The Salem Stalker

So, after some horribly boring years on Days of our Lives, NBC got smart.  See, at the time, Passions had taken over for Another World and NBC was down to just 2 soaps having got rid of Sunset Beach not too long before Another World.  So, Days was it's last bastion of old-school soap. Who better than to hand the reins to than fucking James E. Reilly, the motherfucker who was writing Passions (and had it not been CANCELLED, still would be).

Jim Reilly was not well-known for being THAT great a writer.  In fact, his writing tends to be sloppy plotpoints that become ersatz with the show's history and turn crap in to more crap.  He also has a habit of timing the shows poorly.  Most soaps have 2-3 episodes spanning a day in the world of the story.  Sometimes this is altered for sweeps or special events, like weddings.  JER did none of that.  Often a day would last from 2 weeks to 2 months in real time.  On Days, Valentine's Day started around the real Valentine's Day and lasted until we in the Real World were still drunk from St. Patrick's Day.  Yeah, a month long day.

That's the background for the AWESOMENESS of the Salem Stalker Storyline, which was incredibly awesome and lame at the same time.  It started at the Basic Black fashion show when Bo and Hope were attacked.  The police sort of investigated, but not really.  Then, Abe Carver, the Police Commissioner (I can't remember if he was retired at the time or not) was shot on the way to a christening.  So, like Abe's been on the show forever and is one of the few black people in Salem.  But he points to Maggie Horton.  For some reason that's never explored.  Anyway, Maggie, Jack, Caroline, Cassie, Roman and Tony are all killed by the serial killer called The Salem Stalker.  Their deaths are completely shocking (well, except Cassie because she just was kind of there).  But this is where it gets AWESOME.

So Tony is mauled by a tiger owned by Doug Horton (why he has a tiger, no one asks) and ends up in the hospital.  Where Marlena enters his room and gives him a lethal injection.  Thus, the audience finds out it's Marlena who killed all those beloved people.  So Marlena goes around the hospital and in fact all over Salem with a letter opener (to kill with, natch) and whenever someone says they know who the killer is (because none of the cops are investigating, really) she fondles the letter opener until they reveal that it's just a hunch or they don't really know but that guy always seemed shady or somesuch.

Then, we start seeing ghosts and Celeste (Salem's resident psychic) makes a prediction that Jennifer, Hope and Lexie will all have new men in their lives.  This never happened.  Hope/Bo never broke up until AFTER the Salem Stalker shit was long over; Jennifer and Jack were reunited and she ALMOST married Frankie until Jack came back; Lexie cheated on Abe with Tek, but not really.  Stupid show.  So, the ghosts.  They come to greet their loved ones and it's all very sweet and Kate somehow had sex with Roman's ghost.  I think.

So, Marlena keeps killing.  She kills Doug and then Alice Horton who has been on the show since the first episode.  Now, here's where it gets REALLY FUCKED UP.  See, at this point people stopped watching.  No one cared or people were pissed about the killing off of characters who were entrenched in Days history.  So, rumor has it that NBC stepped in and made them re-write the rest of the story which I'm getting to.  So, Alice calls Marlena's husband John Black and tells him it's Marlena. Before Alice is choked by a doughnut.  In the hospital, she reveals under truth serum that she did it because Abe found out that she was going to stop Roman and Kate's wedding.  Which, she hadn't loved Roman for a while, Kate was her friend and she had no problem before then with them being together.

I'm going to leave it here for now and put the rest of it in another post tomorrow since it's SO LONG.