Y&R: Fire Maria Arena Bell and Josh Griffith!!!

[MTSRocks]

Gee whiz, maybe they should just bring LML back.

[Chris B]

Or simply hire someone qualified for the job.

Maria Arena Bell - Script writer for a few years, never was promoted and left daytime in 1991.

Josh Griffith - No experience as executive producer and mixed results as writer.

Hogan Sheffer - Just forget all the problems with ATWT for a second. At DAYS the ratings dropped nonstop during his reign in a way that no one thought possible. He backburned all the vets, brought on young newbies who couldn't act (like he did at ATWT) and wrote women extremely weak (hey as long as the men have balls!).

All of these people, including LML and her minions, seem to have gotten the job for the wrong reasons. MAB was doing a favor for her family, Griffith got his job because of his connection to Bloom/LML and Sheffer because of he and Griffith worked together at Y&R. As much as I'm not pleased with MAB, I do think he heart was in the right place and she could be trained to become great. She's just not ready to be thrown into such a huge position with no experience. The others? No connections to Y&R and I'm sure they aren't passionate about the show. They're passionate about having a paycheck no matter where it comes from.

I HOPE that I'm proved wrong by Hogan and that Y&R is the show that clicks with him. Only problem is that he had admitted multiple times that he doesn't like to write older characters. As I've (and so many others) said before--Y&R's strength is in it's over 40 crowd. End of story. Right now the younger set is dead, that includes the twentysomethings and people in Nick and Victoria's age range. I worry he'll see that and jump right into revamping those groups, which is his specialty.

[PJA]

It's worse than when LML was writing and even if you don't want to agree, just look at the ratings.

Or simply hire someone qualified for the job.

Maria Arena Bell - Script writer for a few years, never was promoted and left daytime in 1991.

Josh Griffith - No experience as executive producer and mixed results as writer.

Hogan Sheffer - Just forget all the problems with ATWT for a second. At DAYS the ratings dropped nonstop during his reign in a way that no one thought possible. He backburned all the vets, brought on young newbies who couldn't act (like he did at ATWT) and wrote women extremely weak (hey as long as the men have balls!).

All of these people, including LML and her minions, seem to have gotten the job for the wrong reasons. MAB was doing a favor for her family, Griffith got his job because of his connection to Bloom/LML and Sheffer because of he and Griffith worked together at Y&R. As much as I'm not pleased with MAB, I do think he heart was in the right place and she could be trained to become great. She's just not ready to be thrown into such a huge position with no experience. The others? No connections to Y&R and I'm sure they aren't passionate about the show. They're passionate about having a paycheck no matter where it comes from.

I HOPE that I'm proved wrong by Hogan and that Y&R is the show that clicks with him. Only problem is that he had admitted multiple times that he doesn't like to write older characters. As I've (and so many others) said before--Y&R's strength is in it's over 40 crowd. End of story. Right now the younger set is dead, that includes the twentysomethings and people in Nick and Victoria's age range. I worry he'll see that and jump right into revamping those groups, which is his specialty.

I didn't watch Days but Hogan's worst stories on ATWT was better than anything on Y&R right now so it can only be an improvement. Also Hogan writes for blacks. I remember several ATWT episodes during his tenure where the majority of the cast used that day was black. That was during the Marshall Travers days.

[Chris B]

Hogan had lots of black cast members at one point, but their stories were horrible as well. I remember the sexy Lamann Rucker was turned into a rapist, then shortly after he raped Jessica she was competing with her best friend (who had also been raped) over some football player while happily married for 25 years. It was ridiculous. Then Bonnie was written as the most vapid spoiled princess on the planet, although I did enjoy her. Sarah was annoying though. I was very frustrated with how they were written, but I admit I did watch and the black actors kept me glued to my TV screen. I still miss Jessica, Ben, Marshall (he should be nuMalcolm on Y&R!) and I wish Bonnie were more important now.

[PJA]

Hogan had lots of black cast members at one point, but their stories were horrible as well. I remember the sexy Lamann Rucker was turned into a rapist, then shortly after he raped Jessica she was competing with her best friend (who had also been raped) over some football player while happily married for 25 years. It was ridiculous. Then Bonnie was written as the most vapid spoiled princess on the planet, although I did enjoy her. Sarah was annoying though. I was very frustrated with how they were written, but I admit I did watch and the black actors kept me glued to my TV screen. I still miss Jessica, Ben, Marshall (he should be nuMalcolm on Y&R!) and I wish Bonnie were more important now.

I actually liked the Marshall Travers storyline but hate they turned him into a rapist and then killed him off. The Doc Reese storyline was so bizarre and unnecessary but it did give Margo and Tom some good material.

[Drew]

Pfft, good luck ousting a Bell from a Bell soap.

[DaytimeFan]

Oh believe you me...I know, if she wants to stay there, she will.

