Vee

Anne Heche is apparently expected to survive, but there's some gruesome shots of her on the gurney clearly badly burned. It's not exactly been a secret that she's still eccentric on a good day - dating the equally bizarre Thomas Jane - but I hoped she was clean and sober. I hope she gets well and heals quickly.

I'll believe it when I see it. I highly doubt that. I think he's guessing.

It looks like it's got a clear path.

This is pretty much what we expected would be the price of Sinema's involvement, which given everything else that's very good in the bill is a reasonable toll to pay. Thank God.

This is not about soap fans not liking change, lol. Many of us have always felt streaming is the only future for soaps and have been saying so for years, and I was one of them. Nor is it about streaming not being the future - it's already our present. The issue, which many of us already elaborated on at length and you clearly ignored, is that Peacock is a struggling service which does not have a broad enough range of content that will incentivize enough people to sign up for its paid tier for on the strength of DAYS alone (which is NBCU's stated hope here). Hulu is strong, and Netflix is strong; until very, very recently HBO Max also looked strong (and hopefully the rumors about it this week due to Discovery's meddling will prove exaggerated). Peacock? Not so much. And for NBCU to be pinning Peacock's subscriber hopes on DAYS only leaves one loser: DAYS. Next time listen to what people have been saying before you came along and before injecting your own pre-written editorial.

The problem is it still won't get enough users, which is what Peacock needs and the only way DAYS will survive, IMO. Putting it on the pay tier and expecting it to shore up Peacock by itself is the fundamental problem. That and lack of lead time.

Netflix and Hulu are not going to be interested in Days.

That doesn't mean they'll give us all of it. That's what I'd want clarification on.

I think streaming is the only future a soap can have now. But it's the way this is being done that makes it look like a death knell. First, as so many have said, there should've been a lot of build-up and a public plan to move a soap to streaming - it should get a big, splashy PR rollout to keep the audience well informed, storylines should climax and resolve, and there should be a big finish for the network version of the show before the move. In their own way, AMC and OLTL both got this. And just like those examples, you can then give a new iteration of the show a clean slate, a cut-down or revamped cast, etc. and do the move to the streamer with a new style and focus. (Ideally, all of this is what GH could do in the process of moving to Hulu and yes I've been workshopping it for years in my spare time, sue me.) This isn't happening here, AFAIK. It's tossed off. It seems like at the very least many of the performers only just found out. I wonder when Corday and Carlivati knew. Second, and most important: Unlike Hulu or Netflix, Peacock as a service is not strong enough to attract new paid subscribers solely for DAYS. Putting aside DAYS' creative issues, the service simply does not have a large enough crossover content base. I do believe NBC/etc. genuinely would like to use DAYS to boost Peacock's numbers, and have genuinely been pleased with Beyond Salem's results. I think they were willing to invest in DAYS with the spinoffs. If it was on the free tier it'd have a shot. But IMO they're delusional if they think that translates to people being willing to pay $7 or whatever for Peacock Premium nonstop vs. an occasional miniseries. DAYS cannot singlehandedly bolster Peacock's numbers, and Peacock subscriptions cannot be the only metric that keeps DAYS alive. I think it's something they legitimately are hoping will work, but it won't; it's a doomed premise. It's the right idea for a soap's future being done the wrong way, and it's probably the end of DAYS. For OLTL at least, most of those tapes do not exist and were wiped. Any surviving material from before the mid-late '70s is largely in the hands of random affiliates, museums and private collectors.

Nelson still exists?

They're already unnerved by the potential triple header of the IRA Bill, the PACT Act and CHIPS IMO, which has put some wind in folks' sails again. They don't tend to like Dem comeback stories, ever. They wanted Romney to win in '12 to tell that 'sensible Republican' comeback story, and Obama cruised to victory despite many attempts to pretend it was a tight race.

It's really giving them a no win scenario: Continue on if you can prop up our paid service which has yet to build its own subscriber base. If DAYS was on the free tier it could potentially work given a slashed cast and probably new format. But expecting daytime fans to shore up Peacock themselves for a show that frankly is not at its best is not going to happen. GH would (and will, someday, hopefully, maybe) have a better shot at it on Hulu.

The PP soaps, though mismanaged and too far ahead of their time, had the advantage of being on what is still a major streamer with multiple things people want to watch: Hulu, which has only gained in prominence since with Disney. Peacock doesn't have enough other content to warrant that fee for enough people.

Bye bye.

On an unrelated note, what is this nonsense with Brandon Barash constantly swapping characters?

I assume the cast will be slashed. Which worked for AMC and OLTL.

It could very well be a Passions DirecTV situation. But I also think the Beyond Salem spinoffs have indicated a real commitment to giving it a try in a new medium, at least.

As much as I would love for soaps to continue five days a week daily year round on streaming, I think if they have a future there it will have to be seasonally-based, with blocks of episodes parceled out at a time. For me the ideal has always been (and I've been saying this for years) 6-8 weeks of daily half hour eps per season, take a break, come back and continue various long-running plot threads and storylines while closing out others with each arc. I think that's the future. It's something not totally dissimilar to what Linda Gottlieb experimented with at OLTL when she first started in '91, but it didn't work because of the nature of the daily medium on network at that time and because of the story choices. Of course, if GH or DAYS could sustain themselves streaming daily I wouldn't complain.

I'd be surprised if it is, long term.

I think this was always inevitable for DAYS assuming it proved somewhat cost-effective for them (but no, I wasn't expecting it now either). Beyond Salem has always seemed like a pilot program to me. How long it can sustain itself functioning daily year-round with the classical format in a new medium is another story. It would not shock me if it became seasonal/arc-based like most streaming shows, and like AMC and OLTL 2.0 once hoped to do.