"Like sands through the hourglass... so are the Days of Our Lives." These words, spoken by late cast member Macdonald Carey, open every episode of this daytime drama, chronicaling the trials and tribulations of the citizens of the fictional city of Salem.

The small island resort town of Amity is trying to bounce back from the financial problems it had after becoming known as the site of shark attacks four years ago. Mayor Larry Vaughn is welcoming developer Len Peterson and his new resort to Amity. Two scuba divers are exploring the area where the Orca sank after police chief Martin Brody killed a huge shark four years ago. A shark shows up and kills the two divers, but not before one of the divers takes a close-up picture of the shark's eye, and sometime later, while a mother is driving a boat that's pulling her water-skiing teenage daughter, the shark kills the daughter and causes the mother to accidentally blow up the boat, then a killer whale is found on the shore with a huge bite on it. After Brody sees this, he knows there's another huge great white shark in Amity's waters, but Vaughn and Peterson explain these attacks away as non-shark accidents...