Patti

 not sure who you mean.  Vic’s nephew???  Vic’s younger brother (played by Vincent Irizarry) is named Deimos.  He is Vic’s younger brother through his father’s second marriage.  I love VI from his years on both Y&R and OLTL, but so far he hasn’t shown much in the way of his sl on DOOL except that he obviously has been in jail for the past 30 years.  Victor claims he seduced his (Vic’s) fiance back in the day, 4 days before their wedding.  I’m guessing Victor killed her because of the betrayal, blamed it on Deimos, and Deimos paid for Victor’s crime.  For the life of me, however, I can’t figure how Philip is involved, but he seems to know Philip and already has something on him.

I’m going to give the sl a chance to really open up before I judge it, simply because I love the actor.  I’m not liking Philip’s writing, however.  Obviously he is not a good guy and has plenty of mischief in store for Salem.

The week of January 4-8, which aired the accident, Daniel’s death, as well as Stefano’s murder, DOOL fell just under 3 million viewers, and that hasn’t been done for a very long time.  I think I read the negotiations will begin in February, but I think a lot of fans expected to find out about the renewal sometime this month.  I just hope February sweeps, which begin on February 4th through March 2nd, will do well and be "must watch" TV for our soap.  Oh well, I’m betting on a renewal…..at least for another year.  I also think DOOL is on a much stricter budget than the other soaps, and that’s pretty much NBC’s call, but there’s always the possibility of cancellation at some point, although I doubt it will happen this time around; the genre is still too popular IMO.  Too many failed daytime talk shows and who wants another hour of The Today Show…..certainly not this fan.  If NBC doesn’t care if it loses millions of viewers who love their soap, it’s just plain suicide for the network.  Nah, the biggest competition soaps have for daytime, IMO, is the game shows and, of course, each other.  Guess it depends on what’s the cheapest to produce.  Maybe that’s why some of these high-paid soap actors are being cut and replaced with cheaper actors or written out altogether, but we’ll see how much the cast grows or shrinks over the next few months.  I think it’s already starting, but NBC has always been the most budget-conscious, more than other networks it seems.

 and I am somewhat interested in John’s story, simply because the end game might finally bring him and Marlena to working together to solve what’s going on with this woman who claims to be his mother, and is she working with someone, or is she being forced to cooperate with whoever is behind trying to kill John?  Frankly, I’m more interested in who Stefano called stating they would soon get their check, which leads me to suspect Andre could be involved in John’s story as well.  Is Andre working with Eduardo to set John up?  But, you’re right TFlo1018, John’s true parentage has been done to death.  If this sl is to be believed, it must finally end and either she really is his mother or not, but let’s end this search, writers.  All he needs in his life is his family back in Salem, because they are the ones who have stuck by him all these years.

As for Jennifer, I’m sure we are, indeed, heading for a painkiller addiction sl for her.  It’s okay with me if we are, because God knows she needs to have something in her life to worry about beside Abigail and J.J.  All depends on, like everything else with these writers, how it’s written.

when he reminded Eve that Claire was not Paige and that Eve may have been trying to replace Paige with Claire.  Since we haven’t seen Eve take an interest in any other student, she’ll likely lose interest in heading the music program as well.  The only reason she became so suddenly excited about it was because of Claire.  Maybe she’ll at least find a replacement for the program’s director, since it was founded for and dedicated to Paige.  Of course, that probably means we’ll never hear of it again.  LOL! 

 about bad decisions, it does appear he is straightening his life out.  Abigail’s determination to clear Chad and break the spell she suspected he was under is fine but the quick marriage is not.  There was not one thing I could disagree with regarding JJ’s and Jen’s trying to make her realize it was way too soon to jump into marriage with Chad.  She needs time to decompress from the whole Ben ordeal.

 from what I read, they do not demolish a building by detonation without making sure it is completely cleaned out, i.e., they simply put him on the floor, wrapped in a blanket or sheet which had to be covered in blood, and simply piled debris on top of him.  They do a walk-through before detonation, so that would be pretty ridiculous to believe there would be no trace of the body.