However, my hope is that she'll burn herself out or psyche herself out. She's appearing to be doing both currently, the show is awful, MAB has no balls and no confidence, her stories go NOWHERE and are useless. It doesn't help that she's saddled with LML's mess and Griffith.

With today's news of Hogan Sheffer's arrival...it is clear that SOMEONE behind the scenes is aware of MAB and JG's shortcomings.

[MoTheGreat]

& soon they going to be aware of Sheffer short comings.

[DaytimeFan]

Yep. Although it's clear you don't like Sheffer so you already know what they're going to become AWARE of.

[MoTheGreat]

No, I just hate recycle writers who got fire from their other writing jobs because they wasn't any good. These networks needs to look outside of the recycle bin for writers to help them out.

[DaytimeFan]

There's no doubt that recycling writers isn't doing daytime any good...but it's how the system...so the networks might as well hire the best recycled writers they can. Paging Nancy Curlee!

[JackPeyton]

Or simply hire someone qualified for the job.

Maria Arena Bell - Script writer for a few years, never was promoted and left daytime in 1991.

Josh Griffith - No experience as executive producer and mixed results as writer.

Hogan Sheffer - Just forget all the problems with ATWT for a second. At DAYS the ratings dropped nonstop during his reign in a way that no one thought possible. He backburned all the vets, brought on young newbies who couldn't act (like he did at ATWT) and wrote women extremely weak (hey as long as the men have balls!).

All of these people, including LML and her minions, seem to have gotten the job for the wrong reasons. MAB was doing a favor for her family, Griffith got his job because of his connection to Bloom/LML and Sheffer because of he and Griffith worked together at Y&R. As much as I'm not pleased with MAB, I do think he heart was in the right place and she could be trained to become great. She's just not ready to be thrown into such a huge position with no experience. The others? No connections to Y&R and I'm sure they aren't passionate about the show. They're passionate about having a paycheck no matter where it comes from.

I HOPE that I'm proved wrong by Hogan and that Y&R is the show that clicks with him. Only problem is that he had admitted multiple times that he doesn't like to write older characters. As I've (and so many others) said before--Y&R's strength is in it's over 40 crowd. End of story. Right now the younger set is dead, that includes the twentysomethings and people in Nick and Victoria's age range. I worry he'll see that and jump right into revamping those groups, which is his specialty.

OMG! I LOVE THIS POST!

Word for word. everything is so true.

ChrisB, i think you just stole my heart!

[Aaron]

I remember when Hogan got hired at DAYS, within 2 weeks we had Nick Fallon and Willow Stark, and for several months most of the stories were built around these two characters. It annoyed the hell out of me. It was clear he had created two "pet" characters and wanted to force them on the viewers. It's no surprise that now that Hogan's gone, Nick's become a useless, boring character.

So I expect that we'll get two high profile newbies to Y&R the second he shows up.

[Cat]

Well, my gut tells me that what LML was writing was not better than what we are seeing now. It was worse. That's just my opinion and I'm entitled to it.

As for the ratings. My friend, since when has that been an indicator of quality? Santa Barbara never budged from the bottom 3 at its height! OLTL has soared in my estimation in recent weeks but that has not (yet?) been reflected in its demos.

My point in the original post was just to avoid turning our very valid displeasure with the show into some kind of collective hysteria. It is precisely this attitude that got Jack Smith and everybody who had worked on the show for 15+ years turfed out on their ear.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to settle for "mediocre" where Y&R is concerned because I love the show, have done for years. And right now, it is mediocre and needs fixing. It needs fixing because LML ruined it for 2-3 years! Instead, we now have a situation where Sony has rushed through a shock-and-awe hiring. Just like they did with LML.

[Ryan]

About Hogan....

1) His bible for DAYS was done. The show started using it and before it could take off, they told him he couldn't use the central players in his bible (Marlena, John, Bo and Hope).

2) Stories that were supposed to last 2-4 weeks were stretched out for MONTHS on the order of those above him (The stupid island story, Sami's wedding, the whole DiMera Ireland crap)

3) DAYS ratings bleed began after the announcement that DAYS probably won't be renewed. Add on top of that the absence of DAYS 4 big stars and lackluster stories (that were meant to be filler now carrying the show).

4) The "Touch The Sky" story wasn't Hogan's idea. It sucked ass and everyone knows it.

I'm not excusing the horrible stories at times on DAYS under Hogan's pen, but there was a LOT of [!@#$%^&*] that went into it, even before we had Hogan admitting in the magazines there were budget issues, and later Tom Casiello going into more detail (which btw, many of us on SON mentioned the budget issues before it was made public and were ridiculed by some). When DAYS hit it's groove, it was great. The addition of Ed Scott made things much better for Hogan and Co....then the strike happened and they were fired.

When you take 5 months to craft stories for the next 3 years and a few months into it it's thrown out the window by your boss, and told to make your B & C stories carry the show, you're bound to run into issues. The stories could and should have been tweaked to be better, but given the interference, how do we know it wasn't attempted?