Y&R: Rumor

[DevotedToAMC]

Okay so I was reading at Wikipedia and came to Felicia Minei Behr's page and it says there she is rumored to become the new Executive Producer for The Young and the Restless. If that is true, well it looks like she would be able to reign in LML and turn Y&R into a powerhouse soap again. I mean FHB did wonders at AMC and from what I hear she was not so bad at ATWT. Let's hope this true.

Also, I went to Lynn Marie Latham's Wikipedia page and here is what it says:

<<<Lynn Marie Latham is a American hack TV writer.>>>

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I don't think it's true, since Wikipedia is notorious for spewing forth crap, since anyone can post anything on it. Crazy Y&R fans, who want Latham gone, have been posting stuff there for the whole year already. LOL!

I LOVE FMB and her time on AMC though, but I don't know how she'd fit in at Y&R, given that she has no history of working for the show. Though, if she rehired Alden, I can see the two of them being a powerhouse duo. I always loved Behr and from the interviews I've read with her, she comes off as an very intelligent woman who knows what works for the soap genre and what doesn't. I want her back on daytime and especially want her back at AMC, though I doubt that will happen.

Isn't Behr NYC based? All the soaps she's worked for were based in NYC, so I doubt she's uproot to LA for any soaps there.

Latham's not going anywhere, Y&R fans are stuck with that hack for life it seems.

Latham is both EP and HW, if she was fired from one position, I'd reckon she's be fired from the other.

and at the Latham article, it's sad, but oh so very true!

[DevotedToAMC]

FMB is NYC based but hey McTavish is too but she managed to truck her butt out west to headwriter GH so anything is possible

I just cracked up for a long time after reading that first line about LML....funny thing is I saw on her resume that she wrote or did something on one episode of Pacific Palisades and I really liked that series...so I felt she would do well for Y&R when my friends were asking about her. Now it appears as if she is the hackiest of all hacks. Is hackiest a word?

[Sylph]

Maybe hackiest is a neologism. Coined by you, you should trademark it or something.

I so don't see this happening. And would it work anyways? The production is not so much the problem as the writing is. Latham is a primetime writer, something she shares with Guza, I'm still very interested in who brought her to daytime and why.

[MarkH]

Doesn't it almost certainly seem to be CBS that brought her to Y&R? She had that past association with Barbara Bloom (Port Charles). And, at last year's CBS PRIMETIME upfronts, they paraded LML with Don Diamont...clearly trying to show that a once-hallowed CBS primetime writer (from KL) was now going to be "running" Y&R. I remember that was a noteworthy press conference, because Diamont talked about her "running" the show...but at that point, the official line was still that Alden/Smith were co-HW, and there was "no" EP on the show :-).

It has always been my assumption that CBS strongarmed Sony/Bell into making this change, and that it had been Barbara Bloom who led that charge. Is my reasoning false?

Let's also clarify that when you say "the writing is the problem", but it is NOT the daily dialogue that is the problem. That remains crisper, funnier, snappier and better paced than it has ever been. Indeed, the stylistic changes on Y&R were needed, and remain a real asset of the new regime.

Where the writing is awful, and I agree here, is in 5 places:

1. The much-decried (on here) reliance on event-plotting, which has killed most other shows (murders, plane crashes, cliff falls, etc.)

2. The abandonment of clear "through lines" for characters, so we increasingly can't understand why they are acting the way they are. Currently, Nikki Newman's sudden transformation into uber-bitch is one of the clearest examples.

3. The allowance for each episode to have a different "voice"....so you can literally tell from day to day when the episodes were penned by better or worse writers. There is no consistency in intensity, phrasing, humor content, pacing, etc. from day to day. Remember that Kay Alden, at MIT, said "the show should sound like the show"...and that is no longer the case.

4. The addition of complex KL-type stories...which were actually never an asset on KL. By this I mean things like the current "Clear Springs" mess...which started as an offshoot of NVP (which itself started as a series of mall spas that did Botox, and then morphed into international resorts)...and is now an I-don't-know-what mega development with methane/oil under the surface. Somehow, it all became equivalent with a State Senator race...in ways that make no sense (since in the real world, senatorial candidates would have had to place developments like this into blind trusts).

