All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Soaps.com may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Whenever there’s a backstage shakeup at a show, it’s inevitable that the viewers start wondering and theorizing about what happened and why. And that held true when Days of Our Lives announced it was changing the writing team after seven years and bringing in new headwriters.

These changes are always tricky, though Deidre Hall (Marlena) and Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie) may have shed at least some light on things when asked about soap within a soap Body and Soul by Michael Fairman at Day of Days. And with it came news that we’re guessing a number of fans will likely be relieved to hear.

“Body and Soul is done,” Evans said quite simply. “And I think that’s what sent [former headwriter Ron Carlivati] away. We’re done with that, and more back to people stories.”

Hayes summed it all up quite nicely, adding, “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.”

That’s something executive producer Ken Corday echoed when he spoke with Soaps.com at Day of Days, saying that the show was moving away from the fantastical and getting back to the roots of telling character driven stories, focusing on interpersonal relationships, romance and passion. Real people in real situations.

But Hayes’ words also echo how a lot of fans seemed to feel about the divisive storyline. There were some folks who enjoyed it, and there have been some laughs to come out of it, but a whole lot of them felt it was cringeworthy and yearned for a return to stories about their characters’ lives, rather than them making a soap opera. Trust us, we asked how folks felt, and the answers were pretty conclusive.

There isn’t any word on when the soap within a soap is done, but if it was dropped with the writing regime change, we can expect it to definitely be over by the spring. That’s not to say it won’t wrap up before then — next week it looks like the show’s going to hit some major troubles as it finally gets off the ground — but there’s no real way of figuring out a time table just yet.

What we do know, though, is that Body and Soul will come to an end. Though whether it’ll be cancelled or simply handed off to another production company to live its life offscreen is something we’ll have to wait and see. Time will also tell how many relationships survive it, because the way things are going, one thing the soap seems destined to accomplish is splitting Johnny and Chanel.