12 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Even if she said she had a soft spot for him because he briefly thought John was his father and Diana was a mess I'd take it.

That would make sense.

Let's have a book club of Marlena and all the people who thought they might be a child of John or of Marlena.

On 2/10/2026 at 5:07 PM, Paul Raven said:

With Days taping so far in advance, I wonder if they are doing any type of audience research?

A-because it costs money and B seems pointless to bother finding out what the audience is interested in when there is no opportunity to respond until a year down the line.

Now I 've never been in favor of shows writing to the dictates of fans, but I'm sure in the case of something like Body and Soul, there would have been a lot of negative feedback from research, online etc that the whole thing would have been wrapped up way earlier if the show was only a few months ahead.

Now they are flying blind, without the likes of Bill Bell or Agnes Nixon at the helm.

This has been an issue for DAYS for 15+ years, which has been frustrating at times. However, DAYS did have an advantage because it always streamed well. NBC and then Peacock have always been able to analyze which scenes people skip/FF, replay, engagement, etc. It's probably what brought some characters back and increased or reduced guarantees for others.

There are pluses to not being able to make changes on a whim is that the writers can execute the story as they intended or make organic changes based on what they see in the studio.

Sometimes soaps have been far too reactionary to vocal minorities and trashed good stories midstream. The whole Maleswen mess - cutting short a controversial, but attention-getting story and slapping together a revised story that was even worse. Far worse.

The good news is that we've got 2 1/2 more years of DAYS guaranteed. And, we'll know by next summer if the show continues.