Daniel, Danny, Dan

I enjoyed Dan from Season Five the most.

That was when Erica was writing most, if not all, of the episodes. Her idea of Dan was that there was a lot going on under the surface. There was always something behind the eyes. I forget how many actors had played Dan (Daniel, Danny) at this point. We were deep into the twenties by now. Nobody could ever seem to get Dan right when it came to portraying him. I understand that turmoil. I, myself, am currently on my forty-eighth actor. Before you become too confused, I should distinguish the actor from the character.

I am the character.

You will never speak to any actor playing me.

That’s how it works.

Easy, right?

I’m a character on a long-running drama that you have definitely heard of, but one whose name I will not mention, because I have no desire to be written off the show. Another character on the show spoke to a journalist a few years back, and the writers had a helicopter fall on them. They could have just had them die in a helicopter crash, but no, they really wanted them to suffer. The rest of us have never forgotten that. Normally, I wouldn’t be talking to anyone, but there are rumors that our show is being cancelled, and if that’s true, I may as well say what I like. If I’m wrong, however, I want to be able to say that I didn’t give you any exact details. Not that your readers couldn’t do a quick search for “shows with characters named Danny (Daniel, Dan),” but at least I’m withholding something.

They also haven’t given me the easiest time. I’m grateful to exist, but I have been put through the ringer. I know that comes with the territory when you’re a dramatic character, but I wouldn’t mind a slightly less dire story every now and again. For the first couple of years on the show, my character was looking for love. I went on dates. I fell in love with a guy who ended up being a serial killer. Then, my next boyfriend died of an embolism. We had a character played by a very special guest star who had split personalities. That guy won an Emmy. I’ve never even been nominated. Or rather, the actors playing me have never been nominated. I must not be that kind of character. Still, the writers can’t seem to decide what kind of person I am. Sometimes they’ll have me crying hysterically over the smallest thing, and then in the next episode, my sister will have a breast cancer scare, and it’s like I’m not moved by it at all.

The actors playing Dan (Danny, Daniel) have never been nominated either, but that seems more understandable. When Dan first appeared on the show, they called him Danny. Then, it didn’t seem like the audience was taking him seriously enough. I wasn’t taking him seriously, but the producers noticed that we had some indescribable chemistry. So, they had me start taking him more seriously after a madman took me hostage, and Danny (Dan, Daniel) rescued me. From that point on, they started calling him Daniel. We fell in love, he cheated on me, we broke up, the woman he cheated died in a skiing accident, we got back together, I fell in love with a guy who works as a curator at a button museum, but I didn’t cheat, except in an emotional way, nevertheless we broke up again, the button museum guy turned out to be Daniel’s long lost brother, and so he forgave him for stealing me away, but then the curator was in a boating accident and developed amnesia. When he recovered, he ended up falling in love with his nurse, and I was heartbroken, but Daniel was there for me, and we fell in love again, and decided to get married. The wedding was almost derailed by the appearance of Daniel’s first wife who he thought died in a scooter accident, but it turned out it was actually the wife’s twin sister who had always been in love with Daniel, and when it was discovered that she was a fraud, we went through with the wedding, and I got pregnant with triplets.

Once we were married, I started calling him Dan. I think that was also because right after the wedding, they recast him again, and they wanted the audience to think of him differently. Suddenly Dan (Danny, Daniel) was nothing more than a sex symbol. Always shirtless, always biting his lower lip. It made me feel self-conscious. I wanted to go to the gym, but instead, the writers decided it would be interesting if I leaned into that insecurity. Suddenly, Dan had a frumpy wife. I was frumpy even though I was also a sex symbol in the early episodes. I was on the cover of Esquire in a bright red bikini. It seemed sexist in the most pedantic way possible to turn me into a dowdy housewife just because I was pushing forty. I know there was talk of giving me an eating disorder, but whichever actress was playing me at the time must have shut that down, because all of a sudden, there was no more talk of it, and I was so grateful. If I could talk to the actresses playing me, I would have thanked that actress. Sexy Dan ended up being swapped out for a more classically handsome Dan. That was right before Dan decided to go back to school and become a lawyer. It should have taken years, because we don’t have that kind of time on television, so within a year, he was defending the local veterinarian, who was on trial for murdering the mayor in a jealous rage when he found out the mayor was the real father of his triplets.

(No idea why the writers love triplets so much. We have four different sets, and this is meant to be a small town.)

Somewhere along the way, I became a regular wife. Not an unappealing one, but a bland one all the same. Younger characters became the focus of the show. They aged my triplets up by ten years and suddenly everything was about prom and bullying and some secret club at school that might commit pagan sacrifices. I was there to dole out advice to my three identical daughters, and every so often, I’d get a scene with Dan (Danny, Daniel) where we talked about our marriage and how it felt stale, and maybe we should go out for dinner more, and then that would be it. No more development. No evolution. It was disheartening.

When Erica was writing for the show, I felt like a fully-realized person. Dan wasn’t a perfect husband, but he was interesting and easier to love. We had love scenes. Not just sex scenes, but love scenes. She put me through an existential crisis. It wasn’t fun, but it felt rewarding. I know that was the closest the actress playing me ever came to winning any kind of award. Once Erica left, Dan and I went right back to being parents and spouses and residents of a town, and not much else.

There are moments where I feel the camera. I know it’s there. I can’t see it, but it’s a presence nonetheless. The way some people feel religion in their personal space. The way some people can sense the temperature shifting before it truly does. I can feel the camera, and I can feel that it’s not on me. There are times when Dan (Danny, Daniel) and I are laying next to each other in bed, and I feel it, but I don’t know what I’m meant to do. Am I meant to touch him? Is he meant to touch me? What does it want? What does it want from us?

I roll over and he’s asleep. I breathe softly so that my exhale catches the ends of his eyelashes. They flutter just a bit. I believe it’s a beautiful moment. I believe it’s special; that it’s important. But I feel the camera disappear. I feel that no one is watching.

Then it’s just the two of us.

And I either fall asleep or cease to exist.

When it happens, it’s hard to tell the difference.