didn't you?) and I'm just not into this story at all. Perhaps it's because I'm either not interested or the show hasn't bothered to try to make it interesting.

Let me share an email with you that I received a few weeks ago, from "Jeep12" regarding their feelings on the writing and production of Days:

I cannot help finding myself suddenly disliking characters I used to like on Days. I think the reason is the writing. Sadly the writers have taken to extremes. They stereotype characters today and leave them in odd segmented relations. Once characters had many shades, today they are unrelentingly stereotypes born of writers who take not the time to truly get the characters.

Steve is so multifaceted, has so many different emotional cores from a cocky boldness and humor to a musical sense that seems more in his inner voice than most to a hopeless romantic. Bo was never just the show's singular hero and speechmaker, but a reckless individual who could often screw up. Today, we have the hero set in stone. We have Steve doing virtually nothing but bolstering teens, Bo or whomever needs a little promotion. Roman is virtually allowed to do nothing but insure that others are similarly bolstered from insuring that Hope and Bo remain the only people allowed to function on the police force, to providing motivation for Sami or Lucas or Marlena.  But for some reason Roman is being ignored as the new patriarch of the Brady's and ignored as others are in terms of actually being given permission to function.

Stories are incoherent or so entrenching in this mechanism that of constant propping that  there is no bonding and stories fail to have any real power or emotional significance because of the blatant omissions of the writers. Some perfect examples: two pawns, Steve and John - but no bonding whatsoever or notice of any shared experiences?  Why? One can only wonder and in wondering we are left with some negative guesses.
Stephanie was raped and yet, there was little mention nor significance held with regard to Kayla, who had been raped years ago.  For a woman to have had that experience and then learn her daughter became a victim - to not reflect seemed absurd! Gross omissions by the writers who just seem so neglectful or so again entrenched in propping a few that they care little about integration of the stories and the characters, and as a result, I find myself feeling like a fool for hoping Days will return (when the writers keep insisting it will), not by their so frequent neglect of what could become powerful tales and yet ends up with a little more than a whimper.

Max runs around for months acting like he has suffered more than any one possible and yet he is staring at Steve, who although with similar tales, had never been handed the opportunities and the decent upbringing that Max found as a boy. Still, the writers left the bond again with but a quick mention with no greater significance. Again, I'm left perplexed as to why no greater bonding or integration of stories is effected. And again the only conclusion I am left with sadly is a negative one. The writers simply do not care. They are entrenched in one thing and one direction, propping a fraction of the cast at a time, sloppiness, lack of caring, certainly lack of doing one's homework, and again stereotyping.  

While I see them propping Max because he is young, I am disheartened and flabbergasted that they think we are content with characters like Steve on the sidelines unable to act (certainly out of character) and Roman not taking a lead in the family (also out of character but an insistence that Bo be moved ahead), I am taken aback by the push for the Dimeras and yet the absence of any reactions by victims. Caroline has literally taken in EJ? Sorry, did he not rape her granddaughter, tortured her son in law? Steve now discarded for John, and yet has the man not lost everything? Sixteen years of his life, the chance to have raised his daughter and yes, even the career he had begun years ago, and Benjy, the boy he cared for as a son. Yet instead, we are told only John's pain matters, only Bo is heroic and a martyr for losing a job (still he has a wealthy parent and brother indebted to him and a wife who was once left a hefty trust fund)!

I just feel that the soul and the heart of the characters are being erased for stereotyping. Why is Bo just playing martyr and not his more reckless side introduced? Again why is Roman not upgraded to family patriarch?  Why was Steve omitted as a huge victim of the Dimera's and no bonding of pawns? Why so many omissions, from Kayla on, such glaring omissions allowed to continue? And so it does with Tony and Anna marrying off screen, while Bo and Hope go down memory lane? Why no memories for those who returned? 

Its just becoming so disjointed that Days writers seem to be begging people to turn away because they prove on a regular basis that they really have no intention of truly bringing Days back to a program that uses its entire cast in the best ways rather than the worst.

What can you say after reading such a well-thought-out onslaught like that? This reader makes a lot of good points, the main one being the neglect of some characters, while others are shoved to the forefront over and over. Not to mention dozens of missed opportunities for compelling storytelling and the seemingly one-note way the characters are being written. This is a show deep in history and with many long-term cast members. If anyone knows the characters, it is the actors portraying them. If you don't know what this person or that person would do, say, feel or think, just ask the performer playing the role.