Hogan Sheffer's Plan from SOD
"Time To Change" - Hogan Sheffer's Plan Part 1:
He says his agent told him a rumor that Ken Corday was making a change. He felt that JER had a lock on this job. It was an immediate YES when he was offered! It was done with 3 weeks and he moved across the country from NYC.
He calls DAYS the best franchise in daytime and has the most loyal viewership
He says that when you mention ATWT people say "Is that show still on the air?" But when you mention DAYS, you get "Put Bo & Hope together again....make Sami bad again..."
He said he had friends and relatives finally admit to watching it for years after he got the job. Says Corday is lucky!
He would occasionally check it out, but never watched. The show sent him 20 dvds to get him caught up with stuff and history.
Decided to start with grounding Marlena. She's an icon and should be the matriarch. He wants to make her a doctor and a real person again because so much revolves around her.
Hogan's Plan Part 2: "I don't write aliens and demonic possession:
We're going back to emotional soap with a lot of story."
He's thrilled to have MBE on the show. He's got a secret crush on her that's not so secret. He used to tell her that on ATWT.
He says core audiences can relate to old romantic stuff and flashbacks and Patch/Kayla can give that.
He calls Sami great, and says that DAYS has so many great characters and it's just a matter of redefining them.
For example: Phillip.
He says he had no clue that Phillip had a fake leg because it's never been treated with the seriousness he thinks it deserves. He feels that Phillip should be working his way towards being Victor. He should be distant and affected by all that's happened to him, but currently you don't see that.
It's about setting up the younger generation to accept power from the older.
He's reminded that DAYS is a "THE supercouple show" and asked if he'll keep it that way.
He says the line about aliens already quoted, and that he writes a fast paced show, that focuses on the emotional core and that couples fit right in with that.
"Love love love Bo and Hope, Sami and Lucas,and Abe and Lexie. We're going to be revisiting all these couples again."
Says there's been so much back and forth that it loses meaning. You're missing out on the angst and the longing, the ache for somebody.
Hogan's Plan Part 3: "Why is he dating his neices?"
Says he thinks Darin Brooks (Max) is a stud. Really good looking guy that makes the women in the crew swoon. So he asked, "Why is he dating his neices?"
The response was that there were no Hortons, just Bradys. He feels that was unhealthy. He knows Max is adopted, but still...
"If I had an adopted brother and he was dating my child, I'd ice-pick him to death".
He feels Max is a guy destined for supercoupledom.
He admits he did some bad stuff at ATWT, but said one of the best things he did was to use the surrounding characters. He mentions Lauren Koslow (Kate) and says that she's gonna be central to a lot of stuff. He will try and avoid repeating ATWT stories on DAYS. Doesn't want people comparing.
What about the gloved hand?
He says it's just a soap trick. Just don't milk it too long. He's working on exposing what that's all about. He wants the audience to know who's doing it first, then for the story to unfold. He says it's weird cause there's no "romantic tilt" to it, but that it's upset some of the romantic pairings.
"But the central story itself is kind of a shaggy dog story, and it's just been going on way too long. And it's so confusing."
His stuff will air in October. Right now Beth Millstein has the helm, and you can see some changes already.
Better cohesion. Plots that make sense.
He says one of the first eppys he watched was back in June of Abe and Roman (police guys) discussing their love lives not trying to catch the bad guys. He says that would never happen, and the first order is "hand the men back their penises because strong men are better for the women."
Says you can't have women doing whatever, and the men just doing nothing.
"So we're gonna use the history , make the men strong and let the women run amok. There's your formula."
Hogan's Plan Part 4: Final Part
He will NOT introduce new families. Says that there has been an erosion of the Hortons, so that now everyone's a Brady and there's incest. First thing was to find some Hortons who are in their late teens/early 20s.
"...but I have no desire to bring in my own family. I think that's despicable. I really do."
Says audience doesn't have investment in new families.
The biggest challenge is bringing the audience back and making sure they have faith. No one's going to have year long secrets. He wants the audience to be in on stuff before the characters, so that they're anticipating the character's responses.
Says if he can bring the audience back, he'll be a happy man.
Says that HUMOR is missing too. Wants to take Sami and Lucas back to when they were funny.
Regarding Emmys, he likes getting them but hates the show. However, he would LOVE to win one for Ken Corday, cause this was his family's show and he feels that it's been treated "neglectfully".
What kind of town is Salem going to be on your watch?
"What you're going to see is a real town with real family connections again. I want to give it a real sense of a real place that's familiar to everybody and where the audience tuns in and it's putting on an old pair of slippers."
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