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Y&R/B&B: Kay Alden Interview


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:huh: I was trying to have this conversation with some of you guys upthread a few days ago.

Alden has good and bad points. Bad = B&B. Good = some of her writing of women on Y&R. Side-by-side with a fragile, vulnerable and psychotic character like Tricia or a shaky Ashley, there was Jill at her most Bitch-Queenly and Victoria at her most headstrong.

There was something about her writing, though, which had me tuning out for a while. Not something I can really put my finger on. I will say that some plots did deliver with big pay-off scenes but a lot of plots were also very much of a slow burn. Like, it took a while to get to the pay-off! It could contrast quite sharply with, say, GH's Click-Boom era around the same time.

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No confrontation here. A serious question.

"Debate", "rationalizing"...these seem to be bad words to you. But "feeling"...the kinds of transcendent moments you described above, these seem to be good things to you.

Could it be that the writers who work best for you are those who inspire grand emotion (i.e., the "opera" in soap opera)? Could it be that Alden writes more from mind than gut? "What is his perspective? What is her perspective? What is the sum of these perspectives?"

That said, I cannot defend Kay Alden. I enjoyed her early HW run on Y&R, but by the time we were drowning in Dennisons I was quite willing to embrace Jack Smith. And I cannot detect ANY positive influence on B&B. The latter show has become more fundamentally bankrupt now than it was when she was not there.

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No, Mark, you mistranslated again. I have no problem with debate & reason. And debate & reason & emotion can go hand in hand. :)

I have a problem with that quote of hers. Academic debate makes her see things from all sorts of perspectives? Yeah, right, it sure showed on shows she wrote.

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Actually, if you read my post to you, I asked questions. I did not offer a translation.

But you have now stated, apparently, the nature of your objection to that quote. "Yeah, right, it sure showed on shows she wrote." You disbelieve her in that statement. Now I understand. Thank you for clarifying.

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Yeah. :) I have to say that never in my life have I thought that a :lol: smiley can be so misplaced as it always in your recent ones. It just seems like: I'm going to put it 'cause everyone around here does or I am actually really, really p!ssed and I have to humiliate the other person so I'm going to laugh his/her post off... Translation: I don't think you're laughing. You've never used them before - except the veiled insult :) - and you've never ever used formatting, instead choosing Usenet *, capitals etc. But who cares, right? Never mind me and my "interpretation". :);)

But I have to say that I am startled than no one answered Sinclair's question. Not a single soul. Never mind me, there are others who could've, but didn't. :mellow:

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