Passions debuted in 1999 with major fanfare. 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. With Passions, Reilly was able to start with a blank slate and no pre-existing fan base to please.
In the early days of the show, Passions heroine Sheridan Crane is identified as a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales; soon Sheridan recalls speaking to Diana on the phone immediately prior to the 1997 car accident which took the Princess' life. 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. Sheridan later adopts the name Diana after a boating accident that results in amnesia.
The opening days of the show also introduced the Theresa/Ethan/Gwen love triangle that persisted as an ongoing main storyline to the very last episode of the series.
For much of the first three to four years of the series, supernatural elements such as witches, warlocks, and closet doors leading to Hell were major plot points, many surrounding the machinations of the centuries-old witch Tabitha Lenox and her doll-brought-to-life sidekick, Timmy — named by Entertainment Weekly as one of their "17 Great Soap Supercouples" in 2008. In 2001, HarperEntertainment released Hidden Passions , a tie-in novelization presented as Tabitha's diary, exposing the secrets and pasts of the town's residents. Passions featured a storyline involving Tabitha and Timmy promoting the book, which reached #4 on the real-life New York Times Best Seller list and garnered the series two alternative covers of TV Guide in July 2001.
In 2003, Passions submitted a trained orangutan named BamBam, who had been portraying the recurring role of Precious, for a Daytime Emmy Award. 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.
In summer 2005, the prominent character Simone Russell came out as homosexual; Passions made daytime history by being the first serial to show two women — Simone and love interest Rae Thomas — in bed making love. In 2007, it was revealed that longtime hero Chad Harris-Crane was cheating on his wife with another man. This was also a daytime first, with the men portrayed in bed together. Passions also broke new ground in 2007 with its portrayal of Vincent as an intersexual who becomes pregnant with his own father's son.
Nearly seven years after the debut of Passions on July 5, 1999, the NBC-owned Sci Fi Channel began airing the series from its first episode starting February 13, 2006; the reruns had originally been announced to begin on February 6. Due to low ratings, the reruns were taken off the air as of May 25, 2006. On August 15, 2006, Passions became the first daytime drama to make full episodes available for download and purchase from the online music store iTunes. On November 6, 2006, the show also became the first daytime drama to make full episodes available for free viewing via streaming on NBC.com.
Though plagued since its inception by low overall Nielsen ratings, Passions was historically top-rated in key demographics. The series was not renewed by NBC for a full ninth season in 2007 because of its low ratings coupled with the network's decision to extend its morning news and talk show Today to a fourth hour. Since NBC owned the series entirely, NBC began shopping for other networks, especially cable networks to pick up the series for a ninth season, however there was no luck in other networks willing to pick up the series because of devastating low ratings and extreme expensive production costs. In April 2007, Satellite provider DirecTV bought exclusive rights from NBC to continue airing Passions, with most principal cast members staying on. As the series was coming to an end on NBC, Passions Live talk show hosted by Eric Martsolf premiered in August 2007 every Thursday night on DirecTV's The 101 giving fans the chance to call the show and interact live with Passions cast members, making Passions the first and only soap opera to ever have live talk show in U.S. history. The Passions Live talk show continued to air every Thursday night after moving to DirecTV until October 2007. The live show was also streaming live on the Official Passions Site at NBC.com. The series ended its NBC run on September 7, 2007, and new episodes began airing on DirecTV's original-programming channel The 101 on September 17, 2007, making Passions both the first soap opera broadcast on a direct broadcast satellite service and the first series to make such a transition from broadcast television. The series ran Monday to Thursday at 2 pm ET/11 am PT, with repeats airing later in the day and on weekends. Although NBC.com continued to cover the series' official website with updating features, video clips of each episode aired, updating news, and products relating to Passions, including all of the full videos of Passions Live show once the series left NBC and had moved to DirecTV, initially new episodes were no longer available for free viewing on the Passions official website at NBC.com or for purchase at iTunes.com since NBC's broadcasting decisions were entirely sold to DirecTV and the NBC.com Passions site promoted a DirecTV link letting fans know that Passions was no longer airing on NBC and was only available on DirecTV. On September 27, 2007, DirecTV announced they would provide an All Access Pass to Passions to view all new episodes on the Official Passions Site at NBC.com for a monthly fee. This service began on October 1, 2007 for $19.99 a month then reduced to $14.99 a month when Passions' schedule was cut from four episodes a week to three episodes a week. After the series moved to DirecTV, the subscription service added a special feature where a trivia question relating to Passions would pop up on each episode airing on The 101 for viewers to use their remote control to answer. Passions is first and only soap opera to ever have this type of feature.
On December 10, 2007, Variety magazine and various cast members confirmed that DirecTV had decided not to renew Passions for another year, but ordered 52 additional episodes to be taped through March 2008. New episodes of the series were broadcast until August 7, 2008, with DirecTV airing three new episodes per week starting January 2008. Universal Media Studios wrapped up production of Passions on March 28, 2008. The cast and crew were told at the wrap party that efforts to find a new outlet had failed and that the cancellation was final. Cast member McKenzie Westmore confirmed the news. 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.
