TV GUIDE
August 1, 1987
Love! Pain! Outrage! The Hottest Triangles on Daytime Soaps
Photo By Bernard Boudreu
Article By Elaine Warren
On Days of our Lives, all eyes are on Kayla, Patch and Jack. Kayla (Mary Beth Evans), a registered nurse, and Patch (Stephen Nichols), a troubled man with a difficult childhood he can’t seem to put behind him, care deeply for each other. But Patch, blinded in one eye, just can’t accept the reality that Kayla loves him, and keeps shoving her away. Jack meanwhile, the suave well-to-do son of a senator, has come to town and is hot for Kayla.
Until recently, what added to the tension was the audience’s painful awareness that Kayla and Patch couldn’t manage to consummate their relationship. Every time they tried, something intervened. A while ago, for instance, Patch was unzipping Kayla’s dress when someone knocked on the door and delivered secret documents that revealed that Patch was once hired to do surveillance on Kayla. Kayla got angry and wouldn’t have anything to do with him for several weeks. Another time they were together was when the building they were in exploded and collapsed on top of them, trapping them in the rubble for three days. Unfortunately, Kayla became unconscious. Finally, last month, Kayla and Patch’s (as well as the audience’s) fondest hopes were realized, when the script called for a torrid love scene on the roof of Kayla’s apartment building.
What makes some “triangular” couples, like Kayla and Patch, hotter than others? There are all kinds of elaborate theories and strategies concerning how to make a television romance sizzle, but it all begins with that ineffable concept that applies to real life couples as well: chemistry. When starting out with any triangle, first the writers must establish a primary couple who simply, unequivocally, have the right chemistry together.
“A year ago we tried Evans and Nichols out as a couple, and the chemistry between them immediately was picked up by the audience,” says Al Rabin (supervising executive producer, NBC’s Days of our Lives).
It helps even further to heighten the tension between the amorous couple, and as everyone over the age of 13 knows, nothing creates sexual tension better than resistance. Thus, a good writer will always throw plenty of roadblocks in the couple’s path. In the case of Kayla and Patch, the major obstacle is their differing backgrounds. He is a man from the wrong side of the tracks, a hired thug, and she is a nurse from a nice family. Her family was violently opposed to their union, but the couple prevailed. It’s as if the romance developed a life of its own.
“We gave it nine months”, says Rabin. “We just kept nurturing it. And now the audience very much wants them to be together. So the first problem, establishing them as a couple, was solved. And once you reach that plateau, it’s time to introduce the other part of the triangle.” In this case, Jack (played by Joseph Adams-pictured; he has since been replaced by James Acheson), an old boyfriend of Kayla’s, who happens to have Hodgkin’s disease. Kayla became his nurse, and Jack fell in love with her. “We will play this story out for another four months,” says Rabin “and then we’ll see what happens.”
And that soap fans, could be just about anything.
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