Interesting theories about Kay. I think something is probably going to come of it, but we need to see more signs first.

Y&R has been much better lately. I love Jeff blackmailing GloHO, she deserves it.

You could be onto something, MarkH. Y&R is simply too good right now to be run by scabs and I highly doubt Josh Griffith is the only major force behind that. There's something we don't know about what's going on behind the scenes, but whatever it is, it's working.

I totally agree. Josh Griffith... is ok I guess but he can't be held responsible for the huge shift creatively Y&R has under gone since December 26th, 2007. Its like night and day. When I watchin a Y&R episode now, I am watching Y&R. From direction, to music selection to dialouge. The pacing is back to the traditional YY&R pacing too. Slow but not too slow. I am absolutely in love with the show again. Storylines are still iffy but I mean we are seeing HEATED exchanges between Victor and everyone daily, even Gloria's storyline is tolerable because I don't see it as "proping" as it was with Latham running the show.

Strike or no strike I still believe Latham would have gotten the boot. Clear Springs failed miserably, and basically every critic in the industry and millions of fans alike were calling the show out on its total destruction. The only people I ever saw publically kiss Latham's butt were the actors working for her.....

They are if nothing else, professional.

The actors look like they love working again. So much more fire goes into their scenes (case in point MTS and EB) like emmy worthy stuff.

I am so glad to see the Y&R I once loved back on my screen. Still a long way to go, but.... they have made a great start.

[Making Jill Kay's daughter], I'm afraid, can't be (un)done. As I've said before, I don't buy the backstory, but the only way to undo it would be to say Liz Foster was lying, which is harder for me to believe than Jill being Kay's daughter.

Besides, Jill-is-Kay's-daughter could have been a promising development, had the show not allowed their long-standing feud to dissipate. LML promised a long time ago that Cane-is-Phillip would re-ignite that feud. As of right now, though, I've yet to see that come to pass.

Ah...but Liz Foster had a brain tumor when she told that story.

Brain tumor = false memory. Liz could have been wrong, and that character's integrity could remain intact.

Another "tumor-made-me-do-it" twist, eh, lol?

<snip>

When I watchin a Y&R episode now, I am watching Y&R. From direction, to music selection to dialouge. The pacing is back to the traditional YY&R pacing too. Slow but not too slow. I am absolutely in love with the show again.

<snip>

The actors look like they love working again. So much more fire goes into their scenes (case in point MTS and EB) like emmy worthy stuff.

I am so glad to see the Y&R I once loved back on my screen. Still a long way to go, but.... they have made a great start.

Wow. You wrote the words I was thinking! Yes!

You say the actors look like they're having fun...EXCEPT for Christian Leblanc. He was LML's best friend, and he is sorely backburnered AND weakened (basically ineffectual and reactive in both Victor and Gloria's story).

So many actors praised LML to high heaven...Leblanc, Rikaart, Braeden, Cooper ("saved the show"), Diamont. I wonder if their feelings changed (much of this was early in LML's reign)...or if they are miserable she's gone. I think LML gave free reign to the showboating tendency in some of them...so they would miss that freedom, being more controlled by history and well structured storylines again.

There is no doubt, though, 100%, that MTS has gone from miserable to on-fire. That is so visible.

If LML is gone, Ed Scott, Kay Alden and Jack Smith must be dancing on her symbolic grave, no?

Another "tumor-made-me-do-it" twist, eh, lol?

Or, as Maxwell Smart might have said, "The old hypertrophy-made-me-do-it trick, eh?". Has a tumor storyline like this happened on soaps before? :-) I'd put up with a tumor story if Jill could get back to being the bitch I used to love to hate.

Wow. You wrote the words I was thinking! Yes!

You say the actors look like they're having fun...EXCEPT for Christian Leblanc. He was LML's best friend, and he is sorely backburnered AND weakened (basically ineffectual and reactive in both Victor and Gloria's story).

So many actors praised LML to high heaven...Leblanc, Rikaart, Braeden, Cooper ("saved the show"), Diamont. I wonder if their feelings changed (much of this was early in LML's reign)...or if they are miserable she's gone. I think LML gave free reign to the showboating tendency in some of them...so they would miss that freedom, being more controlled by history and well structured storylines again.

There is no doubt, though, 100%, that MTS has gone from miserable to on-fire. That is so visible.

If LML is gone, Ed Scott, Kay Alden and Jack Smith must be dancing on her symbolic grave, no?

