September 28 - October 2, 2009

[JackPeyton]

Here what changed... well, what i noticed change anyways.

-The show finally freed itself from what was holding it back. yes i am talking Jarlena here. I loved them, i really did. But the fact was they as a couple has ran a course and there was nothing else to do. The show killed him and started to rebuild her but then gave in to the fanbase and brought him back. Once they cut them and other couples with vocal fanbases who will not allow the couples to evolve or break up and move on (Shelle, Payla, even J&J years earlier).

-They then started to build an overall story with many little, side, and sub stories. The baby swap. This involved most of the canvas. Nicole, EJ, Sami, Mia, Brady, Stefano, Will, Chad, Maggie, Roman, Caroline, Rafe, Ari, etc... and they plotted it to perfection, so far, and its still playing out without dragging out due to all the sub stories in the overall story.

-Romance! Days added a ton of romance. Sami/Rafe, Nicole/EJ, Kate/Daniel & Daniel/Chloe & Chloe/Lucas (like it or not), Bo & Hope had romance scenes, Philip & Stephanie, etc...

-They weaved in new characters without forcing them. Mia was brought in for Nicole to get a baby and they wrote her out but then brought her back to town as Will retunred and they met. They brought on her baby daddy months after us hearing about him here and there. Rafe was only with Sami for months. Ari was brought in slowly. None of these people drove story, nothing revolved around them, for months after they came on.

-use of vets. The show wasnt hit as hard by losing a slew of evts because days used the vets they had. Suddenly Caroline, Victor, Maggie, Stefano, Bo, Hope were all being used. Maggie Horton is a supporting playing in many storylines. Victor & Stefano are real characters again.

Pretty much it became a classic cliche soap opera. Affairs, Secrets, Lies, Romance, Baby swaps, etc.. and it worked.

[DRW50]

I can see both arguments about whether DAYS will go up or not. I'm surprised when any soap goes up now. As for B&B, I think they have been so predictable and so defeating to watch for about 6-7 years now, they always manage to get rid of anything promising and keep repeating the crap. I'll be surprised if they hold it together this time.

[JimTolkien]

I take sick twisted pleasure in seeing Y&R nosedive!!! Rubbish, breeds more rubbish!! It's always the FALLOUT of the stunts that is the most important. They actually did fantastic, only losing 314,000 viewers for the week!! But nothing is being done wrong, the show and its storylines are just "dandy"!! I am more interested in seeing next week's rating to see if they bounce back somewhat.

[jcar03]

You may think that DAYS alienated the Marlena/John fans but they are the non-factor. Clearly, they aren't Nielsen viewers, there was no massive drop in ratings when they were written out. Viewership is up or holding steady and I don't miss them in the slightest.

[aMLCproduction]

Good Points jack and the rest of you who spoke on Days behalf

[Sindacco]

And if B&B continue to suck.

[ChiTownBoi03]

Good for DAYS! I agree with the poster who said DAYS minus Higley is the way to go. I actually believe her to be the link in the chain. The stories are good, but the execution of them are *Higleyfied.* Otherwise, truly believe they can beat B&B.

[JackPeyton]

nothing about anything on days is higly. you can tell. i like the woman, so if i seen anything that reminded me of her id boast about it.

but she is there for two reasons - what she did during the strike and because for some reason corday doesnt seem to mess with her when shes there.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Corday will continue to keep Higley on because she stepped in during the strike, wrecked her rep with the Guild and other daytime writers to ghost write DAYS while her husband was given on air credit as a cover. It's well known in the soap industry, and it's one of the reasons Corday will always back her -- she knows where the skeletons are buried. That's why Corday doesn't mess with her. It's also why I can't get behind this show. Too much underhanded crap has been pulled by Corday (what he did to Sheffer and his team of writers during the strike being one of them) over the years. As for what's showing up on air now, it's traditional soap storytelling and that's not a bad place to go back to. Some of the other soaps should follow suit. I still don't see it leading to DAYS pulling into second place, though.

[ChiTownBoi03]

I disagree. I think there are still elements of Higley in the way stories are executed. Such as, the way Nicole's secret came out last week, as well as Kate's kinda-sorta comeuppance...good but not *great.* Her writing style is extremely bland, and it shoes in a lot of the scenes we get. If Whitesell actually implemented these types of scenarios himself, I believe it would play out differently.

[Chris B]

Everybody was praising Y&R for this stupid sweeps stunt that wasn't even done during sweeps and now look! The ratings are back where they were and they didn't even benefit bc it isn't sweeps. Why do people buy into this every time? Y&R's ratings last week were nothing to rave about.

[DRW50]

I think people are just happy when ratings go up. But I did think they would go back down, and they did. That they went back down after only a week is kind of sad. It suggests that people are less and less compelled by these gimmicks.

As for Whitesell, if he is the one who wrote for OLTL with Lorraine Broderick, I didn't think they were that great at payoffs either. I'm not sure if anyone on soaps now writes them properly.

[Toups]

Of course Y&R's ratings were always going to fall back down, but going up 3 straight weeks is pretty good, and the stunt worked for those 3 weeks in terms of ratings. I don't think anybody thought they were going to continue getting 5.3 million viewers for many weeks.

I think 5.3 million is something to rave about. It shows that the audience is still there....the potential audience. Once winter arrives, Y&R could reach 5.5-5.7 million....even if it's just for one or two weeks.

[EastMA2]

Toups, do you have the ratings for The Price is Right Repeats?

[Toups]

TPIR 3 (3:00pm)

1.4 HH

0.5 W18-49

TPIR 4 (3:30pm)

1.6 HH

0.6 W18-49