I'm not even sure "refocusing" is needed. Whether people like it or not, the show is fairly focused on a small number of characters/families/stories.

thats the issue. that is not a good thing, not for Y&R.

GH and Days are both doing this right now. It is working for Days because they have a small cast, and very few main characters. They feature the stars of the show in mains torylines and use each and every recurring and supporting character as much as they can in the storys and make it work. They have woven in the newbies well. What days is doing is working. GH is failing. they are featuring characters people have been sick of for a decade now and nobody else. those main characters get play, as for a few others here and there, and the rest of the cast is being wasted.

Y&R is going more GH than Days, a very bad thing.

But this isn't good writing at all. A good soap writer knows how to write for a vast canvas and knows when to appropriately rest certain characters after they've been given too much to do.

exactly.

I guess there are degrees of hackery. Y&R's team is not obvious in its hackery like Chuck Pratt on AMC but the great production values are masking a lot of problems with the show.

I don't mind if JT is written out but my problem with that is that TL -- at the height of his popularity -- was MORE popular than MG and GR. So, just from a ratings potential POV, it seems silly to not even try to write something for JT, especially since he was one of the few Y&R characters that was part of a supercouple. Jolleen completely eclipsed Bac in popularity at one point and yet we have to see this dreadful Bac for months now. There's been to attempt to at least test out JT with Tyra or Heather or Chloe or any other young woman. Or how about Jill or Nikki? Shirtless JT is not a bad thing.

Ugh, I hate the writing for Jill right now. They're using her as comedic relief and grouping her in with two useless characters like Gloria and Jeffrey because they have absolutely no idea what to do with these characters. Jill is better than this crap they give her. She's being misused.

Edited June 17, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

ok, poor old Clementine (and Mac) needs a little love and backslap here and I'm gonna give it to her.

I like her. I like her Mac, better than FrownBash and that miscast Kimsey girl. She and Billy Miller have been milking some chemistry in recent days, and that's not to say that she and David Lago don't have something sizzling there, because they do.

I don't get that visceral feeling of hatred for Mac that I do whenever Googly-Eyes shows up scamming for money or exhaustion whenever DanBerJaVin squeal into view. Seriously, I'd rather watch Tammin Sursok give Eric Braeden a masterclass in Acting with Accents than those screechy shlubs. And I usually loveMichael Grazadei!

Jill needs to be mixing it up with Cane and Nina and LangleyLip because when that secret gets exposed, Jill's reaction is the one I want to see the most. Followed closely by Kay and Nina.

If they want to save the youth cast (which is in dire straits right now), for the love of GAWD, promote Chloe as the new, scheming-yet-relatable Nina. Liz Hendricksen is the strongest young performer alongside Billy Miller right now. And give her a job with Jill or Nikki as her professional mentor.

Secondly, I think I want Amber and Jana to go as I don't see much use for either of them. The bromance that is Daniel and Kevin needs to reconnect, and Daniel needs more scenes with Phyllis and other characters of a different age set. Indeed, all the young 'uns need to mix it up with the vets. I only liked TS's Colleen when she was interacting with JT, Victor (yes, truly!), Victoria and Jack. Kevin & Billy's old rivalry also has great untapped potential.

Lily needs a recast, STAR. Devon needs a story with other guys his age (not his adopted sisters or adoped aunt). Why isn't he in scenes with JT? Colleen? Amber? Daniel?

Eden - goodbye. Abby can stay, though. The actress has potential. KS as Noah, of course, needs to stay as without him, the teen set has no heart.

Edited June 17, 200916 yr by Cat

If they want to save the youth cast (which is in dire straits right now), for the love of GAWD, promote Chloe as the new, scheming-yet-relatable Nina. Liz Hendricksen is the strongest young performer alongside Billy Miller right now. And give her a job with Jill or Nikki as her professional mentor.

One of my biggest fears for this show is that they are going to waste Chloe. She's already a reformed goldigger, which I find unfortunate. They reformed part I mean.

ok, poor old Clementine (and Mac) needs a little love and backslap here and I'm gonna give it to her.

