te.

Well, Days did have Salem Place (which was a lot smaller than it looked, but clearly effective). But realistically it's just cost I'd assume - outside take up more space that could be used for other things, plus I remember daytime soap fans bizarrely complaining that Sunset Beach didn't look enough like a soap (!).

I think that part of it is the cast expansion that happened with going to an hour - suddenly you had a lot of characters that needed homes and places where they could realistically interact. When you had maybe a maximum of six speaking characters appearing per day (like apparently Dark Shadows had as their limit) you didn't need a lot of sets. When soaps started downscaling again, you were left with a lot of characters without homes or any places where they would logically have interactions, hence the recent "housing crisis" in Salem. It's been said before, but if soaps are going to survive moving online they need to start experimenting with shorter formats. When a rare Search for Tomorrow episode from the 50s was unearthed recently people commented on how quick, enjoyable and easy to follow it was. I don't think any daytime soap needs to be over half an hour tbh; one of the good things about DAYS moving online is that at least they aren't forced to film a lot of filler material for the episodes to make it to broadcast length. A lot of the better episodes usually end up being closer to the 30 minute mark than the 45 minute one. I genuinely never realised how messed up some of those floor plans were until I started trying to build things in The Sims 1. Besides not making sense from an architectural point of view (why would you have a gigantic upper floor plan while a relatively small downstairs?), but also just rooms running into each other, windows technically looking into other rooms and so on...

To be fair to the show, they've actually been pretty decent with digging up flashbacks that aren't the usual ones lately - they showed some rather rare Marlena footage when Dee celebrated her 5000th episode on the show. It makes me hopeful that they might be digitizing the material at least.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me considering how hard they tried to establish the Brady's in the 80s and it's a classic soap tactic to try and insert new characters in old characters history. I guess it's a fairly small window where that sort of anecdote could've been established (1982-84) so if someone would want to verify it and happens to have a collection of those episodes they could go ahead with it lol.

@JAS0N47 has a complete floor plan for the Horton house from the book "Days of our Lives: A Tour Through Salem" on his website : https://www.jason47.com/days/hortonhousetribute.html TBH, I can see why they removed that door beyond space saving reasons as it's a bit confusing how the floorplan is laid out at first sight because you'd instinctively think that the den/study would expand to the left due to the front door. It's sort of counterintuitive, especially with the windows by the staircase, plus we so rarely see the outside to clarify how it might be laid out. And obviously this is a bit wrong anyway, as I'm sure the "family room" in this was always the dining room? But sets on television shows tend to work like the TARDIS either way.

4.9 x 931k = 4 561 900 5.6 x 942k = 5 275 200 5.3 x 954k = 5 056 200 5.8 x 959k = 5 562 200 5.8 x 970k = 5 626 000 5.1 x 980k = 4 998 000 Worth remembering that the amount of household a ratings point represents changes from season to season (these were just quick figures I googled up, so they might be wrong). That's why I think the amount of viewers might tell a better story sometimes rather than just the ratings - DAYS clearly broke a trend of decline in daytime and considering how weak NBC's daytime line-up was it was no small feat.

I sure loved watching Gerry Schwartz, Heather Reisman, James Allen and Isadore Sharp on Aaron Spelling's Titans! ETA: it's this show, the year is wrong on FreeVee: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8094718/reference/

Titans, the short-lived Aaron Spelling show, isn't on FreeVee... It's a classic non-denial. I think they're just folding FreeVee into the Prime app though as that makes sense. It's unnecessary for them to have two apps since the entire purpose of purchasing it and IMDB is to drive customers to Amazon.

I wonder how many of those subscribers are actual women 🤣 And yeah, of course they won't go dick out here, but at least it would bring some promo to the show as I doubt a slight show of butt will get much social media traction these days. 😊

I'd assume part of this might be because they're looking to launch in more markets? Better to just try it with the Prime app since it's already launched internationally than to try and promote a separate service.

Do Playgirl still do full frontals?

Yeah, good resemblance lookswise at least - I'm happy to hear that she did well actingwise too apparently. Maybe they should introduce her as a character from a Horton branch (Sandy should surely have kids?).

