AMP in the post
Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem Is A Labor Of Love
This version of Beyond Salem looks like it’s going be yet another love letter to longtime fans and Peacock was so thrilled with the success of the first one that it ordered up another installment as soon as last summer’s series ended.
Head Writer Ron Carlivati knew exactly what he wanted in this new version and that was a Bo and Hope reunion and he got one. When he started writing the script, he knew Peter Reckell was back in the US living in Alaska and would be available.
“This was right around the time we brought Peter back on to, as we like to call it, the mothership, to play an angel at the finale of the devil possession story,” Carlivati said in the July 19, 2022, issue of Soap Opera Digest. “We started to think, ‘Hey maybe we should put him in Beyond Salem,’ and then it evolved from there. And then, of course, if we’re telling a story about Bo, then naturally, it has to include Hope, so we started thinking about Hope and where she has been for two years.”
They Needed Hope For Bo…And Others
AMP in the post
Of course, since the soap had Bo for the Beyond Salem series, they had to reach out to Kristian Alfonso to play Hope and give fans the treat they’ve been waiting seven years for. When Alfonso heard the story, she was excited and signed on.
Other characters Carlivati and the rest of the writing and production teams decided to use are Steve Johnson (Stephen Nichols), Kayla Johnson (Mary Beth Evans), and Tripp Johnson (Lucas Adams), as well as John Black (Drake Hogestyn), Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall), and even John’s son, Paul Narita (Christoper Sean).
Like the first installment of Beyond Salem, Eileen Davidson (who still recurs as Ashley Abbott on The Young and the Restless) will be playing OG Kristen DiMera, while Stacy Haiduk will continue to play her and Susan Banks on the mothership back in actual Salem. Tune into Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem from July 11-15, 2022, on the Peacock streaming channel.