As 2017 comes to a close we are singing, “Oh, Happy DAYS” again!  That can be attributed to one of the smartest moves made by the long-running NBC daytime drama series to bring Daytime Emmy-winning head writer, Ron Carlivati to Salem.  Over the last six months viewers have been riveted to their screens with compelling story after compelling story, and well-conceived and executed arcs for some of the shows most revered characters and stars.  Next, add in shocking twists, and surprise returns that no one saw coming, along with dashes of humor and the outrageous, and you’ve got one delicious soap opera ready to be served to its audience.

When you look back at Carlivati’s work thus far, it has been hit after hit.  From the double wedding where we learn Will Horton is alive, to the hunt for the beloved young man which takes us to Memphis and lo and behold Susan Banks, to Sami Brady’s return to Salem and the havoc she caused in the process, to JJ accidentally shooting Theo Carver … which sets up a ripple effect that devastates two families that ultimately almost ends the lives of both Theo and JJ in very different ways, to setting the stage for 2018 by bringing in a new DiMera, and more.  Ron resuscitated Salem, and reinvigorated the show with new life, and made the show ‘can’t-miss’ daily viewing once again.

Therefore, On-Air On-Soaps has given our highest honors of 2017 to Ron Carlivati for being named “Soapmaker of the Year”, our annual recognition that goes to an executive producer and/or head writer for their work.  This is Ron’s fourth honor from us having won this award previously: twice for General Hospital, and once for One Life to Live.

After receiving the news of our year-end honors, Ron shared his thoughts on: the biggest DAYS storylines since he took the reins, what went into the decision-making process, and how certain top stories and appearances were constructed, and eventually made it to air.  In a comprehensive review of what had DAYS viewers buzzing about in 2017, and more, here’s what our honoree had to say about it all, and coming aboard the DAYS train after years as an ABC soap vet.  We hope you enjoy our final conversation of the year with Ron below. 

MICHAEL:

The response from the audience has been very positive to your first six months of air shows.  From your perspective, how do you think it’s gone?

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I am very, very pleased.  It was tough to be writing the show for so long, and yet waiting for the material to start airing.  You are operating in a little bit of a vacuum, but I would be getting some feedback from the studio, and some from the actors, and I was feeling pretty positive about that, but again, the audience is the true arbiter.  I was waiting with baited breath for July.  The fans have seemed to have responded to my version of Days of our Lives.  I feel the show has had continuous momentum, and I am happy with the whole result.

MICHAEL:

A lot of the actors who have been on the canvas really hadn’t gotten the opportunity to shine in material that has so much complexity and layers to it, as they have now under your pen.   I would love to talk about one of the great arcs of all-time that you gave to Alison Sweeney during Sami’s return to Salem, and the hunt for Will (Chandler Massey) and the fallout from that.  How was constructing that arc?  You gave Sami a rich full palette with many twists and turns.

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

There was a lot of pressure there.  Sami is such an iconic character, and the actress had moved on from DAYS, and she is doing a lot of other projects.  To ask Alison to come back is a ‘big ask’ to get her to do it.  So, I was willing to take on the pressure of getting Sami right, and deliver for Alison, and also the audience.  The story was there with Will being alive.  I knew that playing the ‘momma bear’, who wants answers about her son, is a no brainer.  But, I didn’t want the whole arc, because I had a limited amount of time with her to be just about that.  I had talked to Alison, and we had agreed that she would get to play all elements of Sami, not just the ‘momma bear’, but also the troublemaker.  I was trying to pack in as much Sami as I could in the time we had.  So not only did we have the story with Will, but I wanted her to also have some sort of lasting impact on the show when she left.  So, of course, that was sleeping with Rafe (Galen Gering) so that there is a secret she leaves behind.  I was just looking anywhere I could to enrich the experience of having Alison on the show.  I tried to stay as true to the character as I understood her, and always counting on my team, who know the characters on DAYS far better than I do.  I had a blast with her, and it was an easy character to write in a lot of ways.  Sami can kind of do anything, and sort of get away with it.  She can do things other characters cannot do.  It frees you up as a writer to say, “Wow!  I want her to do something drastic to bring Will’s memory back.”  Then I thought about what if she lets Ben (Rob Scott Wilson) out of the sanitarium, and recreates Will’s “murder”?  Needless to say, the whole time I am thinking, “Are they going to let me get away with this?” (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

That is what I wanted to ask you.  Was there pushback?   It was a great twist.

