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Beyond Salem Chapter 2 Discussion Thread


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Ron Carlivati was a guest at Digest's Podcast & I go sometimes to keep up with Steph & Mara:

Talked about Al wanting PR on the mothership which would be a tactical problem because PR lives in Alaska. Ron countered with what about having PR on Beyond Salem. Al jumped up & down. Then they thought they needed KA & asked her if she was interested & she wanted to know what the story was, so, Ron thought up a story & told it to her & she liked it so she was in. They went this whole way rolling like they do & just kept adding people to the roster & writing the story as they went. Referred to Harris as SBurton playing a Jason Bourne character. (I love Jason Bourne & Steve Burton is no Jason Bourne!) That he was reprising his original role, was just a little old thing of not very many appearances. Mara liked this because she considered it as a love letter to veteran fans & she thinks soaps should regularly be presenting their long time fans with love letters like this show. (I think she's right.) Steph thinks she's right. They ask themselves the question, "Who is this story being written for?" In Beyond Salem the show is celebrating & drawing upon its rich history. It behooves the shows to give the fans actors that the fans care about. They made an example about the Chin family. They got to the Emmys. Ron was unusually nervous all day. People kept telling him that he had a 50/50 chance of winning. (Nominated for both the mothership & Beyond Salem.) That just made Ron think, Well, yeah, cupcake, but that is also a 50/50 chance of losing!) So, he wrote two speeches & put them both on his phone. He was sitting in front with Al, Ken & Suzanne. He was on auto-pilot. Time passed. It was great seeing people that he hadn't seen in awhile. That part is always great! GH won many awards & DOOL had won bupkus, nil, zip, nada. Kelly Campbell from Peacock had come to the show to support them. The year before Ron had submitted the same reel/s to WGA & to NATAS & won WGA with it & didn't even get a nod from the Emmys. All of a sudden they called his name. Autopilot again! He's sure people could tell he was very nervous. He was! He was especially happy that Betsy Snyder's work was awarded the win. (She's a long time soap writer who died in 2021.) As soon as Beyond Salem 1 had been streamed Peacock reached out wanting another one & wanting it fast, which DOOL couldn't do. So, they suggested a one-off Christmas special & then later in the calendar year another Beyond. That was as much of the Podcast as I could do.
 
Earlier I tweeted: Hope & Bo were reunited in heaven today so the promise that they would be reunited has now been fulfilled. Hope was told by Bo that he would be with her in spirit always but that when it is her time they will be together forever. Then he sent her back to earth. Not her time.
 
And:
This is what DOOL is good at, that it has always been good at, & that it once was known for, not for gimmicks! Bless them for spending the bucks! "Tonight, I celebrate my love for you." #BeyondSalem2
 
And, look at the great picture of Boom Boom I saw! DOOL is trending, LOTS of pix!
 

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It's funny to hear Ron say he didn't wanna do season two when they first asked because he didn't have enough time to prepare. Watching BS2, I didn't get the feel that a ton of thought was put into this either. It was fun seeing Bo and Hope again (and Paul), but overall I felt this was weak. The one thing I liked is that they created a lot of strands that can continue on the main show like Wendy/Joey, Paul/Andrew, Megan, etc. I'm excited to see what they do with those loose threads, but overall I wish they'd take this show more seriously. 

I hope that if another soap gets the chance at a spin-off that they treat it as an actual limited series. Most limited series have 6-8 episodes, so they could easily tell a really well written story with a small amount of characters and give us good drama. I wish they'd do that instead of trying to cram so many characters in and so many locations into 5 episodes. If I had control over BS3, I'd do a Sami centered story set outside of Salem. They can't get Allison for long stretches, so that could be a good way to tell a story over a 5 episode period that's wrapped up. Of course they'd have to change the pacing and write the episodes like a primetime show to allow passage of time, but I think that would be a more successful approach. Each season can't be about a peacock or a prism.

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With Ron talking about how it came about it seems as if they were rolling along & making up the story as they went! They wanted to do something with Peter & they worked that out & next they wanted to have Kristian in it & she wanted to know what the story was, so Ron wrote it! And, they went along like that till they had a limited Edition piece.

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I'm curious if Beyond Salem 3 will be the conclusion to BS2 or it will be a new premise? But if it is a new one, they need to ditch all the "locales" and focus on maybe one or two central places i.e., Los Angeles and London so the stories and plots can flow better. 

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I agree - I don't see why they need so many characters + locations. BSII would've been better if they had just focused on the Bo/Hope and Megan story. This was way too bloated for five episodes.

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From the way that Ron Carlivati talks about their putting together the who - what - where, etc. of BS1 and BS2 I think they count the various locales & the groupings of people as foundational & basic to what they're doing. At the same time when he talks about their process, it seems very organic. Bottom line, though I would guess they are most attentive to what Peacock asks for! (He did a chat with Michael Fairman last week & yesterday he was the guest at the Digest weekly podcast. A lot can be gleaned from listening to him talk about it.)

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