Grandpa of soaps goes back to family matters

Deidre Hall

American soap Days of Our Lives (TV One, 1pm, weekdays) is going back to what it does best - character-based drama.

And the lead actors in the long-running American daytime soap couldn't be happier.

Days, as it's affectionately known, began in America in 1965 and celebrates its 40th birthday in November.

The soap has broken much ground. Issues which the folk of Salem, the fictitious American Midwest town setting for the show, have tackled include bulimia, drug use, adultery and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The show aired the first inter-racial romantic pairing seen on daytime television.

But in the 1990s, under the direction of head writer James E. Reilly, Days lost much of its gloss.

Taking a different path from other soaps, storylines included a heroine being buried alive by her arch enemy; Salem's resident psychiatrist, the beloved Dr Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall), battling possession by the devil; and one character with four personalities.

After Reilly's departure this year, the soap has reverted to classic character-driven plots.

Hall said the show, which has struggled in the ratings in America over the past year, was now back to "happy couples television".

"Our show is famous for super couples," Hall said on the set of the show in Los Angeles' Burbank. "They are our stock in trade."

She should know. Marlena and John Black (Drake Hogestyn), form probably the show's greatest love match.

Hall, who has been on the show for 30 years, said she was looking forward to another three decades on Days. "It is a lovely place for me to be," she said.

In the world of soaps anything can happen, and her character is a good example of this.

"Marlena has been through kind of a rough ride over the last year," Hall said. "She ended up killing nine of her closest friends and then she ended up being locked on an island and then in a castle.

"Now she is home and pregnant. That is just the last year."

Another veteran Days star, Suzanne Rogers, who plays Maggie Horton, said the show had returned to what it does best - "heartbreak and romance".

"The audience will be happy because I think they have been kind of like, 'Take me into the love'," Horton said.

She said family had played a large part in the show's success. Storylines revolving around the family unit were what had got the show off the ground in the first place.

"The audience fell in love with the core family. At that time it was the Horton family," Rogers said. "Then they brought in the Brady family and then other families have branched out from that."

Melissa Reeves, who has recently returned to Days to play journalist Jennifer Horton, agreed.

"People love the strong family connections and the marriages."

Reeves said character-driven storylines had proven to work best for ratings.

"It is fun to try other things," she said. "But when you have such an incredibly strong fanbase that says this is what we like and this is what we don't like, and you go against it, they will switch off."

Billy Warlock, who recently returned to the show after an 18-year break, said the daytime world was a "very fragile place to be right now. Competition out there is fierce."

- AAP