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

No, there was not.  It made perfect sense to me, but I thought when the powers-that-be read this they will go, “Absolutely, not” (Laughs).  I will say from Bruce Evans (Current head of programming, NBC) on down they supported that decision.  I guess they believed Sami Brady is a character that could get away with it.  It’s not that people didn’t pause and say, “Are we sure we want to do this?”  I usually have a good hunch and instinct that something is going to work, or will be good, but you always have that underlying fear of “What if I went too far, or what If everybody hates it?”  It did seem that the audience went with it, and that Sami can do something extreme if you understand why.  In her crazy twisted way, she is doing it out of love for her son

MICHAEL:

What did you think of the final scene where Sami says goodbye to Will before she leaves town?  It was so emotional with her waiting at the door hoping that her son will reach out and hug her before she has to leave him behind.  

RON:

Courtesy/NBC

Both actors were incredible!  I thought Alison from start to finish brought it.  I felt something in almost every single scene she was in.  It’s very funny, because my dad, who is a newbie to Days of our Lives, called me a week ago, and said, “I miss Sami. Why don’t you bring her back?” (Laughs)  Will’s journey to get his memory back is not a short one.  We weren’t ready before Christmas to have him flooded with his memories, because we felt there is still a lot of story to tell there.  The trick was: if Sami leaves would she leave if her son doesn’t have his memories?  We wanted to make sure there was a moment between them.  So, that even if Will does not remember everything that we feel OK about Sami going, because they have somewhat of a breakthrough in their relationship, and somewhat of a catharsis.  So, that was what the purpose of those goodbye scenes between them, and what it was all about. 

MICHAEL:

So, when you were head writer over at One Life to Live and General Hospital, were you aware of the gay storyline going on over at DAYS?

RON:

Yes, and even as a soap fan if there is a show you don’t necessarily follow, you see stuff online, or in the magazines, and so you sort of know by osmosis what is going on with other shows, even though you don’t watch them.  I was aware of the gay storyline with Will.

MICHAEL:

Having Chandler Massey back was such a great asset for you to have to begin your writing on the show!

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I know!  Having Chandler come back was one of the first things I pitched when I got hired by DAYS.  As an outsider, when the character was killed, the audience was not happy about it.  It seemed it was one of the things that audience wanted changed.  And then they might go with you when you come up with this crazy reason why Will is not actually dead. (Laughs)  Ken Corday (executive producer, DAYS) and the powers-that-be supported it.  We also agreed we did not want to do it without Chandler.  We did not know if he was going to be open to it, or available to do it, or what?  During one of my early trips to L.A., I had breakfast with Chandler, and talked to him about why we wanted him back, and what we were doing, and what the idea was. Lucky for us, he agreed to come back.  It was something on my wish list, and I got it, as well as having Ali back, and so I did pretty good with my Christmas list this year. (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

Let’s talk about the decision to have Will come back with amnesia.  Are you at all concerned that you might end up keeping that going a tad too long?  What is fascinating is that you brought Will back a little sneakier with a bit of an edge, and as a young man who is trying to find himself.  Chandler plays all of that so well.

RON:

We missed the last two years of his life, and rather than just saying: he’s back, and he’s Will again, I felt there was a journey there to be told.  Watching Will get to know different people in town without really knowing them, then there is something to look forward to down the road.

MICHAEL:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Eileen Davidson comes back to DAYS for an arc as Susan Banks, and she is revealed to be the one who had Will this entire time.  How did you come to the decision to have it be Susan who kept Will from his family? 

