Days of our Lives is ending 2024 with a DiMera New Year’s Eve party bang where stories reach climaxes and secrets are revealed. As 2025 begins, the last of former head writer Ron Carlivati’s stories will draw to a close so a new Salem era can begin in the spring.
When to expect a change in Days of our Lives
In July, news broke that Carlivati was exiting as head scribe and was replaced by Paula Cwikly and Jeanne Marie Ford. Since DAYS is taped about 7-9 months in advance, we knew it would be a while until we saw Cwikly and Ford’s work debut. Now, word comes that the new writing will begin airing on April 24, 2025.
At the annual Day of Days fan event in November, Executive Producer Ken Corday, said the powers that be were “trying to root the show in much more of an interpersonal reality, with a return to romance and passion more than science fiction,” according to Soaps.com.
At the same event, DAYS divas Susan Seaforth Hayes and Deidre Hall assured fans that Carlivati’s soap-within-a-soap, Body and Soul, would be no more. “Body and Soul is done,” Hall told Michael Fairman TV.
Hayes joined in and confirmed the end of Body and Soul. “We had some laughs, some cringes with Body and Soul and now we’re back to telling the story of perhaps real people in real situations.”
Upcoming DAYS returns
The spring will also bring some familiar faces back to Days of our Lives, including the long-awaited return of Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso as Bo and Hope Brady. Alfonso just made a brief return for Doug Williams’ memorial episodes as Hope bid farewell to her father, but Hope soon flew back to Greece to be with a comatose Bo.
By spring, both are expected back on the canvas and fans are hoping that Bo and Hope finally get their happily-ever-after ending.
However, Reckell and Alfonso aren’t the only expected returns. You’ll see Melissa Reeves and Matthew Ashford again as Jennifer and Jack Deveraux, as well as Thaao Penghlis and Leann Hunley as Tony and Anna DiMera, Christie Clark as Carrie Brady, Chandler Massey as Will Horton, and Charles Shaughnessy as Shane Donovan.
DAYS will also incorporate a real-life tragedy into the story as it had to do in 2023 when John Aniston died and 2024 when Bill Hayes died. Drake Hogestyn’s passing will be written into the story as John Black also dies.
Turn to Soap Central for all your latest Days of our Lives news in 2025.
