Body & Soul takes over Salem.
While General Hospital is killing babies and The Bold and the Beautiful has a woman in a cage, Days of our Lives is… creating a fictional soap opera. And it’s the best move they could have made.
At first, the meta mention of Abe (James Reynolds) having a favorite soap opera seemed corny, until DAYS decided to embark on an entire storyline set around him saving the show from cancellation and hiring half of Salem to help him do it. After partnering up with Kate (Lauren Koslow) and hiring Leo (Greg Rikaart) as head writer of Body & Soul, they went on to cast Hattie (Deidre Hall), Bonnie (Judi Evans), Alex (Robert Scott Wilson), and Chanel (Raven Bowens) as fictional characters with outrageous names like Charlemagne and Arrow.
The self-referencing has only continued with Leo in charge, once including himself with the likes of “Irna, Agnes, Bill, Betty, and Ted,” referring to Guiding Light creator Irna Phillips, All My Children and One Life To Live creator Agnes Nixon, The Young and the Restless and B&B creator William J. Bell, and, of course, DAYS creators Betty and Ted Corday. Things got even more self-aware when Leo began writing Salem shenanigans into his scripts, including someone having a baby in a marsh and thinking it died, like Nicole (ex-Arianne Zucker), and writing about a woman with amnesia who comes back home, to which Chad (Billy Flynn) insisted upon finding out, “My life is not a soap opera.”
As Port Charles tackles a baby’s death and life contemplations on a rooftop and Forrester Creations reels over a series of murders and a woman trapped in a cage, DAYS has been like a light in the darkness among these heavy soap storylines. Garnering laughs by being so self-referential and creating comedy gold when Leo mixed up Hattie for Marlena (Deidre Hall) brought some lightheartedness to the current daytime lineup, allowing everyone to poke some fun at their favorite genre.
That’s not to say Salem doesn’t have its fair share of drama right now, from Sarah’s (Linsey Godfrey) hit-and-run to the mystery behind the fake Abigail, but it’s been balanced with a dash of comedy, something DAYS’ competitors have been lacking for a while.
Are you enjoying the “soap within a soap” on DAYS? Let us know in the comments.
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