RON:

Once I pitched this idea of Will being alive, and I got hired at DAYS, I sat down with the team and said, “OK, who is going to be behind this?  There has to be a villain!” Ryan Quan, who is my right-hand man, and I were going through possibilities, and you want it to be someone of substance.  You want it to be somebody who means something. So we were going through the big villains of the past, including Kristen.  I really think it was Ryan who brought Susan Banks up to me, because we were looking for not only a villain, but a villain who would have a rationale.  In talking with Ryan, I think he said in theory she could blame Sami for her son, EJ’s death.  What we loved as soon as he brought that up, and what I loved about it so much, was the symmetry.  Like, “OK, you killed my son; I’m going to take your son.”  And, as much as Susan is this goofy character, because the motivation was so strong, I went “This is the answer!”  People were saying, “What about having it be Kristen?   She is such a great villain!”  I said, “I don’t disagree, but the motive is so perfect with Susan.”  Thank God!   We were very lucky to have Eileen for a limited number of episodes, where she could shoot on Mondays when she was not taping Y&R.  And even Eileen was tentative about playing Susan.  She had her concerns.  She did not want it to be goofy.   I said to her, “I want the fun and outrageousness of Susan, but at its core, it is a heartbreaking emotional story.”  Eileen and I both wanted the same thing.  To me, her performance was out of this world!

MICHAEL:

It blew my mind.  It was amazing!  Eileen outdid herself with this performance! How’s that for superlatives! (Laughs)  It was one of my favorite things she has ever done. 

RON:

Courtesy/NBC

I was watching it in bed, and I said, “I could watch this woman all day.”   First of all, it’s hilariously funny.  But then, you watch this character, who is so absurd and ridiculous, and yet so very tragic, that it breaks your heart.

MICHAEL:

When Susan had her meltdown, it was the saddest thing I had ever seen.  Between your story and her work, it was just hankie-inducing.

RON:

That’s what I just love about soaps: that even the funniest moment can turn into something heartbreaking, and poignant.  Once I knew we had Eileen booked, and the story was pretty much written, I did add that coda where we had the return of Sister Mary Moira, and Kristen. I thought, “Now that we really do have the actress playing Susan, I’ve got to get something else out of this, too!” (Laughs)  I came up with the little coda so the audience could also see someone else besides Susan.

MICHAEL:

When the sneak preview promo for November on DAYS was shown at Day of Days in front of a live audience, the reaction to the Eileen material was amazing.  The fans were so excited, and flipping out in a good way! (Laughs)  Seeing it real time with a large gathering of devoted fans is something I would highly recommend to anyone, if given that kind of opportunity.

RON:

I watched that sneak preview, and I got chills!

MICHAEL:

You received many positive comments, and reviews for the standalone episode where JJ prepares to commit suicide by writing letters to his loved ones.  It was juxtaposed against Christmas Eve in Salem.  That was a beautifully constructed show.  Casey Moss (JJ) was amazing in it.  What can you say about constructing the episode? 

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I thought everybody in the production did such a beautiful job with it, and I will talk about Casey separately.  It was such a big deal to write this story.  It was a pretty drastic thing to do, and featuring people the audience really cares about.  Obviously, the reason to do this story is the families, and the consequences, and the fallout.  This idea of what would JJ do started to kind of evolve, and when we decided he might try and take his life, we knew we couldn’t do something like that lightly.  That’s where the idea came to build a whole episode around it, and you think about what form that would take.   Then you start to think: What does a person do?  Do they write a goodbye letter?  How do we open it up?  Yes, its JJ alone writing letters, but how do you make it more visually interesting, and bring other people into it without cutting into other stories?  So then the idea came that if he writes these letters, we get a window into these moments in his past that happened, but the audience didn’t get to see.  To me, to just do flashbacks is like doing a clip show.  I would not have wanted to use flashbacks that the audience had already seen.  In fact, the audience knows those scenes better than I!   I wanted to write something that was all new.  Obviously, the idea evolved to using Jack (Matt Ashford) as an emotional lynchpin of that episode, as well.

MICHAEL:

Did you chat with Casey before he filmed the episode?

