Michael

Yes, they took over Basic Black. We spent months on them hiring Gabi and Paul as models, talking about their plans, etc., and then it all just went nowhere and dovetailed into the weird Nicole/Deimos/Kate pseudo-triangle. There was a Basic Black fashion show on New Year's Eve the night Eric killed Daniel in the car accident.

The Rafe double was under Higley/Whitesell in the first part of 2011. It was dumb, but I thought it was some of Galen's best work lol. I agree that the whole Sept 2011-Aug 2012 felt like fan fiction. A lot of it reads well on paper, but the execution was so devoid of anything interesting. People were just wandering around, getting job offers (Hope and Abigail were approached about being Basic Black models, and we spent several episodes on that and it went nowhere), and they introduced that spa that Maggie bought and it all added up to nothing except Melanie started doing Botox there (which wasn't a story), and they dumped University Hospital for the entire year basically. It was all just kind of ideas of "this could be a good setup for something" except they forgot to write the actual stories that resulted from those setups. It was respectful of history, so that's something, but so much of it just felt like random ideas. In retrospect, I should've known we were in trouble the instant they tried to convince us that Austin, a character whose ability to count was always questionable, was a forensic accountant. As for the 50th anniversary reset in fall 2015, the thing that often doesn't get talked about was how weird the balance was. There were like two A-stories -- the Necktie Killer, which was part of the Chad/Abigail/Ben story and was pretty solid, albeit way too dark, and then the Hope/Aiden stuff. Other people were airing like once every two weeks, or just being threaded into episodes with no story. It was the strangest distribution of story I've ever seen on this show.

This was probably written and filmed before the Cybertruck was a glimmer in Elon's stupid eye, though! 😄

Yeah, they went to New York together. It was heavily implied that it might develop into more.

Groan.

Yeah, I was mistaken -- I caught more on the second watch and there's definitely shots of stuff that are post-Ron (the Drake stuff, I think). But the bulk of this seems to be Ron's material. Ron was the one who originally brought in Sami for whatever story this is, though. We definitely have like six months of Ron material left. They didn't throw out months of written/shot episodes. But this has a focus to it that's promising.

Actually maybe this goes into the spring because Sami is there -- but Ron was the one who brought her in, apparently. I just find it hard to believe they're showing stuff that won't air for six months right now.

Yes. This only covers the next 2 months or so. His material airs until like May, maybe into June. They didn't go back and scrap months of stuff.

This is all still Ron's stuff btw.

Yikes.

Holly hasn't even mentioned her brother Parker once! Would be nice to know what's up considering he has to be 21 or so.

I suppose the writing change was a condition of the renewal, which is fine. It means Peacock is paying attention, at least!

Agreed all around. My biggest concern for Days, given this renewal, is that Peacock will go to hell and Days will disappear with it. Otherwise, it HAS to be valuable that this cheap show gets this many people to open the app every single day.

It makes no sense. It would actually be insane if Joy DIDN'T know.

I am so happy to hear this. I can't lose this show right now, and it is not so far gone that the ship can't be turned around.

It's so absurd. The boards who make these constant demands of whoever's CEO at the moment aren't troubled by the fact that the CEO changes every three months? Kristen moaning that the board is losing faith in her is like... girl, you haven't even been CEO for an entire quarter, so whatever is showing up realistically could not reflect almost any decision you've made as CEO. But don't forget! She got pardoned a few years ago, which means no one can even remember or mention any of her prior crimes.

Exhausting.

I miss that set so much. This 'townhouse' set is so bland and without character. It's wild that we've had this set for longer than we had the penthouse!

2006-07 was that weird period where they were trying to figure out the budget but hadn't yet. They had John in that coma for a while after EJ shot him, and they were constantly side-lining the vets for months on end, either to save money explicitly or to test how the show would run without them. So I fully believe that John was supposed to be out-out when they killed him off in 2007. The culmination of all this was when Tomlin instituted the new production model in 2008, which led to the belt-tightening and the exits of John, Marlena, Steve, and Kayla in early 2009 (onscreen).

Just like going from Theresa to Eve to Nicole to Kristen to Chloe to Kristen (or however it all went) was not healthy! Eric Martsolf manages to sell just about every pairing, but boy does this man need to learn to be single.

Kristen and Marlena had an episode's worth of scenes a week or two ago where Kristen came to Marlena's office, invited her and John to Grandparents' Day at Rachel's school, and went on and on about how she still loves Brady. Marlena had a hilarious reaction after Kristen finally took a breath, something along the lines of, "Thanks for saying all that." Totally deadpan. So Kristen herself put the bug in Marlena's head.

Both Ryan Carnes and Van Hansis are in their 40s.

No, the last time she appeared was when her father Daniel died. Are you thinking of Chelsea, Bo's daughter?

Melanie hasn't been in Salem since 2016. But yeah, Mia and Melanie are in the same age group as Chad, Will, Gabi, and Abby, so it wouldn't make sense for either to be the mysterious mother. I also don't think it would make sense for Melanie (who was on perfectly good terms with Chad last time she saw him) to do something this insane when she also has a grandmother, aunt, and sister in town. And she would be more familiar with the players involved. I still wonder if there's a way the mother will turn out to be Konstantin's daughter, given that John was randomly connected to this whole thing by being found in the Poplar Bluff "apartment."

I don't think Leo Howard could plausibly play Will, who's supposed to be around 35 and has a daughter who's at least 10, but he could probably be JJ or Joey.