DeeeDee

Diane went under the bus the worst. Ashley was almost destroyed by the story too but she was saved by being the solid second choice on Victor's ex-wife totem pole.

Ashley was great for about the first nine or ten months of Eileen's initial return. But once she became roped into the Great Sperm debacle it was all downhill from there.

Ryan made Chase redundant.

It was simple. Traci wanted Jack as the godfather and Brad wanted Ashley as the godmother. Neither (Brad or Traci) was happy about those choices, so they settled on Victor (Brad) & Mamie (Traci) as Colleen's godparents. Almost as weird? Neil nearly being Abby's godfather. Actually Brad & Victor were fairly close during that period (so it made sense AND he got to stick it to Jack). +1.

When Morrow tries he is a solid young actor that is completely capable of carrying B stories but ever since the dreaded Shick/Phick debacle the writers have given up on writing for the character and focused solely on writing to the actor (while they write for everyone else around Nick/Morrow) which leads them to featuring Nick into more and more outlandish stories because the actor is not (and has never been) capable of carrying the entire show on his shoulders.

Morrow had actually grown into a solid young actor (the hatred for him now is NOTHING compared to the 2-3 year span when Nick initially dominated the show). But then around the aftermath of Cassie's death the writers began writing to the actor and not the character and Morrow became really lazy. It also didn't help that Sharon Case continued to knock everything she was given (for better or for worse) out of the park.

You will LOVE early Dru.

You always say this despite it giving Jess Walton some of the greatest material of her entire run.

Y&R's last classic year was 2003. Y&R had an INCREDIBLE run from 98 to the summer of 03 but the autumn & winter of that year is when the trouble really began. And it's been downhill ever since.

I'm watching Ashley's accident right now. It still holds up.

Lint!

+1.

You just summed up the second half of 96 & most of 97. But besides that period the Abbotts remained a relatively strong part of the canvas with Jill & the Abbott siblings taking turns as the lead members of the family. The Abbotts remained a central core family but the Ashley recasts & the dumping of the Voilens really hurt the balance of the family. It also didn't help that Beth went recurring once Traci married Steve (although Traci remained a strong recurring presence until the late 90s). Not really. Cricket was more of a lead in the early 90s than she was in the mid-late 90s. By the time Cricket married Paul they were largely supporting players in everyone else's stories. Cricket wasn't driving stories like she had (to a ridiculous degree) in the early 90s. While Drucilla was the lead in the Barber/Winters orbit, the focus had firmly turned towards Olivia & Malcolm by the time VR left (with TLW carrying their part of the canvas quite well). If any characters could be considered "leads" of 90s Y&R it would arguably be Nick & Sharon (who have rarely been placed on the backburner during their entire 25 year run on the show). Even the mighty Victor Newman became a supporting player in their stories. Alden & Walton's gradual revitalization of Jill was fantastic. Their work is so unsung. Half the Emmys Flannery won in the early 00s rightfully belong to Jess.

The Abbotts remained pretty central to the canvas EXCEPT for about a year and a half when Brenda left and Y&R tried to integrate The Dennisons onto the canvas. During the 90's everything revolved around The Newmans (primary stories), Abbotts (secondary stories), Winters (tertiary stories), Williams (background stories), and Chancellors (background stories) with everyone else (the Romalottis, the McNeils, etc) orbiting those central families. The brilliant thing Alden did was move Jill out of the Abbott orbit back into the Chancellor orbit which greatly refreshed both families.

Y&R not pairing Brad & Diane was a HUGE missed opportunity,

Petronia would make a wonderful Lillie Belle recast.

That's how I felt about Alex Donnelly & Susan Walters.

Reggie & Dani were ruined for Josh.

Nikki running for Senate had potential (like her time at Jabot which many initially were skeptical about yet turned out to be fantastic) but the show never had any intention of centering any of it about Nikki. Had the show really focused on Nikki revisiting (and being proud of) her blue collar roots as it proposed to in the beginning, then Y&R would've had the makings of a fantastic story. One that a veteran of MTS caliber so richly deserves. But as always (like when Y&R references her time as a stripper) it's just to humiliate the character. Ironically the Dina story as terrible as it is/was has involved Eileen giving some of the best performances of her career.

LMAO

There's also Maya & Zoe's mom Faith and (AJ & Jason's ex) Keesha.

Diane is SO missed.

Karen was played by Nia Peeples.

Democrats keep losing because they refuse to listen to and/or relinquish power to people of color. Period.

ATWT was a small town soap. Y&R 2.0 was never that which is why characters like Mary & Carl became obsolete over time.