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When the Writers Guild of America’s strike came to an end last September, the writers on all four soaps got back to work, and for three of the shows, material crafted by the regular writing teams was back on air by the end of the year. The exception was Days of Our Lives, which shoots seven months in advance, the biggest tape-to-air gap among the soaps by far. While DAYS Head Writer Ron Carlivati and his writing team reclaimed their roles in October of 2023, the material they crafted won’t hit the Peacock sudser until May 31, he confirmed in an exclusive interview with TV Insider.
The Daytime Emmy-winning scribe told the outlet that the long wait has “been very tough” and that he was “very anxious and eager” for his new material to begin airing. He explained that the non-WGA authors who scripted DAYS in his absence initially tried not to make major story moves, hoping the strike would be resolved soon, but it was ultimately a whopping 148 days until the WGA reached an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers, forcing the interim writers to advance stories already in play as well as launching new plots. “From January to May, those were not my stories,” Carlivati declared. “I had nothing to do with those.”
Carlivati shared that when he reclaimed the head-writing reins at the show, he sought to “get back to a show that I understand and can enjoy and tell,” which in his view meant bringing several in-progress tales to a swift resolution and working to bring others to a satisfying, albeit more drawn-out, conclusion. And much to his delight, Carlivati learned that several major beats in stories he had crafted before the strike still hadn’t played out — which meant that he could script them in accordance with his vision. Of the epic Nicole baby switch saga, he said, “I didn’t get to play all of it, but the part with Eric finding out he’s the dad, at least I got to do.”
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Oh, Baby: Carlviati has big reveals in store for (from l.) Nicole (Arianne Zucker), EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) and Eric (Greg Vaughan) where baby Jude is concerned.
He also teased that fans who felt cheated out of a more explosive Nicole/Sloan showdown can breathe easy, noting that he was able to script a juicy confrontation between wronged mother Nicole and the woman who was knowingly passing off Nicole’s “dead” baby as her own adopted child. And in the future, Carlivati pointed out, he would get to write the reveal of Xander learning that he is Victor’s son, and Alex finding out that he is not. Carlivati also confirmed that the role of Gabi (formerly played by Camila Banus, who exited last year) has been recast, so fans can look forward to “a new Gabi getting out jail to shake things up.”
On a more somber note, in November the show will broadcast the Carlivati-crafted 15,000th episode of the show, which will center around the passing of the beloved Doug Williams, played by Bill Hayes, the veteran DAYS star who passed away in January. As previously reported, there will be multiple familiar faces from the show’s past on hand for that landmark occasion, including Kristian Alfonso as Hope, Gloria Loring as Liz and Melissa Reeves as Jennifer. “We worked hard to honor Bill and Doug and also use it as a way to celebrate the show and celebrate this milestone,” Carlivati declared.
