There won't be any fast-forwarding through Days of our Lives scenes in the year ahead, because head writer Ron Carlivati promises a bevy of material that plays perfectly to the NBC soap's history of campy storylines.
Years before he was hired at DAYS, soap fans buzzed about the Emmy-winning writer being a perfect fit for the series. After all, both he and the show are famous for a style that is over the top yet remains true, entertaining and captivating.
"I had heard that [some fans believed I was a perfect fit for the show], 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,'" he shares with Michael Fairman. "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.'"
Carlivati is keeping mum on what specifically he has up his sleeves for 2018, but he does promise it's going to be just as entertaining -- if not more so - than what viewers have seen the past six months.
"Now that I have gotten my feet wet, I want to keep up that momentum," he says. "We have my first original character coming on [Tyler Christopher] and I want to shake things up a bit. Basically, we are not putting our foot on the [brake]; we are putting our foot on the gas."
For more from Carlivati about his plans for DAYS, check out Michael Fairman's interview with the writer here.
Would you like to see Carlivati bring a little more of the camp DAYS is known for back to the screen? Or do you prefer when the series sticks to more serious material? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.