DAYS: Head Writer Ron Carlivati Departing Peacock Soap After Seven Years

[Vee]

It was an earful. I wonder if they got rid of that one. It was in the spring or summer of '15.

[All My Shadows]

Is this the new plan to save DAYS? Has the beating of the drums started? Either way, congrats, Salemites.

[Vee]

I'd like to know more about this. I know it was another soap within a soap or something. The Pickle Lila relish wars on GH in 2013 were a very pointed meta jab at Prospect Park - two competing outfits fighting over Lila's pickle brand and Tracy or A.J. vowing 'you'll never be the real Pickle Lila!' Oof.

[DaytimeFan]

This is surely good news for DAYS.

I loved the Brash and Cwickly era so welcome the return of Paula Cwickly. Jeanne Marie Ford has been associated with DAYS since 1992 so she has seen the good and the bad and likely knows the difference. 

[LondonScribe]

Just saw this now. I, too, really enjoyed Brash and Cwikly 20+ years ago, and didn’t understand why they were removed. 

As for Ron Carlivati, I can’t shake the feeling he could end up at Y&R in some capacity. If had not been for the Charles Pratt Jr ‘experiment’ of 2015-16, I’d say he 100% would never end up there.

[Vee]

I honestly expect very little to change.

DAYS has not had a major change tonally, stylistically or structurally since Jim Reilly. Every aspect of the show's production (what's left of it), music, editing, etc. is geared towards that sort of camp or post-camp aesthetic, to chase that dragon. Any attempts to mature the show or update it are generally killed in their crib. We've all seen it happen with other HWs more than once.

I wish Cwikly in particular well and I'm glad Ron is out, but I just don't think there is any will to ever truly change DAYS at this point. Not while Corday is there and not while much of the current audience has been geared to only remember JER and post-JER.

[glfaninnyc]

I would give one of my kidneys if their different plan in place involved talking Nancy Curlee out of retirement.

[janea4old]

FYI:  Cwikly and Ford have been fi-core since the 2007-2008 strike.
(Link to fi-core list)

Ford may have written during the 2023 strike, as she was on the DAYS writing team before and after the strike.   But it cannot be confirmed since those 2023 strike episodes were uncredited.

No idea if Cwikly or anyone else wrote for DAYS during the 2023 strike, since those episodes were uncredited.

Edited July 19, 2024 by janea4old

[Errol]

Without knowing specifically who the strike writers were, it would be ironic if those two were, in fact, writing during that era and a certain someone trashed those individuals only for today's news to be a result of something.

[AbcNbc247]

Any more hints?

[DRW50]

I think I stopped paying attention to DC around 2012 or 2013. Sounds like I missed the wildest period. The amount of fealty fans and cast were supposed to have for Ron will never not astound me. At least I haven't seen this as much at DAYS, although it may just be down to the soap press completely dying by the time he took over.

[BetterForgotten]

My feeling as well - they were writing uncredited during the strike, and now that some time has passed, they're being given the official job. 

[Michael]

If this was the team writing during the strike... we're in trouble.

[carolineg]

I think Ron could probably help GH for about a year.  That seems to be when he runs out of steam.  

The one thing I always liked about Ron is he seems to appreciate history.  Obviously he bumbles it a lot, but I have always felt he was passionate about a show's history and previous characters.

Intriguing. 

It's just a soap within a soap Abe got addicted to when that crazy nurse was holding him hostage.  The characters have some "wink, wink" names and the leads are Deidre Hall, Lauren Koslow, MBE, and a few other Salemites.  They are just supposed to resemble characters like Marlena, Kate, and Kayla and the styling is very OTT and 80's.   IMO, it's just Ron getting some inside jokes in.  It's not terribly offensive to me.  It's more eye roll inducing than anything.

[Vee]

I think he is, and I think unlike many others still in this business (or occasionally visiting/slumming) Ron does love soaps. The problem since the old days that has developed more and more over time is both his taste and his ego.

At some shows RC knows their history well as a viewer; at others he does not (like Days, I think). But his approach is often the same, a mix of fundamental retcons or just retcon tourism. If Ron can sprinkle superficial history in to get brownie points (like GH still often does now, with things like the return of White Jagger) he will, or he'll go too far with crass characters or outsize, grandiose sociopaths because he came to believe the early hype that he is the final remaining apex of the genre and the audience will either go with him or shut up and suck it up. He much prefers vixens or schemers to any conventional 'good' characters, and if he can't turn the good ones crazy or give them dopplegangers he will leave them as sort of clueless dupes and himbos and try to prove they are more sanctimonious and hypocritical than his favorites. We saw what a hash he made of GH's layered Guza-era young cast in particular, we've discussed it recently in those threads.

I will always cherish some of the work Ron did at OLTL and at GH, despite very very flawed times. I was one of his very first supporters at OLTL, before Daytime Confidential knew who he was (and before most of them frankly had ever bothered watching the show for very long). I knew it was something special in that early period after many years in the dark. But he also had a multitude of sins at OLTL and then at GH, he got high on his supply and he's stayed there. I think he loves soaps, but I think he loves them entirely on his own terms and within his own tastes, and if a soap doesn't share those he'll break it. I would not leave him in charge of a soap anymore without a counterbalance in the writers' room. None of which are going to exist.

Edited July 19, 2024 by Vee