I like her. I like her Mac, better than FrownBash and that miscast Kimsey girl. She and Billy Miller have been milking some chemistry in recent days, and that's not to say that she and David Lago don't have something sizzling there, because they do.

I don't get that visceral feeling of hatred for Mac that I do whenever Googly-Eyes shows up scamming for money or exhaustion whenever DanBerJaVin squeal into view. Seriously, I'd rather watch Tammin Sursok give Eric Braeden a masterclass in Acting with Accents than those screechy shlubs. And I usually loveMichael Grazadei!

Jill needs to be mixing it up with Cane and Nina and LangleyLip because when that secret gets exposed, Jill's reaction is the one I want to see the most. Followed closely by Kay and Nina.

If they want to save the youth cast (which is in dire straits right now), for the love of GAWD, promote Chloe as the new, scheming-yet-relatable Nina. Liz Hendricksen is the strongest young performer alongside Billy Miller right now. And give her a job with Jill or Nikki as her professional mentor.

Secondly, I think I want Amber and Jana to go as I don't see much use for either of them. The bromance that is Daniel and Kevin needs to reconnect, and Daniel needs more scenes with Phyllis and other characters of a different age set. Indeed, all the young 'uns need to mix it up with the vets. I only liked TS's Colleen when she was interacting with JT, Victor (yes, truly!), Victoria and Jack. Kevin & Billy's old rivalry also has great untapped potential.

Lily needs a recast, STAR. Devon needs a story with other guys his age (not his adopted sisters or adoped aunt). Why isn't he in scenes with JT? Colleen? Amber? Daniel?

Eden - goodbye. Abby can stay, though. The actress has potential. KS as Noah, of course, needs to stay as without him, the teen set has no heart.

I could agree with about 90% of this. I think Amber still has "legs" on this show...but I'd be fine with resting her, and then having her restore some youthful energy to B&B instead. I'll tolerate anything to streamline this canvas and extinguish the neglect of people at the periphery.

I HATE having all these people languish. Play 'em or dump 'em.

One of my biggest fears for this show is that they are going to waste Chloe. She's already a reformed goldigger, which I find unfortunate. They reformed part I mean.

She never should have apologized to Lily and Cane.

If they want to save the youth cast (which is in dire straits right now), for the love of GAWD, promote Chloe as the new, scheming-yet-relatable Nina. Liz Hendricksen is the strongest young performer alongside Billy Miller right now. And give her a job with Jill or Nikki as her professional mentor.

She is the best thing that has come out of the 20 something set this past year. I agree, Chloe has loads of potential.

The bromance that is Daniel and Kevin needs to reconnect, and Daniel needs more scenes with Phyllis and other characters of a different age set. Indeed, all the young 'uns need to mix it up with the vets. I only liked TS's Colleen when she was interacting with JT, Victor (yes, truly!), Victoria and Jack. Kevin & Billy's old rivalry also has great untapped potential.

I like the idea of Daniel and Kevin reconnecting and especially if it means they can reestablish Kevin and Billy's old rivalry. I also think that one of the problems they have is that there isn't enough emphasis on friendships. A good rivalry can only be mined well when it impacts others and one way to establish a substantial rivalry would be to allow the young women on the show and the young men on the show to develop friendships and rivals. I think that is one of the reasons the 20 set feels so disjointed. Billy, Daniel, Kevin, JT should all have more interaction and out of that group you can pen a Billy versus Kevin with JT and Daniel forced to pick respective sides pertaining to the story. Chloe, Amber, Jana, Mac, Lily should interact more. They would have to start fresh with building a friendship but I could certainly see Chloe and Amber versus Mac, Lily on the other side using their animosity with Chloe as the foundation.

She is the best thing that has come out of the 20 something set this past year. I agree, Chloe has loads of potential.

I like the idea of Daniel and Kevin reconnecting and especially if it means they can reestablish Kevin and Billy's old rivalry. I also think that one of the problems they have is that there isn't enough emphasis on friendships. A good rivalry can only be mined well when it impacts others and one way to establish a substantial rivalry would be to allow the young women on the show and the young men on the show to develop friendships and rivals. I think that is one of the reasons the 20 set feels so disjointed. Billy, Daniel, Kevin, JT should all have more interaction and out of that group you can pen a Billy versus Kevin with JT and Daniel forced to pick respective sides pertaining to the story. Chloe, Amber, Jana, Mac, Lily should interact more. They would have to start fresh with building a friendship but I could certainly see Chloe and Amber versus Mac, Lily on the other side using their animosity with Chloe as the foundation.

