Days of Our Lives' Tony DiMera: An Unusually Complex Soap Villain

After mafia gunmen disrupted his wedding, Count Antony DiMera travelled to Tibet to seek sanctuary from his shadows. 

I am, of course, speaking of the charming playboy/elite swordsman/black belt/mob boss who is also, coincidentally, a soap opera villain. Tony DiMera appeared on the Days of our Lives canvas back in 1981 as a distinguished European gentleman with a morally ambiguous nature. 

Soap operas back then were of much higher quality, mind you - they nearly had the budget and the talent to rival that of primetime shows. And, being serialized at such high frequency, the genre could get away with things that others couldn't. Where else would you see a Count and his twin cousin duel with bamboo staffs in the Bermuda Triangle? Or a mysterious blue key that can mind-control genetically enhanced children?

Let's not forget the story where Tony DiMera implants false memories into Dr. Marlena Evans to make her think she's a serial killer. The plots are outlandish - and outlandishly good. Now, I'm not extolling the virtues soap operas in general, mind you - many of the modern ones suffer from sub-par acting and general banality. What I am advocating, however, is Tony DiMera's storylines in Days of our Lives, which are unnaturally well-written and brilliantly acted.

Oh, but I see you're not convinced. Yes, friends, some soap operas, including Days, have degenerated to ridiculous one-dimensional teen dramas with a bit of interesting stuff on the side. But it's that interesting stuff on the side that makes it all worth it. And there's nothing more "interesting stuff on the side" than Tony DiMera - why, he's a European mafia boss who practices Zen meditation and kendo. 

That's diaspora if I ever saw it. This character adds not only a touch of class to a program tarnished with its "daytime show" status, but a repertoire of good lines and complex ideologies not even present in higher-caliber programs.