Created by screenwriter James E. Reilly and produced by NBC Studios, Passions follows the lives, loves and various romantic and paranormal adventures of the residents of Harmony, a small town in New England with many secrets.

Storylines center on the interactions among members of its multi-racial core families: the African-American Russells, the white Cranes and Bennetts, and half-Mexican half-Irish Lopez-Fitzgeralds.

The series also features supernatural elements, which focus mainly on town witch Tabitha Lenox (Juliet Mills) and her doll-come-to-life, Timmy (Josh Ryan Evans).

Creator Reilly had been credited for a large surge in the ratings for Days of Our Lives years before, thanks to innovative storylines like that of heroine Dr. Marlena Evans being possessed by Satan that drew new viewers, but also tended to alienate stalwart fans.

Sheridan also has a similar accident in the same Paris tunnel, and speaks to a "guardian Angel Diana" who urges her to fight to survive, which drew considerable controversy.

Precious was the non-speaking live-in nurse and caregiver for elderly Edna Wallace, and held an unrequited love for Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald, which was depicted in elaborate fantasy sequences.

In early 2004, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which administers the awards, disallowed the entry with the following statement: Our ruling is based on the belief that the Academy must draw a line of distinction between animal characters that aren't capable of speaking parts and human actors whose personal interpretation in character portrayal creates nuance and audience engagement that uniquely qualifies those performers for consideration of television's highest honor.

[citation needed] On January 17, 2007, NBC announced that it would not renew Passions for a ninth season, in order to accommodate a planned expansion of its morning news and talk show Today to a fourth hour.

Airing weekly on Thursday nights until October 2007 and streamed simultaneously on NBC.com's official Passions website, the show gave fans the chance to call into the program and interact live with cast members from the soap.

In another first for the soap opera genre, episodes airing on The 101 included a interactive feature allowing viewers to answer a special Passions trivia question that appeared on-screen as a pop-up using their remote control.

[29] On December 10, 2007, Variety magazine[4] and various cast members[5][6] confirmed that DirecTV had decided not to renew Passions for a tenth season, but extended its existing order to include 52 additional episodes to be taped through March 2008.

Though Passions had been the highest-rated original program on DirecTV's The 101, it was reported that the network had failed to meet the projected number of new subscribers they had hoped to attract with the series.

[31] Over its run, Passions featured several storylines and sequences paying homage to or parodying other television series, films, books, and musicals like Gone with the Wind, Carrie, Titanic, I Dream of Jeannie, Brokeback Mountain, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Wizard of Oz, The Da Vinci Code, The Osbournes, The Little Mermaid, and Wicked.

In 2002, Julian and Timmy set out on a journey in the magical land of Oz as Theresa was "executed" for Julian's "murder"; 2003 saw six characters (Chad, Whitney, Fox, Theresa, Ethan, and Gwen) travel to Los Angeles for the summer (and into October), while, in 2004, Luis and Sheridan traveled to Puerto Arena, Mexico, to retrieve his younger sister, Paloma (and ended up finding his missing father, Martin, and her "dead" mother, Katherine).

The plot of the summer in 2005 was a deadly earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed much of Harmony and resulted in the death of James' mother, Maureen, while 2006 saw the extravagant Passions Vendetta plot,[38] in which Alistair lured 19 people (Whitney, Simone, Paloma, Chad, Ethan, Theresa, Gwen, Lena, Spike, Jessica, Maya, Noah, Esmé, Fancy, Luis, Edna Wallace, Norma Bates, Beth, and Marty) to Rome, where he planned to take over the world with a chalice stolen from the Pope's private chambers; the plot saw the death of Lena, Maya, Alistair, Beth, and Marty.

In 2008, the show spent its final summer on the air wrapping up its plotlines at a rapid pace, with Alistair Crane being killed once and for all, the final showdowns between the main characters and the newly introduced villains Viki, Juanita, Pretty, and Vincent, Tabitha's redemption as a born again Christian who sacrifices her powers to save the residents of Harmony, the return of Antonio and his reunion with Sheridan, the mass weddings of Fancy and Luis, Paloma and Noah, Miguel and Kay, and Edna and Norma (the first gay couple ever to go down the aisle on a soap opera), and Gwen and Rebecca being exposed for their crimes as Theresa and Ethan finally married.

Also in August or September, Kay Bennett was attacked by a gang of men while walking through the park at night, though Fox Crane soon arrived and the two defeated the group.

Fancy was also the show's first rape victim to visibly experience prolonged effects; her bubbly demeanor disappeared, and she became extremely nervous and could not stand to be touched for several months.

After five years of evil Crane patriarch Alistair being heard but never having his face seen (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer), Passions cast the role with longtime daytime veteran David Bailey.

In a 2002 episode Theresa was giving birth while stuck in a cabin with Ethan and Gwen; she had a hallucination in which the three of them did a dance together and sang the show's theme song "Breathe."

In an early 2006 episode, Ivy and assistant Valerie were searching on the internet for Miguel to bring him back to Harmony and interfere with Fox and Kay's relationship.

At that time, Jesse Metcalfe (ex-Miguel) was playing a gardener on the prime-time serial Desperate Housewives, which takes place on a street called Wisteria Lane.

[42] Similarly, in the August 10, 2006 episode, Theresa commented that her office was not like an NBC daytime serial, and that she would not hire somebody just because he looked like Jesse Metcalfe (who had portrayed her brother Miguel from 1999 to 2004).

In April 2007, Kay was watching the sixth [sic] hour of The Today Show (an apparent jab at NBC's decision to extend it at the expense of the Passions timeslot) when it was interrupted with a news report that Luis had been arrested.

In one August 2007 episode, Tabitha said that a certain soap opera was starting on DirecTV and she would have to tell her friends not to call her between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 pm, blatantly referring to Passions itself.

A more recent episode featured characters watching a trailer for the 2007 Diane Keaton film Because I Said So (produced by Universal Studios, which, like NBC, is owned by General Electric).

A replacement for the serial Another World (which ended on June 25, 1999 after a 35-year run) on NBC's daytime schedule, Passions debuted in tenth place among the eleven soaps airing on American network television at the time, ahead of only fellow NBC soap Sunset Beach, with a 2.1 rating (1.9 million viewers) and remained there until Sunset Beach was cancelled in December 1999.

"[51] By 2001, Michael Logan of TV Guide remarked of Passions, "There hasn't been this sort of buzz about a soap since the Luke and Laura days on General Hospital...It's unlike anything else out there.

"[52] Craig Tomashoff of The New York Times praised the campy storylines by calling Passions the "Twin Peaks of daytime": "It's a staggeringly psychotic blend of supernatural thriller, melodramatic soap opera and situation comedy, featuring acting that would make a pro wrestler blush.

From 2005 to 2006, Julia Duffy portrayed the Mother Superior at the convent to which Whitney Russell flees, and Georgia Engel played Esmeralda, Tabitha's childhood rival, in a 2007 Wicked-themed storyline.