Good ("Good"?) News and Bad News

So Days of Our Lives finally got renewed, though only for 18 months.  If the writing doesn't significantly improve, that will be the longest year and a half of my life.  Lord, beer me strength.

The truly bad news is that in order to meet the budget cuts that were apparently part of the renewal package, a ton of actors may be on the way out. 

Soap Opera Digest reports:

DAYS Casting Shocker!
Hot on the heels of the news that DAYS got a pickup (at an extremely reduced fee from NBC), Digest has learned that negotiations between the show and Jay Kenneth Johnson (Philip) have broken down and the actor cleared out his dressing room yesterday. Money is said to be the main issue. "Everyone is being asked to take a paycut," reports an insider. Sources say the show is looking for a potential recast and actors are being brought into the studio today to read. A DAYS spokesperson says, "No comment."

That will decrease the younger male prettiness on that show by at least 33%!  Unacceptable!

And the rumors about who the additional cuts will be are not encouraging.  I swear, if they renewed this thing just to jam Marlena down our throats five days a week, I reserve the right to have all my Days posts be a series of moans and gasps.  (Assuming I could stay awake, and not have a smugness-induced stroke.)

poll by twiigs.com

P.S. Yes, a real Days post is coming soon.  The things I suffer through for you people.

Comments

[tanya]

It better not be "days of marlena's lives".

Axe her...keep the twenty somes and bring back mike and carrie (without austin).

[Jes]

I have missed the posts about Days, but I didn't complain because I haven't actually watched the show in two weeks. I might tune in again when Nicole is no longer pregnant.

[Nolebucgrl]

I'm not happy about JKJ being gone but as long as JS is still around I can hang in. And, you know, as long as it's not Days of Marlena's life. The nicest thing about the show lately is she's barely been on. They ought to axe her and Drake and then they can afford everyone else no problem.

[TV's Tim]

"Hot on the heels of the news that DAYS got a pickup (at an extremely reduced fee from NBC)..."

That's the key right there, I think. This isn't going to be good for DAYS. In fact, I don't think this is going to be good for anybody.

[Heather]

Any truth to the rumor that JKJ read the post on this site deriding his current hair-don't, realized that if they weren't willing to pay for a more-befitting-of-his-hotness 'do that it just wasn't worth it, and bailed?

[Nolebucgrl]

Not sure if you've seen the latest but supposedly Drake is out yet again.

[Chad]

I have intense nostalgia for DAYS, since my grandmother and I watched it together during its 1980s Golden Age, I stuck with it on my own up until the mid-90s, and thanks to an obsessive friend I've seen pretty much every major storyline from 1981 on. And I think it would be another devastating blow to the genre to have only two of the three "old guard" networks carry traditional daytime soaps. Even then I kind of wish they'd just cancel it rather than prolong its demise like this. It just isn't fair to the fans and the people who work on the show and genuinely love it.

A soap opera with a small cast just can't work, especially not DAYS, which has probably relied on large family dynamics even more than other soaps. Clearly the network just isn't interested in giving the show a fighting chance.

Now I should admit that I pretty much gave up on DAYS again since Hogan was canned, but it would still piss me off to see the show practically starved to death, especially because I know it will only get replaced with yet another hour of the ludicrously awful "TODAY Show" or another slot for even more "Law & Order" reruns.

[sss]

If you have to resort to gasps and mnoans, I promise to keep reading with raised eyebrow and/or squinty eyes. I will have to quit watching, though.

[Pillar of Strength]

"Not sure if you've seen the latest but supposedly Drake is out yet again."

GASP! moan...

[Lisa]

I also hear that *ultimate gasp and moan* that Deirdre Hall is out as well.

Feel better?

[Miry]

http://www.soapoperadigest.com/news/breaking/

[Nolebucgrl]

Free at last!!!! Gasp, moan, hair flip, "My Goodness!" exclamation.

[jbj]

OK, will Eric Marstof still be in? He'd make a better Phillip than Brady. Life without Drake and Deidre is do-able, but much like Passions, the show needs it's hotties to survive. Otherwise, they might as well put it out of it's misery.