Soaps always take place in run-of-the-mill towns that are nothing but, and Days of Our Lives is no exception.
On the surface, Days of Our Lives’ Salem is a regular town, with a police department, town square, park, hospital, and school. But unlike real-world towns, it has its share of bizarre happenings.
Related: Remembering Caroline Brady
Here’s a lighthearted look at 13 things that could only happen in Salem. Check them out and hit the comments to add your favorite!
And don’t forget there’s a ton of shows you can watch online right here on TV Fanatic!
Everyone has a doppleganger.
In 2018 alone we’ve seen doubles for Marlena, Adrienne, and Susan/Kristen, plus Hope’s doppleganger made an appearance in the Halloween episode. These lookalikes are far from the only ones who have ever wreaked havoc in Salem. (Fake Rafe anyone?)
It’s possible to travel across the country or world in a matter of minutes.
Recently, Sami and Eric got from Salem to Nashville in the blink of an eye. Sometimes people take the Titan Jet but more often they seem to teleport from the Horton Town Square to anyplace else in the world and back again in a matter of minutes.
Every time a kid is sent to school, he or she comes back a surly teenager.
Okay, so all soaps have their share of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, but the Salem authorities definitely should be looking at what’s in the water at all these fancy boarding schools where people are sending their kids. Back in the day, Jennifer and Hope were boarding school rebels, Brady came back from one as an angry teen in the late 1990s, and in 2013, JJ also returned with a giant chip on his shoulder.
Everyone has money to travel, pay off people, or whatever else they’re doing even though nobody goes to work.
The majority of adult characters have jobs where they are never seen. The vacation benefits in Salem must be amazing because people are able to just jet off to another country in search of adventure at a moment’s notice, and money is no object either.
The police arrest one person after another for a murder or other serious crime, yet it doesn’t affect the case when the real murderer is finally caught.
This is one of the sillier Salem tropes. I can understand investigating one lead after another, but how come no defense attorney has ever asked a Salem cop on the stand how they know they have the right person this time when the other nine arrests in this case turned out to be bogus?
Despite DNA tests never being accurate thanks to people changing them for their own purposes, the hospital has no security in its DNA lab and everyone trusts the latest DNA results.
In the 2010s, Salem residents at least question whether DNA tests are accurate, yet they are quickly reassured that this time nobody switched test results or blackmailed a lab tech into writing an inaccurate report. You’d think someone would come up with the idea of getting their DNA test done somewhere else with a better reputation!
Wearing a hat or a pair of sunglasses makes a person entirely unrecognizable.
The hat is optional, but for some reason sunglasses in Salem make people invisible. Eve once went to make an illicit trade and was shocked that JJ caught her wearing that disguise — the only time in Salem history it has happened.
Standing flat against a wall makes people invisible.
If you can’t afford sunglasses, don’t worry. In Salem all you have to do is stand flat against a wall and people will walk right by you. This is a great option if you want to overhear one of the many private conversations said in extremely public places.
People don’t hear what is said two feet away from them, yet sometimes hear things said all the way across a room.
Somehow the park is a good place for private conversations, yet there was that time Steve heard Jennifer and Kayla discussing keeping something secret from him all the way on the other side of the Brady Pub.
Death is never permanent (unless an actor passes away) and there’s even medication to reverse it in some cases.
In 2018, mad scientist Rolf perfected an injectable drug that sometimes brought people back to life, though there were side effects like amnesia or being in a coma. Even before the drug, though, dead was never really dead, especially if you belonged to one of the core families of Salem. Some people just seem to have an immortality gene.
There are people with the money and power to give anyone plastic surgery to look like someone else.
The Dimeras are famous for doing this. Hattie was made to look like Marlena, Kristen was made to look like Susan, Andre was made to look like his cousin Tony… the list goes on and on.
There’s an endless supply of bugging devices and they’re easy to get
There must be a Bugs’R’Us store in the Horton Town Square, since anyone who wants a bug can get one easily and install it in their enemy’s house without any technological know-how whatsoever. Good thing no one in Salem has a burglar alarm, or there’d be an awful lot of people in jail for breaking, entering, and bugging someone’s home.
There’s a limitless supply of people willing to take the fall for crimes that have nothing to do with them.
The Salem PD is pretty useless, but the random people who are willing to sacrifice their lives and their freedom in exchange for a boatload of money (that they can’t really use if they’re in jail or dead) doesn’t help.
