Kay and her dude, that was the weakest under the mistletoe kiss ever. She side kissed him like his breath was bad.

Murphy is being a gentleman, showing Marge he'd like to kiss her, but not making their living arrangement awkward by shoving his tongue down her throat if she doesn't want him to. I found it kind of romantic, unlike those scenes earlier this year with Grandpa Victor smooching on Sabrina.

I would definitely agree with that. Michael and his whole flipping family became way to overexposed the last few years.

I don't get why people can't discern Michael from Gloria. Gloria has been way over exposed. Michael has been support for nearly three years. He didn't lead any story in 2006 although spent a few weeks on frontburner for Fen's birth and Lauren's PPD. He was one of the leads in the six week Sheila as Phyllis story in Jan/Feb 2007 and now this River story (Oct and Dec 2008) that has been in fits and starts. Jack Smith made him lead in 2004 and 2005 and LML turned him back into supporting and Maria Bell has kept him there until this past month.

The characters that are on frontburner most of the time are the Newmans and the quad. Think of all the stories, Victor, Nikki, Phyllis, Jack, Nick and Sharon have had in the past three years. Michael is used mostly as a prop for Gloria and lawyer for Phyllis or Victor. Now that Phyllis looks to be set to implode her life, I am sure Michael will be used to prop her in 2009 just like he did for most of 2007. This year he was busy propping Victor.

Edited December 22, 200816 yr by lmfan

I hope MAB somehow intertwines Sharon/Nikki together again. These two were GREAT together, and then they just stopped sharing scenes.

I agree. I used to love their interaction although I was a bigger fan of Nikki's. It just feels like Sharon integrated into the Newman family and in a way still is. Even though Phyllis is married to Nick and they have a child, neither Victor nor Nikki have fully embraced her in the family. They are polite at this point but neither would care if Nick and Phyllis split while they were always worked up when Sharon and Nick were having issues. Phyllis is more of an outsider. I felt that way when she was an Abbott and now a Newman. The only people who truly treat her as family besides her kids are Michael and Lauren who she has had very few scenes with this year.

I liked Nikki's scenes with Victor today. They will always find an excuse to have MTS and EB in scenes together and they still have great chemistry, but I really want to see them give Nikki a genuine try with Paul. I always wanted Nikki and Victor together no matter who they were married to, but this time he has been so hurtful to Nikki and vice versa to a lesser extent that I think Nikki needs to move on for awhile.

You can definitely trace Jack F. Smith's downfall in part to the Baldwin/Fisher invasion, he had other problems, but he loved that family so much and basically set Latham up to make prop them at the expense of others. Then Latham dismantled the Abbott's, and used them to prop the Frisher-Baldwins (especially Gloria).

The thing that I like about now is that the Abbots and Newmans are CLEARLY the leading families on the show again. The Chancellor element as also quite strong once again. Even with the Baldwin-Fishers still on, it doesn't feel like they're dominating anything. They certainly aren't being propped anymore. Gloria isn't being painted as some saint who makes stupid decisions, she's being painted as the loon she really is.

The best thing Maria did this year was reestablish the Abbott family.

The downfall of Jack Smith was the Sheila story and that the suits were getting antsy with the ratings although they were still pretty good under Jack Smith. They wanted to modernize the show and were so out of touch they had no idea what the fans loved about Y & R which was the different pacing, long time characters, and character based stories. They tried to fix something that wasn't broken and nearly ruined what made Y and R special by giving complete control to LML. LML by the way may have decimated the Abbott family but she sure loved Peter Bergman, Michelle Stafford, Don Diamont and Judith Chapman.

She did very little with Michael and Lauren who was part of the number one couple, very popular, and favorites of Jack Smith when she took over and quickly backburned them. I expected Michael and Lauren to be backburned for awhile since they had heavy story for the second half of 2005 but not like she backburned them.

Jack Smith needed to use certain characters more but the Baldwin brother story was brilliantly acted and written, Katherine had a recurrance of alcoholism, Dru and the Winters had the big foster care storyline, he started the Phick affair over Cassie's death although I don't know if he would have turned the hot affair into a mismatched marriage. I think the Abbotts were reinvorgorated with the addition of the Baldwin Fishers in their family but LML went way off the tracks with the whole cream debacle and centering the Baldwin/Fisher family around Gloria. I mean come on, how many times were we going to have to watch the Abbotts nearly lose Jabot due to financial problems?

