Save John and Marlena!

And in case you didn't get it from the title: SAVE JOHN AND MARLENA!!

We, the tired, the fed-up, the angry, the hurt, the let-down, and the ever-hopeful are here to tell you: We will not go quietly into the night. We will not surrender our John & Marlena! And you, puppetmasters at NBC and Corday Productions, you'd be stupid to throw them away.

These characters, as portrayed by Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn, have created a legacy that will never be surpassed by any of the newer, cheaper, made-in-China-esque characters you present to us today. Each and every one of us viewers sees something special in John and Marlena, something that can't quite be put into words, but that we intuitively know is extraordinary and untouchable. There is a raw sexual chemistry that is so palatable, and so rich, that it is often times hard to watch without feeling like you are intruding on something private. It is precisely this phenomenon that keeps us coming back day after day. Or rather, used to keeping us coming back. Today you are lucky to beat out old reruns of "The Golden Girls" on Lifetime.

Instead of utilizing your best assets, you have forced them to languish away, playing prop to younger, weaker, less interesting characters. Perhaps it is a guise to fool us into believing that what's on our screens currently is actually interesting. But you aren't fooling anybody. We're not stupid.

So yeah, maybe we're rambling a little bit. Maybe we've fallen into rant territory. Maybe you've stopped reading because it's easier to ignore the obvious and continue along your current path of destruction. But maybe it's also that we just really believe in these two people. And you know, this isn't just for our benefit here. Don't think we haven't noticed those incredibly poor ratings, particularly in the last year. Each week we get a little more hopeful that someone, anyone, will wake up and notice that your current formula isn't working, and yet each week we become more and more disillusioned. It has become clear that you want us to be acquiescent, disenfranchised, and compliant little viewers. You want us to get stuck at home watching DAYS on snow days. You want us to become mesmerized by random shirtless males with dinner plate sized nipples. You want us to accept the fact that you are fading out a couple who is legendary in daytime, a couple who has proven in the past to not only deliver the ratings you so eagerly crave, but to inspire passion in its viewers.

And isn't that what you want? A show that makes us FEEL something? John and Marlena's ardent passion has never waned in all the years they have been together. Their passion inspires us and fuels our own. We will never give up. We will never surrender. And so we ask you to give John and Marlena the treatment they deserve, a storyline befitting the iconic signature characters they have come to be, and maybe even a place to live.

No really, we mean it.