te.

I'm stunned that not only a new soap is being developed, but that it's being developed for broadcast. I assumed the next time we'd see a new soap would be for an online streamer! On one hand, it hasn't been ordered yet, but on the other hand would they bother putting it into development if they weren't viewing this as a sure thing to go to broadcast?

IIRC, it was because DvD's character has been in the same war as Tommy. Plus, they had already shown some rare flashbacks in relation with Mikey's amnesia on Suzanne's 50th anniversary.

I think it expands when the apartment complex explodes at least I think several people sleep there in the immediate aftermath (though maybe they got mattresses all over the floor I guess). The real beach house was bigger (it's torn down now since a few years back RIP), so I assume they just reverted it to the actual floor plan of that house. I'm guessing they wanted to downplay the size when Michael and Kimberly moved in to make it seem a bit more modest for their financial standing (but no one really cared lol).

A quick look at his Wiki and apparently he went to Betty Ford in the 90s. So he was an addict and probably affected his behavior off set. Hollywood might not care if you're an addict (a lot of actors have substance abuse issues), but once it impacts the production, you're toast. He mostly seemed to do guest spots, so I guess he could pull it together short term, but probably was a mess for longer productions. Aaron Spelling was loyal to actors, but after the Mod Squad movie he only threw him a bone for Vega$ and Fantasy Island and then didn't work with him again for 15 years until a guest spot on 7th Heaven.

Well, I randomly came across this today: Seemingly it's a short-lived attempt at a syndicated soap opera from 1995 starring Maree Cheatham, Raquel Gardner and Ash Adams. It's an adaptation of Mexican telenovelas Tu o nadie and Acapulco, Cuerpo y Alma and was presumably sold as either a package of 60 or 120 episodes. It wasn't successful, but I guess someone found the time to upload the series to YouTube in the 60 episodes format; I guess it's a bit of a curiosity as an attempt to break daytime soaps into the syndicated market.

Yup. They were so-called "satellite" hits. Shows that were in proximity of an actual huge hit and they fed off it - I think comedies also had an easier time to retain viewers because at worst they're mildly amusing to spend an half hour (while maybe doing something else), especially if you're not going to switch the channel anyway. NBC's Thursday murder night of Friends / Satellite Comedy / Seinfeld / Satellite Comedy / ER was a factory plant for these sort of "false" hits. What's funny about Coach is that they were going to reboot it a decade or so ago, but realised once giving it a direct-to-series order that it wasn't going to work. Allegedly the stars got paid for the entire episode order (I believe it was ten episodes), but I think only a pilot was filmed, if that.

I guess this falls under "Counterprogramming to try and sabotage another network, shows survival be damned", but scheduling Freshman Dorm / 2000 Malibu Road against Beverly Hills 90210 / Melrose Place during the late summer of '92. While 2000 Malibu Road outrated Melrose Place because that was getting weaker post-premiere, Freshman Dorm just bombed against The Summer of Deception (aka Douchebag Dylan and That Snake Kelly Gets It On), because how couldn't it? It just seemed like ruthless counterprogramming where they almost weren't that concerned with the success of their own shows as much as trying to damage the Fox line-up. It was summer, so it wasn't like there weren't other timeslots available... Okay, Freshman Dorm was maybe too young to last on CBS (though I could see it being a cute show to on early Sunday evening), but 2000 Malibu Road clearly had potential to replace the aging Knots Landing. Either way, both shows probably could've rated better away from the Fox line-up.

Interesting since in recent years the syndication number has been lowered to more like 80-90-ish episodes (ie three months of daily M-F stripped syndication), so there's a lot of examples in recent years of shows lasting four seasons.

Honestly, finding a new villain for a soap is not exactly a problem as long as they get the casting right. Sheila's just done way too much over the decades to be able to work as a character interacting with other characters on this show. Just start writing new villains with blank slates that can actually convincingly manipulate people without them looking dumb as hell as a result. With that said, Sheila will be back when Bradley needs a ratings boost.

I agree with you - once you start getting into the later part of the season when Amanda enters you there's a strong focus on the triangle (Alison / Billy / Amanda) and Jake and Jo. Other than that most of the cast starts going AWOL or just briefly appears. I think before they decided to go ahead with the Kimberly affair, Michael and Jane were also on consideration for the chopping block along with Rhonda and Matt. Matt probably won out because he's Darren Star's self-insert character, plus Rhonda started drifting from the show once she got with Terrance. TBH, they probably could've done something with her considering her professional dancer background (I guess they could've forced her into some sort of talent coach/agent role).

To be honest, I think Melrose would've been renewed for season 2 even without the Heather boost. It wasn't doing great, but looking at the other three dramas they launched that year - The Heights, Class of 96 and Key West, all bombed far worse than Melrose and networks rarely like to cancel all their new dramas (it's like admitting complete defeat). With that said, it probably would've had more of a The Colby's run of two-seasons-and-done as I'm sure they might've moved it from the safe space of the post-90210 halo. On a related note I've been watching failed soapy dramas this year and am on The Heights and Class of 96. I don't think either is too bad if you like these sort of early 90s shows. The Heights is probably trying to be a bit too heavy on the social issues of the day and in all honesty, I'm preferring Class of 96 as it feels a lot lighter (for now - I'm only two episodes in). Which is funny since "heavy" isn't a thing you'd normally associate with Aaron Spelling shows. You kind of have to wonder how something like The Heights would've turned out if Fox had more patience with it and it lasted into Melrose Place going full-on barmy soap. Even the mothership didn't escape Melrose's influence.

Sheila is just a well that's dry, yet they keep going back for no good reason. Soap psychos / short-term villains are probably the easiest characters to write for (if not cast). And in all honesty, a new character would probably make as much sense as Sheila doing these things.

The early episodes are a bit... earnest and most doesn't work due to them being in their 20s... learning lessons that you'd expect the kids on 90210 to learn, and as a result it sort of become cringe-worthy. 90210 suffered from this in their later seasons when they'd occasionally tried to do "Issue of the Week" storylines and all characters ended up looking dumb as hell (like when Kelly had to explain to Donna about street prostutition in season 8).

I don't think it actually looked *too* horrible until the last episode: 8.3 - 7.2 - 7.2 - 7.5 - 5.9. I guess because they had the Perry Mason and Saved by the Bell tv movies scheduled to air in the slot, they might've thought The Round Table couldn't sustain those breaks and the last airing didn't inspire them much hope? It didn't rate that differently from I'll Fly Away bar that last performance and considering the trajectory of prime time soaps in general I'd at least given them 13 episodes to prove themselves. But maybe this is also why NBC just couldn't catch a break with prime time soaps - a lack of patience.

Have fun! Even if people keeps dragging up Amanda as the moment the show changed, I'd argue they started having their first serialized moments (beyond the lame 90210 cross-over) earlier than that - around episode 11 if I remember correctly.

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. 😊