DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[Vee]

I haven't watched that material since I was a child, but the way I remember it was that while pre-psycho Kristen was invested in by the show, IMO there was never any doubt John and Marlena's connection remained the core of the story. I don't believe Deidre's age was ever a factor. I think they knew what they'd had since the '80s with them and were all in (at the expense of Roman, of course), at least until JER went off the reservation several years later with his Catholic shït and started flirting with John and Hope.

[jam6242]

The show also wanted to cut their guarantees in half and told them there would be no story for them.  I believe that Brian Frons, who was then VP of NBC daytime, was behind a lot of this, and then Maggie DePriest didn't want to write for them.

[Soaplovers]

Actually, their attitude toward Hope was in character and is even supported by psychology studies.  The most rebellious teen/adult often becomes strict when they become parents.  

 

The only problem I see was that the show didn't give any sort of voice to Doug/Julie to explain their perspective on opposing Hope/Bo.  Doug was a ladies man in his youth, so I could see him being the overly protective father to his daughter.. and he viewed Bo as a younger version of himself... while Julie could have been reminded of her more wild/carefree days when seeing Hope with Bo.. and wanting to prevent Hope from making the same mistakes as she did.

 

And to telegraph that... they could have had family counseling with Marlena to showcase this to the viewers so that it wasn't just a standard strict parents/ free spirited daughter story trope.

[titan1978]

By the time they left though, I saw Marlena as part of the action storylines with Roman and less as a therapist.  The show was trying to emulate Monty’s GH, and it sacrificed to make that fit.

 

Doug and Julie had been moved into the parent storyline, and it seems SSH was especially not happy with that.  Can’t say I blame her.  Plus it seems to me that Doug was at least being used at that point, and Julie was just hand wringing.  I think Kristian and Bill have wonderful chemistry as father and daughter.

 

By the mid 1980’s we had a slew of Brady siblings and they each had a romantic storyline.  When I think about the sheer amount of characters on this show at that point... it’s pretty crazy.  It is a shame that Doug and Julie were sidelined, as I am sure people felt the same about Alex, Mickey and Maggie, Neil, Liz, etc.

I didn’t really notice Julie when I was a kid, until she came back during the Cruise of Deception event.  I loved her back then, still do.

 

Wasn't there some friction between her and Alfonso at one point too?

Yeah, there was never any doubt that Marlena was always in first position over Kristin.

 

I loved Wayne the most as Roman.  I just wish they had thought out better what they wanted for “John Black”.  They scrambled and added so much nonsense that I still don’t know exactly who he is supposed to be.  The period of time when he was a priest was particularly stupid, possession not withstanding.

 

Especially because they didn’t write that well for Wayne, and he and DH didn’t have the same kind of chemistry she had with Drake.

[DRW50]

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by DRW50

[Sindacco]

I've heard over the years that it was NBC who thought Marlena was too old for John but that Reilly was pro-J&M. Don't know what's true or not.

 

But wasn't it after Maison Blanche and before the possession that John really courted Kristen when Tony was blind? I think he slept with Kristen before becoming a priest again. I only have 1994 episodes up until August so I haven't watched Sep-Dec since they aired. Going by memory here.

[Sindacco]

 

I haven't watched those years but it's my understanding that Alex was the main bad guy in 1979-80, no?  But watching 1982 and onwards, he felt like a secondary antagonist taking orders from players like Stefano and Victor. I don't remember him doing much his last six months on the show after Emma's death. I think if it hadn't been for Quinn Redeker's portrayal, Alex would have been written out much sooner. Speaking of which, his exit, torching the Salem Inn and being taken away in handcuffs, felt kinda lame for a character who had been on for eight years. But then again it seemed like many long-term characters were tossed aside back then. Don and Neil being the two infamous none-exits.

 

I have to say SSH was smoking hot when she returned in 1990.

[Dion]

hmmm...

 

**warning totally unfounded speculation...a conspiracy theory if you will**

 

Maybe J&M was Reilly's endgame all along, but to placate NBC he put John with the younger Kristen (even going so far as to give them their own long drawn out rocky path via Tony and then the priesthood) whilst simultaneously keeping Marlena front and center in a series of crazy situations that continually reminded viewers and fans of John and Marlena's love (Maison Blanche, Possession, the kidnapping of Marlena in Aremid post John's rescue from the gas chamber).

 

NBC eventually had no choice but to acquiesce to the wishes of viewers and Reilly and thus John and Marlena finally started to draw closer again. However, instead of just tossing Kristen aside, Reilly turned her into one of the most renowned villains of the 1990s which ended up garnering an emmy for Eileen Davidson.

[titan1978]

If that is true about NBC that is crazy.  And anyone running the show would not agree.  Because she cost a fortune.  Corday gave her all the money to return to the show, which was in real trouble at the time.  I do not know what kind of contract she had by mid Reilly, but it had to be at least as good if not better after he had centered a huge portion of the show around her.

I hate these network fools.  I was a teen back then, and I was way more invested in Marlena and Bo and Hope than I was Sami/Carrie/Lucas/Austin.  I enjoyed that quad too, but not as much as Bo and Hope.

 

[Sindacco]

I meant too old for John. Not too old to be front and center in stories. Again, this is one of the things I've heard over the years.

 

But I think the longer Reilly's tenure went on, the more power he had to write what he wanted to write.

[Franko]

I'm intrigued by how Marlena would have spent the rest of the '90s sans John and Roman. Would she become more of a talk-to character (as Maggie was)? Would we have gotten storylines with Marlena and Laura collaborating on patients? Could Eric have come back sooner? Or Johnny, the now-adult she nearly adopted in the '80s? What if the show ripped off Another World and had Marlena and Stefano becoming a genuinely loving couple?

[Khan]

 

Like I always say, the audience will go with you wherever you want to go, so long as you take the steps to get them there.  If the show had redeemed Stefano adequately, and if they had argued convincingly why he and Marlena belonged together, then I think a romantic pairing would have been successful.  Not everyone would have been won over, mind you, but not every AW fan who had remembered Carl and Rachel's history was won over by their romance either.

 

On the other hand, if DAYS had gone the Ciara/Ben route with Stefano and Marlena -- one where Stefano was "good" now, merely because (Stefano was taking his meds and) Marlena and others said so -- then I believe any attempt to pair them romantically would have backfired.  Even worse, it would have damaged Marlena as a character far more than anything this show has done to her since the mid-'90's.

 

I've always believed, too, that the worst part of pairing John with Marlena was that DAYS, and especially JER, had to "kill" the chemistry between Dee Hall and Wayne Northrop's Roman in order to make J&M more palatable to the audience.  As I've said on numerous occasions, it wasn't a fair enough fight.  Roman was made to look so cranky and overbearing that it made many question what Marlena ever saw in him.  In turn, that made WN vulnerable to being axed from the show (which I, as a Roman/Marlena fan, will never forgive the show for) -- when, in fact, if they had written it properly, they might have been able to keep Roman around and possibly pair him with Kate or even a returning Anna.

[Dion]

 

That reminds me that Reilly did in fact have Stefano lose his memory and become paralyzed for a few months post-possession (coz Mardevil threw him out the window or something?) and Marlena felt very guilty about it and moved him into her home!

Edited January 18, 2020 by Dion

[Franko]

Roman has deserved much better than he's gotten since 1991. It didn't have to be a game of King of the Mountain.

 

And I want to say he regained his memory from being struck by lightning in Aremid.

[Dion]

 

Correct, and he promptly bribed the judge to sentence John to the gas chamber.