Any storylines altered or dropped because of real world factors?

[Darn]

Did Hogan Sheffer create that whole spa kidnapping story on ATWT because 3 of the show's leading ladies were pregnant at the same time? Or was it just two of them? I can't remember.

[titan1978]

I thought it was all three, and yes he did.

[SouthernChick]

Yes. Jennifer and Peter when Missy Reeves left the show due to her affair with Jason Brooks.

[titan1978]

The affair that has kept on giving on soap sites since it happened.  I truly cannot blame her- I also would have had an affair with Jason Brooks!

[will81]

The bomb story was 1995 and it did get affected by the bombing that happened. From April 27, 1995

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Edited November 10, 2021 by will81

[Frank2803]

 I love when the creators can come up with a clever way of getting rid of a mistake 

https://youtu.be/4SmnLASJ8_I

[will81]

On Y&R Nikki and Victor's story was altered when Melody became pregnant. There were no plans for Nikki to have a baby at that point, but Bill Bell simply rolled with it and incorporated her real life pregnancy into the story. It would be interesting to know what Bell had planned originally and whether the Bancrofts were added only after Melody became pregnant, or if they were added because of her pregnancy. 

[watson71]

In 1985, Another World had started a storyline involving Carl Hutchins stealing an Egyptian treasure with the show's younger couples- Nancy and Chris and Marley and Jake- involved as well.  The show originally planned to film location sequences in Egypt; however, this changed when the Italian cruise ship The Achille Lauro was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front off the coast of Egypt on October 7, 1985. An American man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard. Since the location sequence in Egypt was deemed too dangerous, the show wrote into the storyline that Carl Hutchins had transferred the Egyptian treasure to the Arizona desert and hid it.  The location sequence was filmed in Arizona later in October and aired in November.

[Frank2803]

Who shot JR came about because of contract negotiations stalled between Larry Hagman and the producers 

[Frank2803]

The who shot Jake storyline on Another World came about because of stalled contract negotiations with Tom Eplin 

[FrenchBug82]

If we are including behind-the-scenes events in the "real world factors" that impacted storylines, I imagine the list of pairings that were broken up because of actors dating/breaking up and/or actors intensely disliking each other must be very long - and even longer if we included the feuds and hookups we in the public know nothing about.

[applcin]

And actors' old age/illnesses/deaths. 

GH de-aged Edward Quartermaine with John Ingle after David Lewis retired, thus opening up different story possibilities, including the revelation of a past affair with Mary Mae Ward. Her portrayer, Rosalind Cash, was diagnosed with cancer while she was on the show, which I think cemented the growing role of Laura as Earth Mother, which, in turn, I believe started with Genie's pregnancy (scrap the potential action adventure stories).

The losses of Douglass Watson (AW) and Michael Zaslow (GL) impacted their respective shows...and OLTL even wrote the return of David Renaldi to bring Zas back there after he was ill.
 

[carolineg]

Well, I don't know if Missy's backstage stuff changed the story of Jen/Jack/Peter, but the recast certainly killed the momentum.

Also, this is probably not the most egregious case, but you could tell onscreen when NL and TC broke up in real life as Nik and Emily.  The (small) amount of chemistry they had was completely gone lol

[Frank2803]

I wonder what the writers had planned for Roger Thorpe before Zaslow was terminated?

Also plans for Mac Cory before Watson's untimely death 

[watson71]

I'm sure AW had a storyline planned where Iris would get back into Mac's good graces, and Rachel would have been skeptical of everything Iris did.