I would certainly think so. I mean look at how many people got fired or "quit" aka basically forced out since her arrival. The there is the horrible treatment of Davetta Sherwood and Adrienne Leon.... both far superior actresses to their replacements.

MTS I think loathed Latham and she must just love having this meaty storyline and is true to Nikki's character and allowing her to just showcase her talents. Melody Thomas Scott is awesome when she gets writing that is true to her character. When she gets scraps (which Latham offered her) she is terrible.

http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2008/01...ke_alburger.php

Despite Alburger's plans, it is unclear who will be writing and producing The Young and the Restless when the strike ends. Rumors are rampant that embattled executive producer and head writer, Lynn Marie Latham, is in danger of losing her job as soon as contract termination is legal. The inclusion of Bell family daughter-in-law, Maria Arena Bell, in the current writing team suggests the Bells are stepping in to assert their authority over the show and correct the direction of the storytelling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/arts/tel...amp;oref=slogin

Soap-Operas Are the Hidden Drama of Strike

By JACQUES STEINBERG

Published: January 21, 2008

As the writers’ strike approaches the three-month mark, it has conveyed new cachet, such as it is, on soap operas. Shows like “General Hospital” and “As the World Turns” have become virtually the only reliable option for viewers interested in watching rerun-free, serialized drama on broadcast television.

Striking writers last week outside the New York studios of the ABC soap “One Life to Live.”

None of the eight daytime dramas on network television have gone into reruns, and none have plans to do so. But in a genre that thrives on drawn-out cliffhangers, the most sensational mystery in daytime may be how these shows are being written at all, considering that nearly all of their writers are guild members on strike.

A handful of writers, for “All My Children,” “One Life to Live” and “General Hospital” on ABC and “The Young and the Restless” on CBS, have officially crossed picket lines to return to work in recent weeks, invoking a guild designation known as “financial core,” or financial need. But they are the exception. The sexual shenanigans, back-from-the-grave miracles and double-dealing that are the lifeblood of such shows are being scripted by mostly uncredited, ragtag staffs variously made up of network executives, producers, secretaries and, some union members insist, scabs who are either writing sub rosa or slipping plot points to management.

Consider that “The Young and the Restless,” which before the strike carried a writing staff of more than a dozen, now lists just three writers in its closing credits, each a guild member granted financial core status.

“There’s just no way three people can be doing that job,” said Sandra Weintraub, a striking writer who has written for the show for more than three years. “With the Internet, people don’t ever have to cross a picket line. So we’ll never know.”

While many of the soap episodes shown last week were based on scripts written by guild members before the strike — each daytime drama tends to ready episodes at least two months in advance — network representatives refused to say exactly how they were preparing the shows that will be seen as those stockpiles are depleted.

“The shows are staffed, and we have people in place to continue producing original programming,” ABC said in a statement, which also noted that “producers are aiding in the process.” The actors are typically members of unions that are not on strike, and some have joined the picket lines during breaks.

In an interview a woman who had been an office assistant on a network soap during the last writers’ strike, in 1988, described a frenetic, all-hands-on-deck approach that provides clues to the contingency plans being implemented in the writers’ rooms this time around. She said that she was quickly drafted to become her show’s head writer — she said she would have been fired had she declined — which had the immediate effect of raising her salary from $150 a week to $2,500 a week, a raise that lasted for the six-month duration of the strike.

“People from all different areas were suddenly writers — the assistant director, people who ran errands for the show,” said the woman, who agreed to recount her experience as long as her name, and that of her show, were withheld because she still occasionally writes for soaps. “If you were associated in any way with that show before the strike came, opportunity was knocking on your door, no matter what position you held.”

At first, the woman said, the replacement writers relied on a document known as “the bible,” in which the regular writers had mapped plots for the next few months, a process they would have followed regardless of the strike. But when those story lines ran out, the woman said, she began making clandestine visits to the home of one striking writer to take notes on what that writer thought should happen next. Though the writer risked being branded a scab, the woman said, the writer was more wary of returning to the show someday and having to undo whatever damage had been done to the plots.

After the strike, the woman said, she returned to her assistant’s job but eventually left the show. This time around the few soap writers who have openly returned to work have engendered rancor among the more than 100 still walking the picket lines.

Megan McTavish, a striking former head writer for four soaps — “General Hospital,” “Guiding Light,” “One Life to Live” and most recently “All My Children” — said in an interview she was particularly incensed by the recent return of James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten to “All My Children.” The two, who write as a pair and have been doing so for more than two decades, cited the financial strains of the strike in asking for a guild exception. Ms. McTavish said she was dubious of their reasoning.

