Probably the least insulting is the cliched incarceration for the wrong crime. I honestly don't get this one, I don't. How on earth did writers ever believe this would wipe the slate clean? So they sit in jail for a little while, good, they are criminals. I mean let's face it, this is the soap world, justice does not mean the same thing here as it does in the real world (unless you count the soap of the O.J. trial). We have the unique position of knowing all the crimes a character has alluded charges for. How does this begin the road to sympathy? A lot of the time, it doesn't. As the World Turns' had Craig avoided being jailed for a plethora of serious crimes, but since he wasn't the one who tried to char Barbara we set the reset button? You know, with many viewers that didn't work. Then they added to the mess by having him lose his son Bryant. He was grief stricken, he was vulnerable, and he was emotionally distraught. That didn't help much either. People still harp on the fact that he is walking free. It then seemed like writers knew that it wasn't going to fly so they quickly abandoned the kinder Craig. Days of Our Lives' Sami Brady's redemption story got abruptly cut for similar reasons. Sami had truly changed her spots after nearly being executed, she valued her family, she attempted to make amends, she forgave her mother for her indiscretions, and she was even rewarded by finally nabbing Austin. But Sami is such a famous character because she's such a troublemaker so with one writing change she went back into her scheming rut and now under Reilly's pen, she's a screeching harpy. Had the writing change not occurred, however, I don't think it would have helped viewers warm to the new Sami. While her brush with death had viewers crying for Sami (and for Alison to get an Emmy), her winning Austin after all just drove them insane. They weren't able to forgive let alone forget all she had done in the past and insisted that her good girl streak wouldn't last long. She wasn't to be trusted.
