DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[will81]

Absolutely never

Plus they hinted Kristen was basically a sex slave at the Harem. Not sure they ever got explicit with it though

[Sapounopera]

They should have done this. On ATWT  they had Lucinda marry a character played by Laurence Lau, who was obsessed with Luke. (If I remember correctly). 

[Contessa Donatella]

Hmm. I see the resemblance but that was an actor named John James, I believe. At any rate  not Larry Lau. But, a guy who had been on Dynasty & some other stuff. He had a great character name, Rick Decker. Check it & I think you'll find John James.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Tonksadora
Typed a ? in the middle of name.

[Paul Raven]

John James played Rick Decker who married Susan Stewart.

Larry Lau played Brian who  was involved with Lucinda.

[Contessa Donatella]

OH! My oops. Thnx. And sorry. I should've looked it up & not gone on memory.

[Joseph]

No I believe That Was Brian Played By Laurence Lau, A middle aged man who was a closeted GAY, He married Lucinda but seemed more interested in Luke, they kissed around 3 times and Ruined Luke's Relationships with both Lucinda and Noah, he was referring to, didn't even now John James was on ATWT

[Spoon]

He was a doctor at memorial who was murdering patients.  Bob was accused and son Chris took over as chief of staff making it look like an ambitious Chris was framing his dad.  Chris was portrayed as real shady at this time.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Paul's right. They both were & I never thought of it, but they look alike. Weird.

[AbcNbc247]

Beautiful tribute by the Days cast. Did any other soap do something like this after 9/11?

 

[DRW50]

I think GL did but I may be wrong. 

That is lovely, moving. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I never saw that before. Thnx for posting it. I can't come up to this day without in some way going back there, that day & for some long time after, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. It's just like living through Camille all over again. Certain touchstones in your life just never lose their grip on you.

[AbcNbc247]

Thanks.

I would imagine that the NY soaps would have done something 

You’re welcome 

[dc11786]

There was a change in writers. Marlene MacPhearson and Darrell Ray penned EJ and Will's relationship with heavy homoerotic subtext because they had no real story for Will after coming out. Even if they wanted to go there, and I'm not convinced it wasn't anything more than gaybaiting, production wasn't super supportive at the time. Greg Meng stated when MarDar were leaving and outlining the future for "Days" that the gay story wasn't what was bringing in the 18-49 female demographic or something of that nature. Though Gary Tomlin and Christopher Whitsell within their first five to ten episodes turned around and had Sonny track down Will post explosion to declare his love for him and for Tad to turn around and beat the crap out of Sonny because he was gay with a less than subtle suggestion on Sonny's part that Tad's feelings regarding Sonny's sexuality was more about Tad's insecurities. 

I'm pretty sure Will and Sonny was the plan from the end of Higley and Whitsell's run. I know Whitsell was technically out of the credits by the time Sonny was introduced in June 2011, but the story setup for Gabi's pregnancy seemed to be in the works. Gabi had a brief bout of pneumonia that landed her in the hospital in the summer of 2011 which I figured would have been used to explain later why Gabi would be able to hide her pregnancy. MarDar definitely spent time and energy developing Will's coming out, but I never got the sense they knew what they would do with Will after he came out. As I recall, he was kept pretty isolated from the rest of the younger set in 2012 until Tomlin and Whitsell returned and then Will seemed to be more central to the youth set while his story still impacting his family. 

NBC is more likely more conservative than CBS, and the reaction wasn't stellar, but "Young and the Restless" did something similar with Adam Newman and the attorney Rafe Torres. Granted, that was something that has been pretty much scrubbed from history, but it was a thing for a moment. Even if they didn't "go there," they could still have easily had Sami convinced that EJ and Will were sleeping together with Will later making a play at EJ that he rejected that could have led to some interesting drama. Though very little actually happened between 2011-2012 between Tomlin runs. 

I'd argue that a lot of the "interference" MarDar faced was their own inability to work within the budget constraints of the shows tight budget, which is something that had led to a sudden dismissal of Paula Cwikly and Peter Brash as headwriters a decade earlier. For one, MarDar didn't understand how contract guarantees worked. You can't have Matt Ashford starring in a story with a once-a-week contract guarantee or Lisa Rinna for that matter. For MarDar to have been successful, they would have needed to be paired with someone who could have made their day to day storytelling compelling, which is odd because I believe most of the people who had worked under the previous regime stated. That group was use to taking Higley's underdeveloped plans and turning them into something compelling. What I mostly remember MarDar for is that Marlena and Sami's family got a lot of good character developing material while everyone else seemed to flounder until their wedding anniversary or birthday came up and that was remembered. Or the inability to choose whether the audience was rooting for Sami with Rafe, EJ, or Lucas.  

[Contessa Donatella]

How in the world could they work in the biz & not understand that fundamental?

[carolineg]

I would assume they didn't consider it in their budget?  They understood the idea, but JER, for example used Eileen, Drake, and Deidre over their guarantees and the show paid for the overages back then.  They probably were more concerned about story and just didn't think about how much it would cost.  I can understand they were just interested in the product they were producing over the costs.  Some people (especially creative ones) just aren't that budget minded.  I mean, Days looks like it cost $5 dollars to produce at this point lol-it's probably extremely difficult to make that work.  I liked a lot of stuff MarDar and Cwickly and Brash did.  Higley was clearly more business minded, but horrible.  I thought Higley personally hated the characters of Marlena/John as well, which probably isn't ideal if Days is the show you are writing.