“These are not youngsters struggling to make mortgage payments or feed their children,” Ms. McTavish said. “Their sole intent now seems to be piling up more money for themselves.”

Mr. Brown and Ms. Esensten became head writers of “All My Children” last year, several months after ABC declined to renew Ms. McTavish’s contract as head writer. The pair declined, through a network spokeswoman, to respond to Ms. McTavish.

One reason that soap producers have so doggedly refused to go to reruns during the strike is that several of the shows — most notably, “Guiding Light,” the 70-year-old warhorse on CBS that averages 2.6 million viewers an episode — could risk cancellation if they lose any more viewers. Faced with some of the same pressures as prime time (including the competition posed by the Internet and cable), soaps have been losing viewers for more than a decade.

Since the television season began in September, all eight network daytime dramas have lost viewers when compared with the same period a year ago. The biggest losses have been for “Days of Our Lives” (19 percent) and “All My Children” (14 percent), according to figures provided by Nielsen Media Research.

A critical goal of the overall strike, increasing revenues from the Internet and other new media, is relevant to daytime writers as well. “As the World Turns” is among those soap operas now available daily on cbs.com, and some soap writers believe that other struggling shows could eventually be seen exclusively on the Web. NBC’s newest soap, “Coastal Dreams,” is available only through the Internet.

Which is not to say that the soaps aren’t valuable to their networks. The most popular, “The Young and the Restless,” draws an estimated 5.6 million viewers, many of them women in their 30s, 40s and 50s that advertisers might not otherwise reach in such high concentration. While that show is produced by Sony Pictures Television, two other CBS dramas, “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light,” are produced by a sponsor, Procter & Gamble.

And so the shows have gone on. The singer Mary J. Blige recorded a guest turn on ABC’s “One Life to Live” late last week that is scheduled to be seen in early February. Shirley Jones, known to television viewers of a certain age as the mother on “The Partridge Family,” will soon be seen on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” where she will play Colleen Brady, who was thought to be dead. And among the beloved characters returning to “All My Children” over the next few weeks are Greenlee (the former stepdaughter of Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane), and Angie and Jesse, once a daytime supercouple — at least before Jesse was presumed dead two decades ago.

McTavish blasting B&E.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/arts/tel...amp;oref=slogin

Soap-Operas Are the Hidden Drama of Strike

By JACQUES STEINBERG

Published: January 21, 2008

As the writers’ strike approaches the three-month mark, it has conveyed new cachet, such as it is, on soap operas. Shows like “General Hospital” and “As the World Turns” have become virtually the only reliable option for viewers interested in watching rerun-free, serialized drama on broadcast television.

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Rebecca Budig, left, and Debbi Morgan on an episode this month of “All My Children.”

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Striking writers last week outside the New York studios of the ABC soap “One Life to Live.”

None of the eight daytime dramas on network television have gone into reruns, and none have plans to do so. But in a genre that thrives on drawn-out cliffhangers, the most sensational mystery in daytime may be how these shows are being written at all, considering that nearly all of their writers are guild members on strike.

A handful of writers, for “All My Children,” “One Life to Live” and “General Hospital” on ABC and “The Young and the Restless” on CBS, have officially crossed picket lines to return to work in recent weeks, invoking a guild designation known as “financial core,” or financial need. But they are the exception. The sexual shenanigans, back-from-the-grave miracles and double-dealing that are the lifeblood of such shows are being scripted by mostly uncredited, ragtag staffs variously made up of network executives, producers, secretaries and, some union members insist, scabs who are either writing sub rosa or slipping plot points to management.

Consider that “The Young and the Restless,” which before the strike carried a writing staff of more than a dozen, now lists just three writers in its closing credits, each a guild member granted financial core status.

“There’s just no way three people can be doing that job,” said Sandra Weintraub, a striking writer who has written for the show for more than three years. “With the Internet, people don’t ever have to cross a picket line. So we’ll never know.”

While many of the soap episodes shown last week were based on scripts written by guild members before the strike — each daytime drama tends to ready episodes at least two months in advance — network representatives refused to say exactly how they were preparing the shows that will be seen as those stockpiles are depleted.

“The shows are staffed, and we have people in place to continue producing original programming,” ABC said in a statement, which also noted that “producers are aiding in the process.” The actors are typically members of unions that are not on strike, and some have joined the picket lines during breaks.