5. Sudden shifts in motivation that seem inexplicable. One day Victor is NOT loaning Nikki money, and the next day he is. One day Kevin is trying to hunt Jana down, the next day he is back in puppy love.

It is clear that every one of these 5 flaws lay at the feet of the HW and co-HW. But I want to say that the breakdown and especially dialog writers seem to be pretty good, even though they are "all new". Many episodes, taken in isolation, are actually quite watchable. It's just that the overall gestalt is a horrible mess.

It didn't need to be this way. 12-18 months ago, when I think LML was still anchored by Smith, Alden, and Scott, the show was actually pretty dang good. It had the "punched up" production values, but the characters still acted and sounded like they should for the most part. It's only when LML was allowed to run without any anchoring in history that Y&R began to fall apart. You can SEE this on your screen...LML was pretty much completely independent by late Fall 2006...about the time that Pheila came on board.

Sad.

[Sylph]

I meant specific person. Maybe it was Barbie, maybe it was Steve, but I want to know definitely, without any doubt who brought her.

I agree.

I agree it's completely out of character's history, but at least she's given some kind of story, and somehow, maybe I like her more this way. I've never actually liked the character of Nikki, especially with melody's irritating hair colour and lips.

I think people had put way too much trust in her and her 'qualities'. I knew from day one she was not the right fit for the show. They were also tired of Alden and Smith and just couldn't wait for a newregime to start running the show.

Somehow, I also suspect someone at Sony hates this show and all they needed was the right moment - and they got it. Fired Alden and Smith, brought Lynn Antoinette.

[Faulkner]

Don't forget the dropped plots, like the search for Victor, Jr. that turned up nada. William J. Bell certainly wasn't a stranger to dropped plots - that is, if a plot wasn't working. There was a method to his madness, while LML just seems sloppy.

The editing is tighter, I'll give it that, but I can't agree that overall production values have improved. As has been mentioned before on the board, the lighting, the hair/makeup, the scoring, and the set design have all taken a nosedive under LML. Y&R, with its string orchestrations, had the best and most effective background music on daytime; now you might as well be watching O.C. reruns on SoapNet.

[stenbeck212]

I can totally believe Nikki's evolved personality. Victor has been so incredibly cruel and nasty to her, and if she just waltzed around chez Newman like a doormat, I'd be very disappointed. At what point is she going to be more than the trophy blond he found working a pole? For me it's not coming out of nowhere. She's reacting to very potent circumstances in her life.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think it would, but it's definitely not true, coming from wikipedia of all places.

Behr was able to control McTavish on AMC and spin her stuff into gold. Notice that with any other EP, McTavish well....sucks!

I know Behr was heavily involved with the writing and overall storyline projection during her AMC stint, she could do wonders elsewhere.

[Kubla Khan]

No. McTavish wrote GH from her home in Connecticut.

Felicia is well into her sixties, and is financially set for life, given her past producing stints and her nice four-year tenure as ABCD SVP. She would not uproot her life to produce Y&R. Nor would she be a really good fit, anyways.

[EricMontreal22]

That's exactly it--McTavish DOES have some undeniable talent. But part of her "talent" seems to be a willingness to bend to ANYONE's control and ideas (it's no secret that at OLTL she was basically just exectuing JFPhelps story ideas since the show barely changed from when JFP was headwriter as well as EP) Her and FMB were magic--though even more so was her and Broderick (annoying that they got so little time together since it was Behr who brough Broderick in to the show). I still think that AMC is theonly place for her though--she grew up working on the show from 1971 onwards

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's no secret that FMB adores Broderick and despises McTavish. She later hired Broderick at ATWT in 1998, when she was EP there. I also recall FMB calling JFP and McTavish's stint on OLTL "completely unwatchable."

She was also a producer on Ryan's Hope from 82-88, then she was promoted to EP from 88-89. Her stint as EP there was considered a resurgence in the show's quality, but it was too late, since the show had lost too many viewers.

[EricMontreal22]

I remember her comments on OLTL at that time too (I found a tad harsh as I thought they were a *slight* improvement over Pam Long and JFP)

[Soapsuds]

Yes, bring FMB to Y&R so she can replace Melody Thomas Scott with Susan Batten as Nikki Newman.

[Kubla Khan]

Ha. It's not like FMB has a reputation of hiring Susan Batten everywhere she goes.