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

[AbcNbc247]

And Kate’s character is played an actor named Margo Lynley.

Kayla’s is played by an actor named Katherine Bell

Steve’s is played by an actor named Tucker McCall. 

Definitely eye roll inducing

[Vee]

Oh good lord.

[teplin]

One of the increasingly few things I liked about his DAYS was that he still gave Susan and Suzanne stuff to do. Not very good stuff, but at least they've been on screen. And you can tell he loves Deidre, though he seems to get a perverse pleasure in using Marlena to prop up characters we could do without. 

[DRW50]

I feel like the show has changed tonally to somewhat severe degrees depending on the writers at the time. Higley, Brash/Cwikly, Griffith, Tomlin, Poulter and Thomas (I couldn't remember their names, but I remember how buzzed about and ultimately polarizing that period was [Rafe/Carrie and Will seeing EJ and Sami screwing and so on], Carlivati, all had their own styles, under the haze of Corday and whoever else still clinging to JER's ghost. That's how you get situations like Griffith coming in and immediately having the very unpopular Ciara rape story and the serial killer story, only for other writers to make said serial killer a hero and a stud, and so on. I don't think the writers form as much of a blob as you have had at Y&R or B&B for a long time. The problem is the show is so poorly supervised and buried under so many layers of old meta mockery, winking, and having no real idea who their audience now is, especially after moving to Peacock and taping 50 years in advance.

Edited July 19, 2024 by DRW50

[Vee]

All of that is exactly what I mean in my post, yes. I think McPherson/Thomas? and Josh Griffith in particular both tried to change the show stylistically and tonally, and both bombed out in very different ways.* But you could tell in each case that the post-JER DAYS house style re: chintzy music, corny editing tricks, day to day simplistic storytelling, stunts and Corday's own preferences heavily colored what was going on there as well, in addition to the mistakes the creatives themselves made. Griffith in particular often tried to make a very dark, gruesome show (Jigsaw is John's dad! Ciara raped on the family couch! Hope guns down Stefano! Serial killer on the loose!) and it also came off looking like the Disney Channel After Dark. 

*(I am well aware I am one of quite few McPherson, etc. era defenders here, and my viewing of that very flawed run was brief but hey, I loved her AMC 2.0.)

[soapfan770]

It eventually cost Kalouria his job in the long run—he had to jump ship to work for Martha Stewart before NBCU terminated his contract between the declining daytime ratings and demos by 2005 and Kalouria’s disastrous oversight of the Pax/i/Ion network when he pulled double duty. 
 

Kalouria has never worked for the networks again and last check was doing marketing for Sony. 
 

As far as Dante’s Cove it was a guilty pleasure of mine at the time. I still have the DVD’s I bought (dusting away with my DVD collection) and you’re right the material is a lot better than a lot of what has  been on the soaps in the last decade.

[Errol]

Interesting fact: Ron's material first aired on July 19, 2017. Today would pretty much mark seven years since his material first aired, although his scripts were first written in January 2017. At the time, the show was 7 months ahead. Now they are eight to nine months ahead. 

 

[Vee]

And I'd assume that back then Ron maybe came in with some semblance of a longform bible for a year or more at least. I'm not sure most HWs at soaps have been given that space and leeway since. I'm certain Mulcahey wasn't at GH, and we know Sussman at Y&R had zero time as well.

[VelekaCarruthers]

So was his half year (26 week) contract up at end of June and the announcement is just coming out now....that would be my guess given the production schedule (section below) from Jason47 website. The show has been dark since mid June

Week of 6/10/24-6/14/24 # 15056-15065 (airing 2/18/25-3/3/25)
Week of 6/17/24-6/21/24 DARK WEEK # 9
Week of 6/24/24-6/28/24 DARK WEEK # 10
Week of 7/1/24-7/5/24 DARK WEEK # 11

http://www.jason47.com/days/productionschedule.html

I noticed the Errol didn't say "and Ron isn't going to Y&R either"

Edited July 19, 2024 by VelekaCarruthers

[carolineg]

And Deidre's character's actress is named Jessie Witherspoon like her Our House character.  Obscure AF lol. 

Ron does bring in "history" but you can tell he doesn't know Days history at least.  The whole Sarah thinks she's Renee Dimera, the re-introduction of the devil, making Diana Coleville this evil woman who spawned Leo, etc. etc. 

Some plots are okay like bringing Megan Hathaway back.  That worked well enough.

I also appreciate how much he seems to love Marlena, Maggie, and Julie.  It's nice for them to be used even if Marlena mostly just props useless characters lol.

You did hit the nail on the head though.  I actually think a strong co-writer could reign him in a bit, but that would never work for RC.

[Maxim]

Congratulations to the fans. From what I've seen, the material was really really bad when he was HW. Cheers to all of you! 

[MichaelGL]

Yall I ran to this post, in fear that his replacement would be Dena Higley 

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Whew, I'm relieved. I hope Cwikly doesn't prove to be one of those writers who we regret coming back to the HW position, as I really enjoyed 2002/2003 era DAYS. 

[Vee]

I forgot to add Hogan Sheffer. That definitely happened with his run too, and I'm not defending it lol. He did plenty of messy shít at DAYS on his own terms and by his own choice, to say nothing of the Y&R debacle later. But he also had some good ideas at DAYS that did not go to fruition in large part due to Corday, and he and later Ed Scott both attempted to elevate the show (or in their way of thinking 'elevate', anyway) and both hit a brick wall and imploded. I remember knowing something was off when the supposedly adult, mature soap Sheffer was previewing in the mags suddenly collided with a Very Special Week of episodes in which John and Marlena were snowbound with special guest Smokey Robinson serenading them in a cabin in the mountains.

I can't believe they fúcked up a Possession revisit. That is a lay-up if done right, slowly and carefully during an anniversary period, the way JER actually did it back then with the run-up to the '90s storyline. Especially in an era when audiences are more into supernatural/religious horror than ever with the Conjuring franchise, etc. If you'd played it straight, like JER did back then and in these recent movies, you could have grabbed people.

Edited July 19, 2024 by Vee

[carolineg]

Ron played it for laughs.  And the devil just hopped into several people.  Allie, Johnny, Belle, Doug and so on.  JER took that devil stuff seriously.  It wasn't played for camp or laughs even if it was at times campy.  Ron also forgot the fact that at the Possession's core it was a love story between John/Marlena.   JER always had that throughline running even when the stories were ridiculous.  There was an endgame plot.  Ron just thought it was cool to re-visit it with half the budget.  And the whole point was to so the devil could steal Ben/Ciara's stupid kid lol. 

[DRW50]

Yes I remember actually getting into the show for a season or two (I wasn't as into the vampire spinoff). Thanks for catching me up on Kalouria. I did like Martha Stewart's talk show (those were the last years before she became a full self-parody).

Oh I forgot him too. I feel like he got a number of his fetishes on (the gruesome treatment of that Willow prostitute or whoever she was, EJ raping Sami), but yes, there were cases of him having all this idea of what he wouldn't do (like being aghast at cousins dating), that then surrendered to the inevitable.

I definitely see what you mean about potential not being met due to the rotting greenhouse that is the JER era and Corday's laziness/ineptness. I still think they sort of get chances to form their own voice, which is more than I can say for a number of other soaps (some now gone, some still around in zombie form), but it never works out, for the reasons you mention.