Y&R: Week of January 26, 2008

[Cashton]

[BadZoe]

Brad Who??

I hope this guy doesn't show up on B&B, they have enough lousy actors over there for KKL and SF to prop up.

[Ann_SS]

After years of disliking Brad, I'm sad about his departure. Even if they do find a body, soaps have so discredited themselves by resurrecting everyone who dies that I know Brad can still return.

[juniorz1]

OH I'm totally with ALL of you. SHRAD forever! Seriously though, DD & SC had oodles of chemistry, dating back to their sudden friendship when Cassie died. She should have never ended up with Jack, just like Brad should have never married Victoria. The opportunist in him would have gotten to have his cake and eat it too with the huge divorce settlement I'm sure Sharon got due to Nick's indiscretion. What a shame and a missed opportunity.

I hope beyond all hopes that my Brad shows up in Genoa City again someday, or even on B&B. Can you imagine the chemistry he'd have with KKL and Leslie Kay? DY-NO-MITE!

[dm.]

I've realized yet now that the wrong year is in the title.

[ChitHappens]

Susan Flannery - ABSOLUTELY, but Katherine Kelly Lang does not have enough acting power to prop anyone. She's awardless with no nominations for a reason.

ANDREA

[Cheap21]

IA. I dont see whats so good about KKL. I find her acting annoying and not that impressive. Now SF is in a league of her own and outclasses everyone on that show

[YRBB]

So, Don Diamont should be paired with Susan Flannery? I'd watch that.

[y&r_fan]

I wish they were writing him out in a way that would allow him to cross over to B&B.

[MarkH]

Well, there are lots of ways to play it.

(1) He was so depressed, so at a crossroads, he thought his daughters would be better off if he started over...built up his base of support. (Or, he could surreptitiously let at least Colleen know he is alive).

(2) His car died because it had been tampered with ... by Nazis ... by Jana's Czech relatives ... by Lisa Mansfield (is she still alive?) ... and these people have taken him

(3) Plain and simple....exposure....reduced blood flow...history of heart attack....he has a cerebrovascular incident that affects his memory. He starts a new life with his rescuer. (Think Carl Willliams).

I don't reall care :-). I just don't want this character wiped out permanently. Or else we'll get his Scottish actor lookalike some day...and I'm not so thrilled about that.

[YRBB]

That, or some DAYS OF OUR LIVES-ish return-from-the-dead... And, quite honestly, I rather Y&R not start doing that.

[Cat]

Uh. Who? Ian Buchanan comes to mind and now I'm confused.

RIP, Bradski.

P.S.: I was disappointed by the whole Noah-falls-through-the-ice sequence. Brad crawling towards him was quite tensely (and well) done, but when we didn't see the fall through the ice itself, you knew that Y&R's budget cuts were hitting deep. Five years ago on GH, Carly (then played by Tamara Braun) fell through the ice and the viewers saw the whole thing. I did like light of the lamp going out at the every end of the epiosde, though.

[MarkH]

Sorry to bump up last week's thread, but something has been weighing on me... I also apologize for the length. Rather than get p*ssed of by it, just skip it, okay .

Now, it is funny, because in one press interview, Morrow almost agreed with all of you. At the very least, in a self-deprecating fashion, he said that Nick could be played by "any guy with abs".

But here is the thing: You're all wrong .

Full disclosure: I LOATHED Joshua Morrow's Nick almost from the beginning, and I thought he was a horrible actor. Recent flashbacks (like when he proposed to Sharon, or carried her over the threshold of their cottage) affirmed that for me. He was all dimples and sappy line readings...but there was no genuine emotion underneath the performance. I also hated that (newly-revealed) pickup-truck driving Nick was such a far cry from what I believe would actually have emerged from a Swiss boarding school education. where was the class and the culture?

Second full disclosure: After totally digging Nick these past few years, I also am very angry with the character right now. I think the way he is treating Phyllis is AWFUL. He married her! He should have put on the brakes with Sharon. But even beyond that, he should not have gone STRAIGHT HOME and PLANNED TO LEAVE! Just how little commitment does this donkey have anyway??? One f*ck, and he's off??? Argh!

But, even with those acknowledgments, I honestly believe that Morrow is one of the best actors on the show, within a certain context.

Said differently, Y&R has (among its capable performers) two kinds of actors. It has the "genuine thespians", who give naunced performances and for whom every single line reading is obviously a carefully thought out set of choices. Peter Bergman and Christian Leblanc are obvious examples. I like them both...but they are mannered actors whose process is, for me, very much at the forefront. In that sense, I view them as performers...not characters or flesh-and-blood living creatures.

Then we have actors who basically just play themselves. Eric Braeden is the quintessential example. When I watch Victor, I lose the sense that this is a performance. I realize that discredits Eric's process and work, but really, I just see the character. For me this is the highest mark of a performance...when I can't tell that someone is acting.

So it has become with Joshua. He used to be nothing but a line reader...but there were flashes in the mid-to-late 90s when I started to notice a chance. The first scene that sticks in my head was when little Cassie had a slumber party, and the girls were all shrieking over the Spice Girls Movie. Morrow played that he was in hell, but also that he loved his girls. It was a rare bit of humor for the then-staid Y&R, and it was one of the first times I felt Morrow's natural 'cut up' personality was allowed to seep through. And in that moment, there was an instant likeability for me. It felt real.

Then, when Noah was born, and he was premature, and Nick and Sharon felt he had died, and they fled the hospital to grieve with one another. Morrow let himself go in that scene, and he was good. That scene had some personal resonance for me at that time...and I'm here to say, it was a genuine performance.

Somewhere around the time of Cassie's death, and with LML's transition, Morrow got the instruction (or the inclination) to start playing himself. Suddenly, we heard the "dudes" and "chicks" and all the Morrow-isms that have come to infuse Nick. Rather than view that as "can't act", I viewed it as "beginning to BE rather than PRETENDING TO BE". As soon as that happened, Nick felt real and relatable and honest...not a performance. And I have loved Morrow ever since.

I really think Morrow deserves a second look from all of you detractors. I really think he brings a verisimilitude...an absence of artifice...that many daytime males would be wise to emulate.

I close with the master, Eric Braeden's, own views on this topic:

[rhythmchyc]

I'm glad someone likes Joshua for something besides the abs. Although, I could literally watch that classic reveal twenty times a day...

This week, though, he wasn't as expressive as I would've liked. I mean, Sharon tells him that he's the love of her life and he didn't react in a way that I thought not only he should've but he could've. Then when he faced Phyllis, it was the same blank expression on his face. Very unfortunate.

My favorite scenes of Joshua's definitely revolve around Cassie's death. Her final hospital scene and the scenes when he lost his memory and he finds out she died again. There was something so real about those moments. I wish he could express those emotions of anguish as well as he would guilt or fear or relief or confusion or disgust. Like when he found Victor on the ground from suffering an epilepsy spell last summer. I wish he was more torn about it than he expressed. He definitely doesn't have a range. But he's not the absolute worst on Y&R.

And I'd rather watching him nowadays than the habitual performances from LeBlanc and Bergman.

Actors are supposed to breathe life into their characters and those two have stifled them to death. I agree MarkH, Morrow has breathed life into his character. But he has a long way to go still.

[DeeeDee]

Rikaart & Chapman are bad influences on Leblanc.