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

No, I really hadn’t.  I have met Casey, but we never really talked about this one on one.  You see how the actor delivered in this story.  You felt what he was feeling.  I think as a very young actor that was a lot to put on his shoulders.  First, the storyline in general, and the whole episode where he is going to just sit here and write letters, and so you needed to feel something.  It was raw.  The pace and everything about it was not like a typical episode you would see on a soap.

MICHAEL:

It was interesting. There were those on social media who said they had a very tough time watching it, or needed to turn away from it, because it was so depressing given the subject matter was suicide.

RON:

I get that, and I sort of respect that!  Now that it has aired, I can say that we had the tag of that episode being that JJ opens the door to go do it, and there is Gabi (Camila Banus), and you end on this moment of hope.  But in the end, we decided it took away from the power of the whole thing.  If we were like, “Here she is to save him,” then that kind of undid everything we had just done.  As hard as it was to end that way with JJ holding the gun, we wanted it to end with the audience realizing, which you also start to realize as the episode unfolds, just what his intention is.   That was a big decision.  In general, people loved the episode on social media, but I saw people tweeting, “I know somebody who killed themselves.”  And while it’s hard to watch, some people who felt that way said, “I’m glad that DAYS is showing what that’s like to go through.”  The episode following that it is a catharsis when Gabi talks JJ down.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/NBC

When JJ cries in Gabi’s arms, it’s so gut-wrenching. 

RON:

Yes, and I have that in my mind so clearly.  Camila did such a wonderful job.  I thought Casey and her worked so well together.  I have to thank Ken Corday, and Albert Alaar (co-executive producer, DAYS), Greg Meng (co-executive producer, DAYS), and the network for letting me do it, because those are not easy decisions to make.  You don’t want to upset your audience, as here it’s almost Christmas, and we are writing an entire episode about suicide.  But again, it mirrors real life.  Unfortunately, the rate of suicides does go up at the holidays. I knew JJ would be saved, and so I knew there would be some relief.  I apologize for those who I made suffer through that day. (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

Theo’s (Kyler Pettis) shooting by a young white police officer; (JJ) had an element of ripped from the headlines of Black Lives Matter.  Was that the intent of this riveting story?

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Once you do any kind of a police shooting, it’s going to automatically bring people’s minds to things that are going on in our country today, and on top of it, you make it a young black man and it adds another level.  So people are bringing a lot of expectations to this storyline.  I didn’t want it to come off that we were taking a stand, or a political stance, or anything.  It is why, in the end, we decided to, as much as we could,  strip away those elements.  DAYS is a show that is so much about the families, and while I know every soap opera is, DAYS has even more so, that interconnected sense of family and community.  What I realized in pitching this story was that if you took race out of it, it would still have such an impact on the town, because of who everyone was.  You realize if we did not talk about Black Lives Matter, or race relationships, this story would still resonate.  I would never attempt to tackle that issue and say, “This is what people should think about this issue.”  I know people reacted to Theo wearing a hoodie.  Well, we had to have him wear a hoodie otherwise JJ wouldn’t recognize him.  On the flipside of what I am saying, it would be irresponsible to completely ignore it and say, “No one in town has thought of this.”  I wanted to do it in a small way, and let the audience bring what they want to this story.  Race is only addressed in one episode of the show in this storyline, and that was scene between Eli (Lamon Archey) and Gabi.  I felt strongly that as a young, black man who is in law enforcement, Eli would have a unique POV about it, and it would be strange not to address it. We did it as sensitively as we could.

MICHAEL:

What have you thought of James Reynolds (Abe) performances through this storyline? 

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I think he did an incredible job!  The episode on Christmas Day; where he offers forgiveness to JJ, and takes him to see Theo, it breaks your heart.  I believed this man, and James brought raw pain, and anger to Abe’s situation. 