Checked and Denise last appeared on General Hospital in 2021, so who knows if she could appear if she wanted to. They're all getting up there in age unfortunately. But yes, Denise would obviously be the biggest "get" in this memorial, especially if they can show flashbacks.

Just like I've pointed out that it was a mistake to place younger-skewing soaps like The City and Sunset Beach in the noon, moving Love of Life was also dumb. It very much gives off the vibe of your "grandmother's" soap and was probably a good fit for the earlier time slot when those viewers are at home. Expecting those kids, students and younger people that might come home in the afternoon to suddenly start watching Love of Life was idiotic, but then again... ... it was probably this. They could get rid of a somewhat middling performer by making it tank in the late afternoon by appearing to give it a shot as it was just a win-win situation for them here; either it bombs and they're rid of it, or it performs unexpectedly well and fixes a late afternoon slot for them.

I liked how it also kept Allison as an important character despite being off screen with a fate unknown - we saw the characters move on, but every now and then the consequences of her departure would flare up. Was Allison a victim Rachel's uncle? Did she really go off to New York? And so on. Ultimately, people go missing and unfortunately aren't found in some way or another. There's a reason why Charley Project has 15k+ cases. And sometimes, people do bizarrely turn up out of nowhere. Unfortunately, I think the whole "let's kill the character off" (beyond short-term thinking with ratings stunts) is a way to not deal with a characters absence and have the characters move on with their lives.

I'm assuming they got away with that due to it being written by scab writers? If Ron was writing the current episodes they wouldn't say a peep. In his butt?

If anybody was wondering, Freshman Dorm quickly killed this off post-pilot and had Justin Lazard join as the Rebel Without A Cause (aka the Dylan McKay for college) character. In the third episode we get to know more about he-of-the-leather-jacket in the California heat - he can not only recite Shakespeare from memory (in a particularly awkward moment when a teacher got confrontational, something which I've never experienced irl) and had an abusive marine father who didn't appreciate how his son totally had his head in the books at the library.

See Allison just walking off on Peyton Place into the unknown, or Stella Chernak leaving town as a disgraced woman.

I'd assume it might turn up on whoever owns Lorimar's catalog at worst? I don't think they'll let it lay on the shelf after all that job digitizing it. But another FAST service seems likely.

I think this is what trips us up with their shows having high clearances - yes, they were airing the shows, but at what time? I also imagine that it would screw up any nationwide promotional efforts for these shows. Why did NBC never push back on this, especially later in the 90s when they attempted to launch Sunset Beach? Maybe they had hoped that affiliates would choose the best time slot to optimize the ratings for those soaps, but clearly that didn't happen.

It did apparently serve as the theme song, yes. I doubt the show had any fans to make fan edits either way...

We all know those reality shows are scripted to hell and back so it was probably meant to drum up the internet shade machine.

Well, Freshman Dorm is on archive.org at the moment - it aired together with 2000 Malibu Road during the summer of 1992 as counter-programming against 90210 and Melrose Place. It stars among others Robin Lively, Matthew Fox and Casper Van Dien. I will say it's sort of a basic soap set up - three girls from different backgrounds sharing a dorm room and it's definitively soapy. You have the naive midwestern girl (Lively), the hispanic girl from a blue collar home having to work to make it through college and the rich tart who loves all the guys (but has especially taken an eye for the lone black guy at the dorm). I'll say it's very soapy from the start and would've made a fun night along with 2000 Malibu Road - shame they threw it away on programming it against THOSE 90210 summer episodes as it stood no chance against manwhore Dylan cheating with that snake Kelly against poor innocent and sweet Brenda! If CBS had actually programmed the shows another night and been able to order more episodes they might've gotten something going with that elusive 18-49 demographic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - this will basically lead to new paint, re-stuffed couch and maybe some throw pillows if they managed to steal enough pocket change from the actors. That the chair would survive the fire and not be completely smoke-damaged at least is lol. I'm not sure if the backstory of Tom and Alice will be sweet or a trainwreck. Hopefully they went back to the source material for that as I recall they did write a bit of their background in the OG storyline bible. I think Julie (and Doug, for now) re-building the Horton house isn't the worst storyline.

Promo for Aaron Spelling's little heard of The Round Table, which debuted on NBC in the same season as Melrose Place: Theme songs: