Langford on Soaps: Is "Days" Chickening Out on a Gay Love Story?

In the August edition of Langford on Soaps…

In GOOL THEATER, Aaron turns to self-harm to deal with his pain, but what happens when someone else gets caught in his destructive path? Find out on Emmerdale. Plus, Olli wants a new relationship. But he is ready to go looking for romance on Forbidden Love? And Sonny gets mixed up in a mob war on Days Of Our Lives.

In GOOL SCOOPS AND SPOILERS, Roman accepts his fate on All That Matters, but Deniz isn’t quite ready to let his lover go. Meanwhile, on People of the Valley, Macs turns to Iolo when the cops come calling after his disastrous attempt to find Scott goes awry and Jason and Bart face their feelings on Hollyoaks.

And in GOOL NEWSBEAT, we'll tell you when All My Childrenand One Life To Livedebut online. Plus, the latest on the returns of Irish drama RAWand British period piece Downton Abbey. And find out if Days of Our Livesreally plans on telling a love story between Will and Sonny.

All this – and more!

GOOL THEATER

Emmerdale

This show might have a lot of flaws, but the acting is always exquisite. This past week was no exception. As Aaron struggles to deal with his role in Jackson's death, Danny Miller is doing his usual bang up job and Lucy Pargeter, as Chas is also quite wonderful in her desperation to help Aaron, even though deep down she knows she is out of her depth and can’t do it alone. However, at the end of the day, it’s just more of the endless angst of Aaron and sometimes that can be grating on the viewer, especially since the show devotes so much time to his story. Aaron might be off screen for a week or two here and there, but for the most part he’s on and miserable.

I do enjoy is seeing more of Diane though. She’s one of my favorite characters, and I can never get enough of her on my screen. Can we get Diane her own story again please? She hasn’t had one since the Charlie/Doug fiasco and it’s time to take her off the shelf. Speaking of taking things off the shelf, I'd also like the show to revisit the Chas/Carl relationship. Their scene outside of the Woolpack was my favorite all week. Sure they were fighting about Aaron, but it was really about their messy and dysfunctional relationship. Carl is a complete ass, but uber sexy, and I love him and Chas together.

Has Paddy abandoned Aaron?

I have two big complaints this week as well. First, where the heck is Adam? After being there for Aaron through the trial, he seems to have vanished from Aaron’s life. The show likes to tell us they are best friends, but best friends don’t disappear when your life is falling apart. It just makes no sense and for a show so good at friendships, especially between men, it fails miserably here.

Second, I really hate that Paddy has pretty much abandoned Aaron. Not only is it totally out of character for Paddy to ever turn his back on Aaron, his reasons for doing it are because of his devotion to Rhona, his live in girlfriend and Leo, a child that is not his. The Paddy who I’ve known for the past year or so would never do this to Aaron, especially since it so clearly feeds into Aaron’s self-hatred. I know the show is doing it for plot purposes, but they are ruining Paddy's character in the process.

Days of Our Lives

I'm really annoyed with this show's sloppy writing. Once again, I find myself wondering when Sonny had the time to meet all the people in town he seems to know given that he didn’t grow up in Salem and has spent all of the time since he came home with Will and co. or his parents.

At least we did see him meeting Jennifer for the first time, even if the show did it in such a throwaway fashion. The problem with that is, given that Abby and Sonny are supposedly close, wouldn’t he already know and be familiar with Abby’s mother? Show, can’t you just think this stuff through?

And while this war between the DiMera and Kiriakis family reaches into Days' history, it also lets us see a glaring problem with the show as it is today in that there really aren’t too many members of either family on screen. I think this storyline would be much more interesting if there were more members of either side of the family mixed up in the drama. But cast depletions and absent family members are a problem many soaps have these days.

The good thing is that at least Sonny is somewhat involved and being given something to do. I remember back during the ATWT days, there would be this huge stuff going on in the Snyder family and Luke would be nowhere to be found. So that’s one thing in this show’s favor. Now if they could only resolve the issue of getting Sonny a boyfriend…