MICHAEL:

The double wedding was another great story of yours in 2017.  How compelling was Rob Scott Wilson coming back and spilling the tea that Will is alive?  I think Rob has reached soap opera cult status with his portrayal! (Laughs) 

RON:

There is a scene after they drag Ben out of the wedding to the interrogation room at the Salem PD, and he has his head down on the table.  Rob played it so seductive, and I don’t even mean that in a sexual way, but he is so off, and creepy, and crazy, that you can’t stop watching him!  I loved the double wedding, too.  It was a great way to tie more than one story together.  We knew Will is alive with the story we are about to tell.   So, of course, you want to get Sonny (Freddie Smith) and Paul (Christopher Sean) as close as humanly possible by then.  Also, you start to think that you want to reunite Chad (Billy Flynn) and Abigail (Marci Miller).  I go, “We are going to have two weddings competing with each other?  Do we postpone one? And then, it’s like, “What if we do them together?”  I am sucker for a double wedding on the soaps!  I am always pitching it, and I have been turned down on it before! (Laughs) 

MICHAEL:

Right before the wedding, there were some beautifully written scenes in the church between Paul and Sonny, where Sonny admits he feels like he is betraying Will if he marries Paul.  It was a very adult conversation, I felt, for these two to have that was a long time coming with the elephant in the room at that point being a “deceased” Will.  What did you think of those moments? 

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Those were great scenes.  One of our outline writers, Dave Ryan, wrote the vows between Sonny and Paul.  We talked about them in the layout, but not the specifics.  He turned in the outline and I read it, and I went, “Oh, my God!  This is beautiful!”  We replayed Paul’s whole vows at the top of the next episode.  There was just a wonderful understated way that Christopher Sean played things.  It was matter of fact, but it felt so real.  Paul turned while John (Drake Hogestyn) was holding up his phone, so he could say something in Japanese to his mother.  I thought that was such a beautiful moment, too.

MICHAEL:

You are up against your former show and writing team over at General Hospital for the WGA Award for the Daytime Drama category.  What’s that like?  Is it odd, or fun?

RON:

I would say it’s kind of both.  Those people are my friends, and my former colleagues. There is no ill-will there.   Obviously, it’s a little strange.  But again, we are in such a small business.  It’s not like I haven’t been to this rodeo before, where we have friends and colleagues in competition with each other.  Those things are always such a great opportunity to see people and catch-up, and so I am looking forward to the award ceremonies in February.

MICHAEL:

What has it been like for you since you were originally an ABC guy, and you knew those shows inside and out, and you now have come to Days of our Lives not knowing the characters as well as you knew the other shows from your history?  Did you find taking on the role of head writer harder because of it, or was it easier in a way because of it?

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

It was a bit of both.  When I got hired at General Hospital, I had to jump right in.  I think I wrote the tail end of One Life to Live, and had to start immediately at GH.   But, I wasn’t nervous, because I could say to myself, “I know this show.”  Here at DAYS, it can at first be a bit overwhelming just finding out how everyone is related.  Often times people are related in more than one way: “I’m your cousin, and I’m your aunt!” (Laughs)  It was tricky coming in and learning the relationships, and I would keep forgetting who’s who.  I would be like, “Oh, these two would make a great couple!” And my team would go, “Ah, they are brother and sister.” (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

Did you ever think you would be the perfect fit for DAYS?  So many people had taken to social media and said over the last few years that Ron would be the perfect fit for DAYS with his penchant for the outlandish, etc.?

RON:

Courtesy/NBC

I had heard that, and there is a certain vibe of what I had done in the past at One Life to Live, or General Hospital where you could say, “That might work on Days of our Lives.”  I was, of course, aware of all the big crazy things that happened on the show like Marlena (Deidre Hall) being possessed by the devil and levitating, or Hope (Kristian Alfonso) turning into Princess Gina, etc.  Not that I was going to come in and do stuff that was necessarily so crazy and over the top, but knowing this is a show that had done those things, and that the audience might go with you, if you do it right was intriguing.  That was kind of liberating to me; to go in and be like. “I could unleash my outrageous side a little bit here.”  To your point about being more new to the show, that was also creatively liberating.  At General Hospital I would be like, “I know these characters” while here it was more of a challenge to learn about them, and then see what I could bring new to the table, when there has been a team of people who have been writing the characters for many years.  I think I was a pair of fresh eyes, in a way.