In an interview a woman who had been an office assistant on a network soap during the last writers’ strike, in 1988, described a frenetic, all-hands-on-deck approach that provides clues to the contingency plans being implemented in the writers’ rooms this time around. She said that she was quickly drafted to become her show’s head writer — she said she would have been fired had she declined — which had the immediate effect of raising her salary from $150 a week to $2,500 a week, a raise that lasted for the six-month duration of the strike.

“People from all different areas were suddenly writers — the assistant director, people who ran errands for the show,” said the woman, who agreed to recount her experience as long as her name, and that of her show, were withheld because she still occasionally writes for soaps. “If you were associated in any way with that show before the strike came, opportunity was knocking on your door, no matter what position you held.”

At first, the woman said, the replacement writers relied on a document known as “the bible,” in which the regular writers had mapped plots for the next few months, a process they would have followed regardless of the strike. But when those story lines ran out, the woman said, she began making clandestine visits to the home of one striking writer to take notes on what that writer thought should happen next. Though the writer risked being branded a scab, the woman said, the writer was more wary of returning to the show someday and having to undo whatever damage had been done to the plots.

After the strike, the woman said, she returned to her assistant’s job but eventually left the show. This time around the few soap writers who have openly returned to work have engendered rancor among the more than 100 still walking the picket lines.

Megan McTavish, a striking former head writer for four soaps — “General Hospital,” “Guiding Light,” “One Life to Live” and most recently “All My Children” — said in an interview she was particularly incensed by the recent return of James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten to “All My Children.” The two, who write as a pair and have been doing so for more than two decades, cited the financial strains of the strike in asking for a guild exception. Ms. McTavish said she was dubious of their reasoning.

“These are not youngsters struggling to make mortgage payments or feed their children,” Ms. McTavish said. “Their sole intent now seems to be piling up more money for themselves.”

Mr. Brown and Ms. Esensten became head writers of “All My Children” last year, several months after ABC declined to renew Ms. McTavish’s contract as head writer. The pair declined, through a network spokeswoman, to respond to Ms. McTavish.

One reason that soap producers have so doggedly refused to go to reruns during the strike is that several of the shows — most notably, “Guiding Light,” the 70-year-old warhorse on CBS that averages 2.6 million viewers an episode — could risk cancellation if they lose any more viewers. Faced with some of the same pressures as prime time (including the competition posed by the Internet and cable), soaps have been losing viewers for more than a decade.

Since the television season began in September, all eight network daytime dramas have lost viewers when compared with the same period a year ago. The biggest losses have been for “Days of Our Lives” (19 percent) and “All My Children” (14 percent), according to figures provided by Nielsen Media Research.

A critical goal of the overall strike, increasing revenues from the Internet and other new media, is relevant to daytime writers as well. “As the World Turns” is among those soap operas now available daily on cbs.com, and some soap writers believe that other struggling shows could eventually be seen exclusively on the Web. NBC’s newest soap, “Coastal Dreams,” is available only through the Internet.

Which is not to say that the soaps aren’t valuable to their networks. The most popular, “The Young and the Restless,” draws an estimated 5.6 million viewers, many of them women in their 30s, 40s and 50s that advertisers might not otherwise reach in such high concentration. While that show is produced by Sony Pictures Television, two other CBS dramas, “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light,” are produced by a sponsor, Procter & Gamble.

And so the shows have gone on. The singer Mary J. Blige recorded a guest turn on ABC’s “One Life to Live” late last week that is scheduled to be seen in early February. Shirley Jones, known to television viewers of a certain age as the mother on “The Partridge Family,” will soon be seen on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” where she will play Colleen Brady, who was thought to be dead. And among the beloved characters returning to “All My Children” over the next few weeks are Greenlee (the former stepdaughter of Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane), and Angie and Jesse, once a daytime supercouple — at least before Jesse was presumed dead two decades ago.

Jesus, it's being posted as I'm copying it!

Edited January 21, 200817 yr by stenbeck212

Beat ya, Stenbeck.

^LMAO! She must really hate B&E, knowing they replaced her on two soaps already. Though really, she isn't much better than they are.

Edited January 21, 200817 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

And among the beloved characters returning to “All My Children” over the next few weeks are Greenlee (the former stepdaughter of Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane)

Uhm she's been back since April! Of course they're referring to the real Greenlee.

Haha McTavish is so funny.

McTavish is angry at B&E for crossing the picket lines? That is just too damn funny.

Though really, she isn't much better than they are.

Kind of an understatement, hm?