Y&R: Week of May 04, 2009

[Heyou]

Word! I don't know of anyone that doesn't like Kay and Murphy but it really is sad that the only couple on screen that's remotely interesting are a pair of Octogenarians. MAB missed the mark with Sabrina and Victor's romance and let's face it Cane and Lily are not interesting, they are LAME! I hated their photo shoot but the theory was interesting since it appeared they were mocking the pair, which we often do here on SON. Another point, they haven't showed hardly any of the Nikki and Paul romance and we all know they will not be for too long any ways since Victor and Nikki always find their way back to one another.

Just as another poster said, things seem to come in spades such as the jail house scenes, mental illness storylines. pregnancies, WTD and way too many 2 women and 1 man triangles. Even still, it's a hellava lot better than when Latham was writing since MAB at least knows her history even if her storylines are recycled.

[Khan]

Thank you, lmfan, ICAM.

[lmfan]

I don't have a problem with her focusing on the Abbotts, Chancellors and Newmans, but she is hardly scaling back Kevin and Gloria who are both getting new story. Maria played Gloria heavy last year and it has only been the last few months she has been scaled back. Jana and Jeffrey are also involved in upcoming stories. They are the relative new characters in that family.

The ones being ignored in that family are the vets, Lauren who has been connected to this show for longer than most other characters and Michael, a 14 yr vet who gets screen time, but little story. Maria has elevated Kevin and Gloria above Michael in that family. They get the story, Michael and Lauren are mere props and Lauren is treated as a dayplayer who once again has been written out for five weeks (meaning TEB will have been used sparingly in 7 episodes in 3 and a half months, 20 for the first five months of the year).

I didn't like LML killing off John, but that story showcased Gloria and Jack both. Peter had tons of story from that death. Cassie's death was a Smith/Alden story and Maria Bell plays the quad as much as LML did. The only difference is that LML focused more on Phyllis and Maria focuses more on Sharon. MS and SC are good in this story, but it just seems like a complete reversal of the original story.

I think at some point a writer has to write an original story of her own. Yes, the past will color the characters and their actions, but some of these stories being recycled were just a couple years ago. It is one thing to bring back Marge from two decades ago, but so many stories being recycled are from just a short time ago.

I'll admit part of me watches for characters and when my personal favorites are continuously backburned or neglected I don't enjoy the show as much. I am more of a fan of the characters than the plot. I love a good story and enjoyed the Katherine story and find this Adam gaslighting story interesting, but I also watch for characters I have been watching for over a decade or longer.

By the way, Nelson Branco has a blind item that a SUPERSTAR from a West Coast soap (not GH) is being asked to go recurring. I automatically thought it was CLB but since he would not be considered a Superstar, I began wondering about MTS and her marriage to Paul. MTS's only story has been as Katherine's friend and Victor's irritant since last summer and Maria has made little investment in the Nikki and Paul romance, so it made me wonder if she may be the Superstar.

[Khan]

With all due respect, Scryber, not everyone was claiming MAB as Y&R's messiah. Some might've been, but not everyone.

If anything, Y&R right now feels to me like AMC did after Megan McTavish was fired for the first time, in 1995 (?). AMC had a de-facto HW in longtime associate writer Hal Corley, but it was clear he wasn't assuming the reins permanently. Corley was there to rewrite McTavish's stories a bit and keep the show in production until the permanent successor, Lorraine Broderick, was available.

Really, MAB needs to put RS out to pasture, put Jack back in control of Jabot, Kay in control of Chancellor (w/ Cane as a possible second-in-command; he is PC3, after all), and Victoria back as number-two "man" at Newman (now that Neil has quit).

[cara mia]

That's a great idea.

What if Billy & Adam teamed up to start a really trashy gossipy online tabloid? The kind of thing Rupert Murdoch likes to publish? Or how about Jill starts her own magazine, a Cosmo-type publication? I see Jill admiring someone like Helen Gurley Brown.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think Lauren should divorce Michael and leave town with Fenn if they don't want to use her. I don't think the character is neeed or essential to the show anyway.

[YRBB]

I am the only one who thinks that trying to focus on Newman, Jabot and Chancellor may be a little too much? They can barely come up with things for one of the companies... and have we ever been told what Chancellor Industries actually does?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It totally agree, not much seems to be progressing at all. It feels like one long-ass transitional phase, where although lots of good has happened, nothing is particularly brilliant.

MAB needs to swallow her pride and give this show over to a real writer, not one who dropped daytime like a hot potato and came back during the strike to help her family out.

Any dream replacements for MAB, Khan? And yeah, it must be a realistic choice.

[YRBB]

Right now, no, I don't think she is either... Just ship her off to B&B, she could do wonders there.

[Khan]

ITA. Kay-is-Jill's-mom was problematic, because it effectively severed Jill's remaining ties to the Fosters; but, you know, I could've lived with it. Besides, it's not as if Kay and Jill had to get along now because they happened to be mother and daughter. Plenty of mothers have issues with their children, and vice-versa.

Cane-is-Jill's-son, OTOH, had no basis in character or logic, let alone, history. If Kay were too drunk to remember switching the babies, then she was too drunk to switch the babies in the first place! And if she were going to take Phillip's child away from Jill, don't you think she would've kept it for herself? Even worse, by revealing Cane to be the real PC3, LML screwed up the timeline(s) so badly; ain't no way in hell that Cane could have fathered a child PC4's age. Which will be more than apparent, I think, when

.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yeah, but we know Bradley won't invest in her for an extended period of time either.

[lmfan]

That's what some were saying about Katherine and Jill a couple years ago. This show is an ensemble and can survive without any one character, but it is about what the writers do with those characters. Tracey Bregman is a good actress and Lauren Fenmore is a character many viewers care about. That is why I don't want to see her just tossed to be replaced by someone younger and likely less talented.

[Khan]

Too bad she didn't eat the dogshit, huh?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Katherine and Jill are compltely different animals though. If either left, the show would be without characters who were with the show in its first year, in the historical sense, Jill and Katherine matter much more than Lauren, and their ties in Genoa City are obviously more stronger and deeper than Lauren's.

I agree with that too. No character is the be all or end all of an ensemble medium like soaps (well, maybe at ABC these days).

They don't have to replace her. Michael doesn't necessarily have to move on to another woman for a very long time.

[Khan]

Victor grieved more for Sabrina's passing, I think, than even Hope's; and therein, lies my problem with that entire chapter.

And really, I hate that, b/c after everything they said and did to each other in the wake of David and Sabrina's deaths, I am turned off entirely by the thought of the two being in the same town together, let alone, married again.