Why is days of our lives so bad

There were already Days of Our Lives fans who were up in arms about the venerable NBC soap opera moving full-time to NBCUniversal’s streaming platform Peacock. But then even more Days heads cried foul last week, when coverage of Elizabeth II’s death preempted the soap’s final broadcast moments. A move to streaming should ultimately please everyone – a different ad structure could mean longer episodes, once new episodes are filmed for Peacock, and exclusive streaming means no cut-ins for breaking news programming.    

DAYS OF OUR LIVES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Thanks for calling, Dad,” hotshot exec Alex Kiriakis (Robert Scott Wilson) says as he sits behind his huge desk at TITAN. “Send Sonny all of my love and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.” And when Stephanie Johnson (Abigail Klein) enters, Alex says it was her press release that helped level out TITAN’s stock price plunge.

The Gist: After 57 years on broadcast television, Days of Our Lives has left the dwindling pack of network soap operas for a new life on streaming. But other than the platform, it’s the same saucy drama. When the brash Alex asks Stephanie to “celebrate” with him over cosmos, he’s promptly taught a lesson in professional boundaries by the PR executive. And at the DiMera family mansion, the fallout from Jake’s memorial service includes Johnny (Carson Boatman) hopping into bed with Ava Vitali (Tamara Braun). His father EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) hates her, but that’s cool with Johnny because he hates his dad. EJ isn’t a fan of Li Shin (Remington Hoffman), either, who’s engaged to DiMera CEO Gabi Hernandez (Camila Banus). “Now that it’s over,” an icy EJ says of the memorial, “feel free to make a tasty yet hasty exit.” Shin says he’s waiting for Gabi, who’s in the family mausoleum saying goodbye to Stefan, her husband who’s been dead for four years, who was also the now dead Jake’s brother. And that’s when Stefan (Brandon Barash) walks through the door. “Hello, Gabi.”

If you thought Salem mayor Abe Carver (James Reynolds) was going to run for governor, think again. It’s actually Paulina Price (Jackee Harry) who’s running, to the surprise of Paulina’s daughter Chanel (Raven Bowers) and her girlfriend Allie (Lindsay Arnold), who just made 10,000 “Vote for Abe” cookies at the bakery they operate. Stephanie is also running PR for Paulina and Abe, and she aims to promote them as Salem’s political “power couple.”

While Gabi tries to explain that Ava’s sightings of a dead Jake – the ones that have been making her crazy, to the point that Johnny says EJ might be gaslighting her – were actually real, because she was actually seeing Stefan, the guy who’s suddenly not dead doesn’t want to hear about Jake, or Jake’s suit that he’s wearing, or Gabi’s supposed love for him. “I donated Stefan’s heart, and it’s inside Julie Williams right now!” she exclaims, but Stefan counters that Dr. Rolf (Richard Warton) gave him a new heart, and even tears open his shirt to show her the scar. “I’m Stefan,” he says. “That much I’m sure of.” Well, that makes one of us.

Like all other daytime broadcast shows for the week, “Days of our Lives” was preempted all or in part on Thursday, September 8 (full) and Friday, September 9 (41 minutes) due to NBC News coverage on the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III. The episodes were made available without interruption on Peacock, giving fans another reason to sign up for the streaming service which is currently selling premium subscriptions for as little as $1.99 a month or $19.99 for an annual plan through the end of September.

A complete look at how daytime broadcast performed during the week of September 5-9, 2022 will be posted shortly.