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.

So, is this it for Billy Flynn?

It really feels like this is going to be his exit storyline. I guess I can understand Chad going to visit Will and Sonny with the kids, especially after everything that happened with Jack and Jennifer. Jeremy's part in this storyline seems a little forced and unnecessary though, even though Chad swore that him leaving is not related to Jeremy at all. He doesn't need to be any more of a clunky red herring than he already is. But I did enjoy Julie's scenes with both of them. Chad and Julie are always great together, and despite the clunkinness of Jeremy's storyline, I enjoyed his scenes with Julie as well and that she's always stood up for him against Stephanie, Alex, etc.

Speaking of Stephanie and Alex, congratulations, I think lol

As an individual episode, I thought their scenes were nice too, despite the obvious lack of budget. But overall, I still feel like the writers have missed the mark with everything related to them and their storyline. I mean, where's the drama? Why was the stalker not loaded up with a sniper's rifle and ready to shoot Alex at the altar? I'm not entirely against them getting married but Days really needed to send them to hell and back before they finally reached this point. Like, what happens now for them as a couple? If this is it for them, then they're the ones that should've been written out.

I felt the same way about Johnny and Chanel today as well. Their scenes started off really nice but then they got kinda stupid. And I would much rather Johnny had been the one to give her a prenatal massage rather than some random U/5. How do you waste the hot young couple like that? The money that Days used to pay her should have been used on an actor to play the stalker, that was going to shoot Alex lol. Carson's facial hair did look good though.

And even though I'm not a fan of Theo and Jada, I am a little interested in what's going to happen when they go out on their Valentine's Day date.