Television series

Days of Our Lives

Name: Days of Our Lives
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
Released: 1965
Cast: Eric Martsolf, Kyle Lowder, Galen Gering, Arianne Zucker, Charla Doherty

Family drama

Days of Our Lives is a daytime institution—nearly 60 years of interlocking drama set in Salem, where the same families cycle through romance, betrayal, amnesia, and improbable returns. It's serialized soap opera at its most committed: characters develop across decades, continuity runs deep, and the emotional stakes feel genuinely earned. For anyone who wants television that trusts you to keep up and rewards long attention.

TVMaze rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a sprawling soap where decades of tangled family history, melodramatic reversals and cliffhangers become a comfortable ritual you can drop into any afternoon.

Skip it if you want a self-contained story that resolves, since its plots stretch across years and weekday episodes rarely finish anything you can hold onto for long.

What it asks of you: It asks for patience and a loose commitment, since there are nearly ten thousand episodes of half-hour-plus drama to step into without needing to catch up on every thread.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Young and the Restless1973

If you love serialized family drama with genuine character development, Y&R offers the same slow-burn emotional investment across generations. It's the gold standard of soaps—beautiful cinematography, complex relationships, and storylines that actually earn their payoffs.

But Daytime soap pacing demands patience; episodes move slower than prestige drama, and if you're not invested in at least one relationship, it's easy to feel lost or bored.

General Hospital1963

More adventure-forward than DAYS but with equally devoted character work. The show balances romance with crime intrigue and supernatural elements, so there's narrative variety alongside genuine emotional depth and multi-decade payoffs.

But The special effects and production design are visibly budget-conscious, and some storylines push credibility hard. Also: 60-year backlog to navigate if you want full context.

The Bold and the Beautiful1987

Tighter focus on a handful of core families means faster pacing while keeping that serialized soap DNA. Stunning production values, high-fashion settings, and surprisingly sophisticated character writing underneath the melodrama.

But If you find soap opera tropes—amnesia, evil twins, convenient returns—exhausting rather than delightful, this won't convert you. It's soap opera concentrated, not subverted.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Days of Our Lives

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Olive Kitteridge2014

Both are narratives about small-town families across years, where accumulation of detail and emotional history is what makes the story matter. Both trust slow revelation and character layering.

An HBO limited series about interconnected lives in a small town across decades, with the same DNA as Days—serialized character development, earned emotional weight, family legacy—but adapted from literary fiction and gorgeously acted. It's what a soap opera becomes when HBO budgets it.

But Only four episodes; if you crave the ongoing, renewable serialization of soaps, this tight ending will feel brief and finite. Also bleaker in tone—there's less melodrama, more quiet devastation.

Passions1999

Leaning harder into fantasy and supernatural elements than traditional soaps, with a magical-realism tone that feels fresher. Still has that serialized character work and family legacy focus, but with more narrative permission to surprise you.

But It was cancelled in 2008, so there's an unresolved ending. Also, the tonal shift away from grounded drama might feel gimmicky if you prefer emotional realism.

Guiding Light1952

The longest-running drama series in American television history—72 years of serialized storytelling with genuine emotional stakes and character depth that only accumulates over time. A masterclass in how to sustain investment.

But It ended in 2009, so you'll watch toward an ending rather than an open future. And the production values of earlier decades are distinctly dated, which can be disorienting to new viewers.

Santa Barbara1984

Gorgeous California setting and surprisingly strong writing for a soap—mystery and romance balanced with genuine character development. If you want soap opera with slightly more sophistication and visual appeal, this hits it.

But It's been off the air since 1993, and finding complete episodes is legitimately difficult. Also, some storylines aged awkwardly; attitudes shift over decades.

Sunset Beach1997

Late-90s soap with higher production values and slightly more contemporary writing—still serialized and family-focused but with a tone that feels just a bit less dated than shows from earlier decades. A good bridge if you're testing the waters.

But Only ran five years before cancellation in 2001, so limited runtime and unresolved threads. And it leaned into melodrama hard enough that some storylines are genuinely silly.

Dark Shadows1966

Both are soaps committed to serialization and family legacy, but Dark Shadows shows that the form can accommodate the fantastic—a different way of imagining what story-per-day television can be.

A 1960s soap opera but one that went full gothic—vampires, ghosts, time travel, genuine horror. Same serialized family focus as Days, same commitment to continuity and earning emotional stakes, but willing to completely reshape its universe mid-run. Proof that soaps can be formally strange.

But The production is visibly low-budget even by soap standards, and episodes genuinely fail technically. You have to love the aesthetic of live-to-tape 1960s television to enjoy it; it's not so-bad-it's-good, it's just rough.