I agree that Maria was smart to reestablish the Abbott family, but no way do I think the Baldwin-Fisher additions were the downfall of Jack Smith. Greg Rikkhart and Christian Le Blanc won emmy's under Jack Smith. Tracey Bregman finally was being used as more than a fairy godmother to the teen set anytime they needed a special dress or some advice and Gloria (as a supporting character) was an entertaining addition.

Jack Smith made John Abbott a murderer just to prop poor ol' Gloria, for that alone, Smith deserves ill wishes.

Edited December 22, 200816 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

Jack Smith made John Abbott a murderer just to prop poor ol' Gloria, for that alone, Smith deserves ill wishes.

LML had control by then. She made John a murderer and she still could have gotten him off. Just before his death, Michael had earned him a pardon from the governor, and even if they didn't give him a pardon he still should have earned little time for killing a criminal when he thought his family was endagered and who he believed had killed his daughter in law and family friend (Lauren). Gloria reinvigorated figure head John under Jack Smith. LML was the one who nearly destroyed the Abbott family, except for Jack who received heavy story under LML.

LML decided to kill off John and write off Ashley, not Jack Smith so for that she deserves your scorn. Jack Smith's name was on the credits but he was doing little work in early 2006 as LML was gaining power and he was spending time with his son who was diagnosed with cancer and died in the spring of that year. Jack Smith talked about this time in an interview about a year ago.

LML had control by then. She made John a murderer and she still could have gotten him off. Just before his death, Michael had earned him a pardon from the governor, and even if they didn't give him a pardon he still should have earned little time for killing a criminal when he thought his family was endagered and who he believed had killed his daughter in law and family friend (Lauren). Gloria reinvigorated figure head John under Jack Smith. LML was the one who nearly destroyed the Abbott family, except for Jack who received heavy story under LML.

And wasn't LML consulting for the show around the time of the actual shooting of Terrible Tom (late 2005), even though Smith was still officially in charge? And if SONY was pushing for the stories that came from her consulting gig to make the airways, maybe Smith didn't have a lot of leeway about whether to go with LML's ideas, even if he didn't agree with them.

LML had control by then. She made John a murderer and she still could have gotten him off.

John killed Tom in January 2006, Latham wasn't officially in the credits as a Co-HW until February. Smith was still EP and main HW at that point. Latham was only a Creative Consultant at that point.

Jack Smith made John Abbott a murderer just to prop poor ol' Gloria, for that alone, Smith deserves ill wishes.

Yep!

LML had control by then. She made John a murderer and she still could have gotten him off. Just before his death, Michael had earned him a pardon from the governor, and even if they didn't give him a pardon he still should have earned little time for killing a criminal when he thought his family was endagered and who he believed had killed his daughter in law and family friend (Lauren). Gloria reinvigorated figure head John under Jack Smith. LML was the one who nearly destroyed the Abbott family, except for Jack who received heavy story under LML.

LML decided to kill off John and write off Ashley, not Jack Smith so for that she deserves your scorn.

Couldn't agree more.

In regards to Jack Smith's influence from late 2005 till he was fired: he was not consulted on anything, Sony absolutely absolved him of his duties as HW and although LML's name was not in the credits as HW till February, she was the driver of that bus. Sony had grown to hate Jack Smith, his Nielsen surveys were terrible and a number of the cast members (A list cast members) were unhappy with their storylines.

Everything that happened with Jack's son only made the situation worse. He was in the worst position imaginable. Given his situation he did the best he possibly could.

Why does Adam have a Public Defender? He's got money. Having him up there with a PD was sloppy.

A promo for the Michael episode: http://www.theyoungandtherestless.com/mult...etail_4210.html

For those interested this clip of Michael's stand alone and pictures of the holiday decorations from the set are up at SONY. I am glad we have the decorations back.

Very intense promo for Michael's stand alone based on the holiday classic "It's a Wonderful Life" I like Lauren's business woman look, but I don't like her yelling at pooor Mikey. LOL.

http://www.theyoungandtherestless.com/mult...eoswf_4210.html

The decorations are back. Pics of the decorated sets. In my totally biased opinion I like the Baldwin place. Jana and Kevin's apartment is really Daniel and Amber's place and it is so Amber. I loved the Chancellor tree. The Newman ranch seems a bit subdued but I liked the pictures and mantle.

http://www.theyoungandtherestless.com/spec...etail_4158.html

Edited December 23, 200816 yr by lmfan

A promo for the Michael episode: http://www.theyoungandtherestless.com/mult...etail_4210.html

Wow! It looks good. I'll be watching..