Higley Quit DAYS?

[MarkH]

Yes, exactly. That's why I used the term "trust fund baby" the other day. Because, honestly, the lack of firm control...the sense of being overmatched by the managerial job at hand...these things seem like someone inherited a position, rather than earned it.

Roman, of course you're right. But inmates tend to do that. Jockeying for position is sadly SOP for humans in organizations.

Picture my daytime hero, Victor Newman, running Corday Enterprises . As soon as these idiots started to jockey, what would he do? He'd knock heads together (literally), remind them of their jobs, and probably fire them for their insolence and hire more reliable people. I'm being facetious, but if the chief executive has strength, everything else falls into place.

What we're seeing here, cumulatively, is a chief executive who (a) has no strength, and thus is constantly shifted on the winds of the people he has hired at the moment; ( has no vision, so the "real Days" doesn't exist...the real shifting sands here are the show's identity; © has no loyalty (hence the repeated hiring and firing of people in front of and behind the camera). This set of attributes trickles down...so we see a show with no commitment, desperately seeking the sensation and "fix" of the moment.

This is not the way to run any business, but certainly not a creative one.

I wonder if Sony/NBC, in renegotiating, would have it in their purview to negotiate that he take a "silent partner" position? Because, honestly, if an open-minded, strong, principled leader had been running the show, no one would have felt the desperate need to revise scripts on their own.

DO NOT FORGET THIS: Ed Scott worked for decades under a master whose scripts he would not DARE have altered. I cannot believe that Ed is some maverick assh*le who just does what he wants. I do think that Ed has learned a bit of how things ought to be, and that he was hired to fix things. What he must have found was a non-collaborative environment that was not open to his input. After a time, I can imagine the sheer galling powerlessness of it...the inability to do your job, because the guy above you isn't intellectually or emotionally present...or just isn't open to feedback....wears on you like a pebble in your shoe.

So, finally, you say f*ck this! Now what? You either give up, or you mutiny.

Why would a guy like Ed Scott mutiny? I cannot believe he needs the money or the occupation. Maybe he cares about the show, and the people who are employed by it, and the fans who loved it. THOSE are the things....I don't think he's just some crazy control freak.

Let's look at it a different way: Dena is consistently NOT associated with quality. Ed is consistently associated with quality. What does it do, when you are handed dreck day after day. And when your attempts to fix the dreck through "proper channels" is repudiated. And then when your only RECOURSE ventures off all the time.

At the risk of abusing a beautiful piece of art and affirming my kitchy bent for melodrama...but I think Langston Hughes' poem is the ultimate story of cumulative frustration, and explains the root cause for the kind of thing we've seen in this tale:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

People do stupid things, all you have to do is look at Griffth's crappy production model...

The other West Coast soap can't be Passions since it's ended production, it's not GH, and it certainly not B&B. That only leaves Y&R, and with the way Y&R was from March to June, there had to be a lot of things playing into that.

Nelson promises part 2 tomorrow, maybe he'll expand on the Y&R part.

[Toups]

Crappy production is one thing but backstabbing the OWNERS of the show you work for? Come on. Really? You really think that's a possibility? LOL

[MarkH]

What do you mean "crappy production model".

By production model, thanks to Ellen Wheeler, I take that to mean the sets, location work, shooting schedule, etc.

What do you mean by that, vis-a-vis JG? Sincerely interested....

I'm confused. Haven't we heard JG is basically a decent guy? Didn't he help broker peace between LML and the production staff at Y&R? Didn't he help broker peace between Michael Malone and ABC? If yes, how is this core decency we keep hearing about consistent with this new vision of JG as palace-usurper?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Maybe it's my anti-Griffith agenda.

Then maybe you should apologize for your anti-Dena comments, since it was really Ed Scott, eh, Toups?

I still think Griffith has a firm hand in the writing, being a writer himself. I still don't think every new addition to the Y&R writer staff since Griffith was promoted to main EP has been repped by his agent is a coincidence. There's something really funny going on around there, and I simply do not trust Griffith and whatever ethics he has.

[Vee]

You can be decent and good at another show, and still be perfectly wrong for another one, and out of your element in an administrative role. Hence, Josh Griffith.

