Well IMO, Eleanor is pretty good. During the whole Ellen Weston/John Conboy tenure on GL, she was like the only bright spot on the entire writing team. She loved writing emotional stuff. Matt Labine on the other hand, I'm not too sure, but he really wasn't that good enough for me to remember his writing style.

BB wasn't perfect but for the most part in enjoyed his writing for a while. However at one point I did stop watching as things got to drawn out and slow with nothing going on. I remember watching sometimes and a whole hour goes by with nothing significant happening at all. And this would be several episodes in a row. He had great storylines....he just sometimes took too long to execute them.

Same here. As much as I liked Bill Bill, I found his Y&R was excruciating slow and painful at times. I would check out for days at time. I like that LML picked up the pace, but she doesn't give us any emotional payoff that we are dying for when secrets are revealed. She does have one thing in common with Bill Bell. They both get obsessed with specific characters. Bell with Christine and LML with Brad, Amber, and the Fisher/Baldwins. Alden and Smith were horrible headwriters and I never want them at Y&R again. Since LML is going nowhere, I'd be happy with CBS hires a consultant to help reign her back in at times.

But, Ann, aren't her stories pure cr*p? Sh!t everywhere, nothing interesting, nothing that will keep me watching, all fly by at the speed of light...

THE BAD:

Brad’s Secret Jewish Past and That Nazi Thing. It’s not the fact that Brad is Jewish that made this story such a clinker. In fact there are almost as many transgender people on daytime as there are Jewish characters, so it’s nice to have someone who represents another religion other than Christianity on a soap. A little diversity is a good thing and I can’t wait for Purim in Genoa City. What’s bad is that the story was unbelievable in nearly every way. First of all, we really know Brad, and the fact that this is something he could have kept a secret is absurd. Secondly, the whole Nazi art plot was right out of a B-movie and, as we know soaps don’t do movies all that well. Besides, Nazis are yesterday’s villains. The show, with all its frantic attempts at relevancy, might have chosen a more modern enemy, such as terrorism, to battle, but that could have been a little too controversial. Oh, and let’s not forget Victoria’s amazing hidden talent as an unbelievably resourceful art forger. She made a perfect copy of an ancient reliquary from materials you might find in your bathroom closet or basement in just a day or two. Just like MacGyver! Why she’s wasting her time as the CEO of a multinational corporation instead of forging art masterpieces or making life-like puppets from everyday materials I’ll never know. Oh, and I hope we find out soon what that boring unto death professor Korbel has to do with Brad’s mother and the stolen Nazi art. Get the hook.

She Pouts to Conquer. Was there ever more of a sourpuss than Colleen? Adrianne Leon is a pretty good actress, but her Colleen is the biggest whiner on daytime. And honey, hunky, sweet JT loves you. What are you doing kissing crabby Korbel? On the other hand…

Disease or Topic of the Week. I have always appreciated the soaps’ ability to disseminate information about subjects of social relevance. Before the days of cable television and 24 hour news channels, Discovery Channel, the Surgery Channel (well, there’s something like that), the 400 other cable channels and the 4000 million zillion sources of information on the Internet about everything, soaps really did help people learn about things like breast cancer, pap smears, AIDS and all kinds of illnesses, social problems and conditions. And I believe the soaps are still a powerful dramatic tool for helping people to learn to accept or understand things beyond their own front door of experience. But soaps are drama, not polemics or instruction manuals. It seems like every few weeks there’s something new to learn on Y&R (meningitis, deafness, Cochlear implants, Temporal Epilepsy, online gambling addiction and Rosh Hashanah for example). The problem with this is that we get thrown a lot of information that sounds like someone is reading it right out of Wikipedia. It’s just not very dramatic. I was also amused at how everyone in Devon’s family learned near-perfect sign language (including Devon) almost overnight when he lost his hearing.

Jack is “Islanded.” First John dies and now Ashley is leaving. Jack’s going to be living all alone in that great big house. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a dog. It would probably get hit by a car. I hope that for some reason Ash leaves that adorable Abby with Brad. I’d really miss her.

THE UGLY:

Jack Becomes a Monster. Forget about all his shady and under-the-table business machinations, it’s his cruel treatment of Gloria, his father’s widow, that has really made him look small-minded and cruel.

Gloria Sabotages Glow. On the other hand, Gloria put cleaning solvent in the samples of Jabot’s new face cream to get back at Ashley for being mean to her. One woman, died, the company was discredited and Gloria got away with it. So maybe Jack is just helping balance the scales.

O, Mimi, Mimi, where are you?

Edited June 25, 200718 yr by Sylph

Why do you dislike Kay and John F. Smith so much?

Both Alden and Smith added a good amount of work onto the show. OK, maybe Alden was better. I remember the times when I used to watch Y&R and nothing happened during the episode but it was interesting (as always). It had a theme going on. Episodes could pass without anything happening and I'd still be glad. It was one of a kind. And what has left of it these days? Not much for me.

