How Days Of Our Lives Made Television History With Its September 9 Episode

"Days of Our Lives" has been airing on network television for 57 years. The NBC soap opera has captivated viewers with its exciting adventures, heartwarming family moments, iconic love stories, and much more throughout the years. 

However, it's also made history with some groundbreaking plots. According to Little Things, the show was one of the first sudsers to adapt to the hour-long episode format and was also the first soap opera to hold the record of casting identical twins when Deidre Hall's (Marlena Evans) real-life twin sister, Andrea Hall, was cast to play her evil twin, Samantha.

"Days of Our Lives" also made TV history by casting a man in a woman's role when actress Alison Sweeney left for maternity leave. The show wrote a storyline in which her character, Sami Brady, disguised herself as a man named Stan, which was played by actor Dan Wells. 

Years later, the series made daytime TV history again when it aired the first gay marriage between two men with the union of Will Horton and Sonny Kiriakis, per Los Angeles Times. The series also broke barriers when it was the first to depict an interracial couple, pairing David Banning and Valerie Grant together in the 1970s (via The Washington Post).

Now, "Days of Our Lives" is making history again with its controversial move to the Peacock app.

In early August 2022, NBC announced that "Days of Our Lives" would no longer be airing on the network but would instead stream exclusively on the Peacock app. The soap opera will begin streaming on Sept. 12, making the Sept. 9 episode the last one to air on NBC after 57 years and 14,430 episodes on the network (via Michael Fairman TV). Its nearly 60 years on the air made "Days of Our Lives" the network's longest-running scripted series.

When the sudser moves to Peacock, the show's timeslot will be filled by a one-hour news program hosted by Kate Snow, Aaron Gilchrist, Vicky Nguyen, and Morgan Radford. 

As for what the move means for fans, they will now have to subscribe to the Peacock app to continue watching all their favorite drama in Salem. However, executive producer Ken Corday notes that the episodes will likely be longer and filled with spicier content now that the show won't be constrained by the network's rules, per Soap Opera Digest.

"This is a big change, but it's still going to be the same 'Days' that you know and love. It's still 'Days of Our Lives' but it's not your mother's 'Days of Our Lives.' It changes, it's growing, but in all the best ways," Corday added.