Where the writers, yes, the writers started to fall down on the job, was the revelation of the D/D. For once they held onto something, for some very odd reason, for weeks (since this story hadn't been told this way before, it was strange), gave it all this build up, let it out and then forgot it existed, in the space of four episodes. Am I bothered that they didn't drag this particular plot point out any further? No, but I am bothered by the mood it began to create in the story. It was the beginning of squeezing together plot points into single scenes, or episodes, and buying time until Josh and Reva's story had begun to reach a denouement point, either sh*t or get off the pot, with them as well.

And instead of talking about San Cristobel, they finally sent them down there, but what to do with Manny in the meanwhile, before they could join the Josh adn Reva story? Rush them through a series of not very well thought out "obstacles" and then slow them down like a speeding train, suddenly faced with moss in the swamp lands.

I thought, and still think, that there can be some exceedingly high expectations of Manny, that are unreasonable, which is why I have an easier time blowing off sucky episodes, and not seeing it as the end of the entire story as we know it. But, I do have to join the chorus, in saying that very basic, logical, reasonable expectations haven't been met. This has nothing to do with wanting your way as a fan, nor anything to do with pushing TPTB into situations they felt they weren't ready for, this is basic storytelling 101.

They didn't create the eight months build up, for the fans, to suddenly turn around and say we pressured them too much, I don't recall any public outcry over the story by the fans, other than the D/D. No one said they were moving too fast, or writing wrong, there wasn't pressure there to change the focus of the story. We were all pretty damn happy, and willing to just wait and see, because we trusted the writers to take us on the same journey they'd been writing thus far. Why the sudden pull out of that particular station, turning the train onto an entirely different track? Because of us, and our discontentment? I could buy that, if there was discontentment, but frankly I just don't remember there being all that much. We were all excited about how differently, and intelligently the Manny story was being written, not complaining about the sudden shifts and strange pacing.

Expecting a proper conclusion to an eight month buildup is not unreasonable to me, expecting proper consideration, for arguably the most popular couple on the show, and not just as an after thought, is not unreasonable to me. Expecting Guiding Light to get its act together and learn how to promote Manny is not unreasonable to me. Expecting GL to have a basic understanding of pacing and continuity is not unreasonable to me. Expecting GL to continue to follow through on the themes they began, and not in a you-have-to-put-the-pieces-together-to-even-stretch-and-imagine-the-story-is-going-the-way-you-think-it-should-be type way, is not unreasonable to me.

Unreasonable to me, is expecting every line of dialogue to be perfect and pristine and filled with depth. Unreasonable to me, is expecting the entire show to stop, because Manny happens to be on. Unreasonable to me, is expecting that Manny won't ever have a boring, or inconsequential day.

I'm not an apologist, nor a defeatist, I'm a realist. I can appreciate the smaller moments Manny have had, I can appreciate the happiness, but on the other side of the scale, I can also look at it with a realistic view and pinpoint the difference of July's Manny and January's Manny. But one thing remains the same, no matter what's going on, I simply want Manny to be the best they can be, and I don't recall complaining to such an extent about anything Manny did before the last month or so. It's like someone set them on auto-pilot and decided to let them float along on their own, for a few weeks, while they concentrated on the rest of the show, and trying to build other stories, with half as much complexity, or showcase other characters with half the depth.

It was like someone wrote a recipe, "Manny wants to be together, add family obstacle, much angst, family retreats, Manny happy" and just kept serving the same dish. They've simply been spinning their wheels. The honeymoon is something different, a happy Manny, I appreciate it, but once again reasonable expectations were not met. One associates a young, hot, popular couple with promises of romance, romance, romance, to mean well ... romance, actual screen time, basics, really. Not kiss, interruption, five minutes of screen time over, next day, totally incongruent with the previous day.

It's a reasonable expectation, that happiness doesn't have to include only dialogue that says "we're happy, we're happy, we're happy" but could actually include a line or two that actually means something on a profound level.

So, in that sense, I really disagree that it's our doing, having reasonable expectations is not totally out of the realm of possibility. I don't think we had any romantic notions or wanted the story to be dumbed down, nor did we convey that fact to TPTB. That they chose to interpret "gee you know Manny consummating sometime this century would be nice" or "it'd be nice to see if Manny knows how to do fun" as too demanding, is strictly on them.

Tracee