Nope, I don't agree that all or even most of LML's ideas are crap. It is her execution is flawed at times. I definitely don't agree with the opinions stated about various stories in that post above. I liked Brad's past until it got to be too much. I found Colleen and J.T. tedious and chemistry less and liked the Colleen and Korbel romance a lot. I had no problem with the disease of the week. I was glad that Bryton got a storyline and Victor got to do something different. Jack losing his family is too bad, but lots of families get phased out of soaps over the years. It happened under Bill Bell. I liked Gloria sabotaging the face cream until I realized that she will never be exposed. Most of this is difference of opinion, but I will point out that the ratings showed that Alden and Smith could not hold the audience. LML has been able steady the ratings and even though they have declined since February, they are steadying again. LML has flaws, but her stories are more interesting than what Alden and Smith.

but I will point out that the ratings showed that Alden and Smith could not hold the audience.

Actually, Alden could (even with audience erosion). It was Smith who couldn't.

LML has been able steady the ratings and even though they have declined since February, they are steadying again.

Y&R under Latham has hit record lows & the show itself is growing increasingly worse every day.

I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but anyone in my mind who truly understands the Bell concept of The Young and the Restless would know what Latham is putting out there is so far off base of that concept that it isn't even funny and therefore makes Y&R not Y&R anymore.

Like I said everyone is entitled to my opinion but I know what Y&R is and as I have said time and time again, what's on screen now ain't it.

It doesn't even come close!

Actually, Alden could (even with audience erosion). It was Smith who couldn't.

Y&R under Latham has hit record lows & the show itself is growing increasingly worse every day.

All she has done is tie record lows that were already set by Alden and Smith. And as posted in this past weeks ratings thread..three years ago that same week the show had a 4.1...she made a 4.0 last week. She basically has about the same ratings the show has had over the past three years.

All she has done is tie record lows that were already set by Alden and Smith.

No she hasn't.

And as posted in this past weeks ratings thread..three years ago that same week the show had a 4.1...she made a 4.0 last week. She basically has about the same ratings the show has had over the past three years.

She's slipped into the 3's repeatedly.

Edited June 26, 200718 yr by DeeeDee

All she has done is tie record lows that were already set by Alden and Smith. And as posted in this past weeks ratings thread..three years ago that same week the show had a 4.1...she made a 4.0 last week. She basically has about the same ratings the show has had over the past three years.

I'm glad she's back where those two were, I just hope she keep having lower ratings, and they'll sack her eventually. The problem is - then I'll get Griffith or Hamner, which in the first case could be worse, and in the second it will get worse.

Latham has been in the ratings toilet since February, thats almost the entire year. Alden/Smith had slow weeks like all soaps which are naturally declining, but they were consistantly much higher than Latham's ratings. They didn't go almost a year with the ratings in this state. Fans are overwhelmingly rejecting Latham's vision and the ratings reflect that.

She has too many new characters taking up screentime at the expense of vets. The storylines are largely crap or poorly executed. Vets on the backburner. All of the cosmetic changes to the show, most recently losing Ed Scott and the music.

It's all too much and I don't know any soap that could handle this many changes. Especially when you consider how poorly executed they are.

I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but anyone in my mind who truly understands the Bell concept of The Young and the Restless would know what Latham is putting out there is so far off base of that concept that it isn't even funny and therefore makes Y&R not Y&R anymore.

Like I said everyone is entitled to my opinion but I know what Y&R is and as I have said time and time again, what's on screen now ain't it.

It doesn't even come close!

And here in lies the problem. Y&R's ratings started slipping under Bill Bell so even he couldn't hold onto the audience with his vision of the show. Television is changing. CBS hired LML in hopes of saving Y&R, not reestablishing Bell's vision of Y&R because the soaps are a business not an artistic endeavor. LML's vision of Y&R has resulted in great ratings and mediocre ratings, but they haven't been plummeting to the extent of the other soaps which likely makes the network happy. We'll see what happens by November sweeps, but I don't think that she going any where for a long time.

No she hasn't.

She's slipped into the 3's repeatedly.

So did Alden and Smith...they set the all time low at 3.9 and hit that several times. I just checked the archives so i know. And the year before LML came they had 3.9 to 4.3..mostly 4.0 and 4.1 which is where LML is at.

I say it again: The reason why Y&R isn't getting the abysmal rating it would deserve is that so many disgruntled ABC/NBC refugees are now watching.

They balance out the enormous decrease in long-time viewers. Even if this board is no indicator (then longtime audience should be down by ca. 50%!) my guess is that about 20 % of real hardcore CBS audience were driven away... This would also explain why the rest of CBS daytime is slipping.

There might be problems on those shows as well but the audience flow has been ripped apart because those ABC/NBC viewers probably don't like the taste of B&B/ATWT/GL which all still have a very different vision than the current pointless Y&R drivel. Hence they're numbers are down because they lack Y&R as their traditional lead-in of a more dialogue-heavy and serious CBS audience.