Oh, mary. TOO LATE.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Latham took away the actors rehearsal time, and Griffith hasn't given it back to them. I think rehearsal time is very vital to a show and its presentation. Also, notice how limited the Y&R sets are these days? Even the ABC soaps use more sets per episode than Y&R. The Athletic Club and Crimson Lights suck up all the air time on Y&R, and there's no excuse why everyone has to be in those two locations.

It's sickening to see that Paul and Micahel don't have office sets anymore and do all of their professional work at Crimson Lights/Athletic Club. Y&R used to have unique sets for all of its characters, not anymore. Griffith is an incompetent EP that shouldn't have been given that position in the first place.

[Toups]

Yeah...maybe. LOL

Nope, I won't apologize for Dena's crappy writing. This news doesn't absolved Dena for what she's done. We don't know the whole story.

Well of course Griffith helps out with the writing, if he thinks changes should be made to scripts, he and Maria will talk it over. Thom Racina isn't repped by Griffith's agent.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

^LOL, save for a few, almost every new addition to the Y&R writing team this year has been Sarnoff-repped and I'm not convinced that's coincidence. Griffith gives priority to Sarnoff's clients, regardless of talent.

Griffith is an amateur as an EP and nothing will convince me otherwise.

[phloeishot]

Tom Casiello on the Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/buzzworthyrad...h-Is-Higley-Out

[DaytimeFan]

I can't reveal how I know it...but Y&RWorldTurner is correct. Things between Josh Griffith and MAB haven't been good since the strike. JG had been dismissing MAB's storylines and doing heavy rewrites which PISSED her off. Hence, Hogan Sheffer was welcomed aboard by the Bells to act as a buffer between JG and MAB. Things appear to have cooled off. I just find it interesting that a week before all this sh*t hits the fan Brad Bell promoted Kay Alden to Co-HW...I wonder if perhaps we'll be seeing Bradley boy oust Griffith and EP both shows. Tony Morina would likely become the 'hands on' EP since he's the one in the booth and on the soundstage already.

And just for sh*ts and giggles the diva who is writing DAYS has to be Lauren Koslow. She worked for Bill Bell for nearly a decade, she must have picked SOMETHING up.

[MarkH]

Thanks for this. This description makes sense to me.

I'll be eager to hear more about how Sheffer is faring as the "go between". If Barbara Bloom is anti-JG, then this would suggest she might actually be aligned with MAB/The Bells at this point, no?

Ugh...sorry. I'm guessing you meant that with love and affection?

[DaytimeFan]

When it comes to 'the truth' if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's a duck.

Sheffer appears to be doing well as a buffer between JG and MAB...simply because he agrees with MAB, throws in his ideas and shouts at Griffith. MAB is a sweet lamb, she doesn't like confrontation, HS lives for it and he doesn't give a sh*t who he pisses off, he's MAB's heavy.

Babs is indeed anti JG...but the Bells still hate her. They simply agree that JG sucks. The Bells know that Babs is interested in getting her sticky fingers into their Y&R pie with one of her pals as EP and they are not going to let it happen (hence the trial run of Rauch)...the Bradley ouster is simply a guess on my part, but I think it's a good one.

[David_Vickers]

My bet is the Diva (if a vet) is Lauren Koslow. The affair of Daniel & Kate's came out of nowhere, if she's writing she wrote that probalby because she's jealous of Rachel Melvin. Also I bet Victor's stroke is also part of her writing so she would get more story with Phillip.

If not her, my guess would be a younger diva, either Nadia Bjorlin, Arianne Zuker or Kristen Renton. If I had to bet on these 3, I'd bet Arianne Zuker.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Tony Morina is essentially doing Griffith's EP grunt work on the production side, all the actors have said so. HOWEVER, I DO NOT want him to take over as EP when Griffith is fired. He's another one with no EP experience and Y&R has had inexperienced leadership for way too long. Either bring back Shaughnessy or Smith or hire a respectable EP with good producing experience and reputation.

Bradley, eh, I think he'd be better than most actually (I know, unpopular opinion).