BetterForgotten

Y&R’s biggest problem is that the show is incapable of actually telling a damn storyline or exploring truly dramatic avenues for whatever they’re dishing out on screen. Y&R is never going back to being in Bell’s style unfortunately - I think the most we can hope for at this point is at least they can find people who can tell actual, decently plotted stories (even if they’re generic and old-fashion).

It will either take a significant ratings decline or a prominent cast member shading the writing in the media for any real change to happen. But they’ll be in denial about any ratings decline anyway. At this point, they probably don’t have anyone else who wants to run this show either. Options are now limited in the recycled pool daytime picks from. Perhaps they need to hire an EP from outside of daytime, maybe one that comes from film or independent film and pair him/her/them with a new Head Writer - or a pair of Co-HW’s (one also from outside of daytime and one from “the system”). This show is just in dire need of a creative change and shift.

Here's hoping for some better showrunners then...

Since CBS fired Angelica McDaniel and folded their daytime operations into other existing operations, it seems like the soaps are no longer being micromanaged and they’ve become very complacent. This show needs a drastic shakeup. Josh Griffith has been boring and tanking this ship for years at this point. What will it take for Sony to finally admit this and fire him?

This show is ripe for a murder mystery to kill off so many useless characters.

The difference though is that the DAYS resurgence was a singular event that didn’t impact the rest of the NBC Daytime lineup or the lineup of other networks. In retrospect, it also fizzled pretty quickly, as by ‘98, DAYS was no longer a safe #2. I do think they deserve credit for being the only soap to rise in the aftermath of OJ, but in retrospect, it very much feels like a fluke success. With ABC, you can at least say they dominated an entire (for the most part) decade.

They should recast or not even bother with that character. What’s Mia Korf up to these days? #justicefortherealBlairCramer 🙂

For her sake, I hope she leaves B&B on good terms so she can return if Mulcahey ups and quits GH in a year’s time and she’s left to fend with whoever Frank and ABC bring in. That’s always the downside of leaving a more stable environment.

Perhaps that awful hairdo was an omen for how well that return stint would go…

Either that or retirement. Michele deserves the chance to HW her own show, too bad she was never really given that opportunity.

I was watching this India and Reva scene the other day. I don’t think many were allowed to really drill into Reva and read her for filth in such a direct way as India did here.

And it bears repeating again that Bell did this with a classic soap storyline very much keeping with Irna’s tradition. The classics never go out of style no matter what’s trendy at the time.

I don’t need him back at all. I thought he was a horrible mess on this show and that faux Cajun accent was beyond offensive to actual Cajun people…

Doug created the character and she won the Emmy for Curlee’s material, so it probably wasn’t a slight at all. But, I’m also not sure Vanessa was ever one of Long’s favorites either.

The audience Reilly brought to DAYS wasn’t interested in staying tuned for AW or watching any of the soaps on the other network (the majority at least). That’s why DAYS 90’s momentum is so fundamentally different from that of ABC’s in the early 80’s. And again, much as it did in the 80’s during the ABC era, Y&R is carrying the touch as a counterbalance and outlier to this disruption.

Honestly, I think the popularity of McTavish’s AMC laid a lot of the groundwork for JER’s DAYS. A lot of AMC during that time was outrageous and OTT, but was grounded by some great actors and amazing script and breakdown writers - something Reilly didn’t really have after his time at GL.

ATWT still had a lot of potential post-Marland, but P&G kept hiring hacks. Would it have been the same? Of course not, but P&G gave up long before these shows were cancelled.

She was more interesting to watch than Madison’s Grandma Belle version to me at least…

Gunn’s Superman Legacy is out on 7/11, no? Two weeks before in a crowded summer box season isn’t really a head to head like Barbenheimer was. The Barbenheimer effect was more so about cinema goers making going to the theaters an event again. The two films are different, but many people were going in droves to watch both on the same day and with groups of people. The two films were also released on the same day for this to happen.

There's a lot to post, but Ellen Parker's final performances as Maureen Bauer on GL still stick with me:

Cast has officially been revealed. Time will tell if this IP ever gets a decent live-action adaptation… Marvel’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ Lands Its Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Rena had said back then she thought they turned Lois into an idiot after the Labine’s left - so she was not exactly complimentary about the the writing for Lois during that era.

To me it shows that the basic soap opera format Irna created will always prevail - old-fashioned or not. Despite being lauded for its “innovations” Bell’s Y&R, at its core, was still a very traditional soap with much more in common with say Irna’s ATWT than the “contemporary” soaps and style that emerged with it in the 70’s. The “innovations” from people like Monty and Reilly may have brought people in, but it was ultimately a short-term fluke that went out of style after the monumental highs that were experienced. The above-mentioned storyline with Victor that garnered these ratings was similar to one Irna first told on her radio soap "The Road of Life.” On that radio soap, Dr. Jim Brent was on his way to John Hopkins, suffered amnesia, arrived on a farm with a widow and her crippled sister-in-law, and fell for the widow. Bell, of course, also told a variation of this story with Mickey on DAYS.

Yes, I guess this is roughly when that story ran, but nice to see it wasn’t myth and it really did payoff with viewers.