MICHAEL:

The first new character you have created for Days of our Lives is Tyler Christopher’s character, Stefan.  He makes his debut next week!

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Yes, and I am excited about that.  I wanted to be careful about this.  I was just learning the canvas, and it was way, way on the back-burner to bring in somebody new.  I was playing with the toys I was given when I got there.  It was months before I brought up bringing anybody new in. 

MICHAEL:

It’s great that you and Tyler get to work together again, right?

RON:

I was super excited when we cast him.  I loved writing him on General Hospital.  I respect Tyler as an actor.  I loved writing for him as Nikolas Cassadine, and you know I loved the relationship between him and his on-screen son, Spencer (Nicolas Bechtel), because you had this mysterious brooding Bruce Wayne-esque guy living in this gothic castle, wearing black and scowling a lot, and then you had this little imp running around annoying him.  It was great dynamic between them. (Laughs)   Tyler won the Emmy for his performance after Spencer got burned.  He was one of the first people at the Emmys that year to come up to me and say, “Thank you.  I am nominated because of you.”  I was like, “No, no, no. You brought something to it, too.”  Tyler is such a good guy.

MICHAEL:

Did you think you would have the opportunity to head write another soap opera?

RON: 

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I don’t know.  When I first got into this business there were like ten soaps left.  People could quit in a huff and be the head writer of another show a month later, so losing that job would be, to some, less of a big deal.  Here in present time there are only four soaps left, and so if you lose your job on one that leaves only three others.  The prospects are limiting.  I am never really going to let go of soaps, since I am such a fan of the genre, but at some point you sort of start to move on and explore different things.  I wrote a pilot for ABC, that was actually about soaps, but I was a surprised when Days of our Lives came knocking.  It can be a bit daunting when you have been out of the mix for a while.  You have to come in and hit the ground running when you are a head writer on a 252 episode a year daytime drama.  I have a great team with Ryan Quan, Sheri Anderson Thomas, and all the other writers, who almost all of whom have written the show for a long time. So for me, I came from a place of these are people who know this show, and I have something to learn from them.

MICHAEL:

Let’s talk about your love for doppelgangers! (Laughs)  And, how you kicked off your tenure with not one, but two doppelgangers for DAYS fans to enjoy: Hattie (Deidre Hall) and Bonnie (Judi Evans).  What did you think of the story when you saw it on its feet?

RON:

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I loved it!  (Laughs)  I came in with something outrageous from day one.  I didn’t wait to get my feet wet.   So I said, “What if there are two doubles in town?”  My first episode had Hattie in it, and it was to take what has already been started with the character of Angelica (Morgan Fairchild) and take that into a new direction.  I know there’s the soap opera cliché’ of an evil twin.   I say, “Hey, I love all of those soap opera tropes, first of all.”  But I am also always going, “How can we tweak them?”   People questioned me, “Do we really need both? “  Yes, of course you do! (Laughs)  I thought both Deidre Hall and Judi Evans were fantastic and great at playing the two different characters.  It is very fun to watch, not only when they are full on Bonnie, or full on Hattie, but I love when they are acting as full on Adrienne, or Marlena, but bringing you the Bonnie, or the Hattie.  One of my wants coming into DAYS was that I wanted to give the audience something to make them laugh.

MICHAEL:

In closing, what can you say in a broad stroke for fans to look forward to in Salem in 2018?

RON:

Now that I have gotten my feet wet, I want to keep up that momentum.  We have my first original character coming on and I want to shake things up a bit.  Basically, we are not putting our foot on the break; we are putting our foot on the gas.

So, what have you thought of Days of our Lives under head writer, Ron Carlivati?  When reflecting back on the stories that made Ron our choice for Soapmaker of the Year in 2017, which was your favorite DAYS moment and episode?  Which character’s return impressed you the most?  Share your thoughts on our final feature of the year in the comment section below. (Note: To make a comment, you can also go to the top left side of the interview and click on “Leave a Comment” to bring you to the commenting field)