Days of Our Lives has a bit of a problem on its hands. OK, we know, it has a few problems, but

we’re talking in particular about its Abigail problem. And by that we mean the fact that she died…

and has stayed dead.

When Marci Miller decided it was time to step away from playing Abigail, she shared that even she was surprised that the show opted to kill Abigail, rather than recast her. After all, she was a legacy character married to another legacy character and they’d done it with incredible success after Kate Mansi stepped away from the role.

Mansi, like Miller, had chosen to leave of her own accord, so folks didn’t think she’d really be up to coming back. But then we got the news that General Hospital had hired her to take over as one of their legacy characters — Kristina — from Lexi Ainsworth. And suddenly Days of Our Lives’ decision to kill off Abigail instead of recasting her seemed even more baffling.

As amazing as these performances were, were they necessary?

Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

Yes, her loss gave us some incredible acting from folks like Billy Flynn, Cady McClain and Matthew Ashford in a number of utterly heartbreaking scenes. So maybe, from a dramatic perspective, it was worth it in a way.

But this is also Days of Our Lives. Characters come back all the time — even ones that we don’t particularly want. Dr. Rolf has been in rare form lately, bringing folks back left and right, especially when he’s teamed up with Megan.

Surely, they could have come up with a way to bring a character folks never wanted to die in the first place — especially since it seems Mansi was up to heading back to daytime. Because let’s face it, Days could really use Abigail right now.

Chad and Stephanie, for instance, are lovely — but they aren’t exactly steaming up the screen. Plus, now that Alex is finally putting the work in with Marlena to get therapy and his big faux pas was undone when Kayla turned up alive, it seems pretty obvious that he and Stephanie will be pulled right back together.

Then there’s Gwen. She’s pretty much cut loose. She and Xander are kaput, she was just dumped by Alex, she blackmailed her dad right out of town She does have Leo… but they aren’t exactly a beloved duo.

If Abigail was back, they could either work on patching up their relationship or just get back to being mortal enemies. Because we’re pretty sure she’d have something to say about Xander and Gwen swiping the paper from her dad. And it’s not like the show has done much else to capitalize on that story twist other than giving Leo a column.

Remember when Ben came between “Chabby?”

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

All isn’t lost, of course. While it’s tough to imagine magic striking three times, they could still recast Abigail with someone new. But just imagine how much better it would have been if they had gotten Mansi once more to bring Abby back from the grave, reignite “Chabby” and maybe capture a bit of that spark that Days of Our Lives seems to be struggling with these days.