It is definitely plot over relationships right now.

But I have to believe this is FEAR MOTIVATED, because of MAB/JG's horrible ratings fall in early 2008. I think they are afraid to dial back from plot, because "Sudden Impact" started a pattern of slow ratings growth. Umbrella stories (lacking now, sort of) and plot-plot-plot reversed MAB's disastrous ratings course. I honestly think there is an enormous fear to anything other than this plot stuff.

They're trying to couch all this plot in history and historical characters and reasonable character motivation (most of the behaviors of the players are in character, IMO)...but the rush to drive story and cause the next Friday "hoot" is causing some sacrifice of these issues.

A better question is, why do MAB and company feel the need to keep this incarnation of Victoria on the show. Victoria is a core character who drove story FOR YEARS, now look at the watered down mess she's become and the incapable actress that plays the role. There's clearly no investment there by the writers of this show. They would rather keep the crap that isn't working than do something about it.

They don't even write for Victoria anymore, and when they do, they make her support some stupid storyline like this art crap. This is a core character with tons of history too. Yeah, the actress sucks and needs to be recast, but they don't even try with this character anymore. Victoria used to be the most dynamic of the Newman children, now her role on the show is that of a glorified dayplayer.

Yes!

The obliteration of Victoria is horrible. :(

You know it's bad when the writers consider it a black story, and not just a story.

That is the problem that plagues 95% of African-American characters in daytime. The writers still view them as the African-American characters and not simply characters. They need to go back to square one and just write good characters. And integrate them. It's hard to believe this is 2009. All they need to do to fix this problem is just integrate Devon into the other 20 something set, integrate Tyra into the mid 30's set and see if a natural story progression can jump off from there.

One of my biggest fears for this show is that they are going to waste Chloe. She's already a reformed goldigger, which I find unfortunate. They reformed part I mean.

Same here. It has really hit me in the last couple of weeks how much Chloe is a fashionified Nina -- except unlike Nina she has major ties to the canvas. Chloe reminds me of Sarah Buxton's character, Annie Douglas, on Sunset Beach. Annie was the spoiler for Ben & Meg (read Lily & Cane or Billy & Mac) and when she realized she was never going to break them up, she moved into a SL with the scheming Richards' family. Her character rocketed to the stratosphere. Buxton was, for all intents and purposes, the star of SuBe. Not saying Y&R is like SuBe, but it is clear Liz Hendricksen has it. She, like Billy Miller, is a breakout star on this show and needs to be groomed for the big leagues on Y&R. Billy is obviously going to be another Jack/Philip. Chloe is this generation's answer to Jill and Nikki.

Same here. It has really hit me in the last couple of weeks how much Chloe is a fashionified Nina -- except unlike Nina she has major ties to the canvas. Chloe reminds me of Sarah Buxton's character, Annie Douglas, on Sunset Beach. Annie was the spoiler for Ben & Meg (read Lily & Cane or Billy & Mac) and when she realized she was never going to break them up, she moved into a SL with the scheming Richards' family. Her character rocketed to the stratosphere. Buxton was, for all intents and purposes, the star of SuBe. Not saying Y&R is like SuBe, but it is clear Liz Hendricksen has it. She, like Billy Miller, is a breakout star on this show and needs to be groomed for the big leagues on Y&R. Billy is obviously going to be another Jack/Philip. Chloe is this generation's answer to Jill and Nikki.

Annie :wub: God I miss that woman!

Chloe :wub:

Annie :wub: God I miss that woman!

Chloe :wub:

Sigh. I know. Annie is one of my favorite soap characters ever. And why hasn't Daytime picked up Sarah Buxton?!

SuBe was the most enjoyable soap I watched. In its 3 year run, I think I missed, like 3 episodes in total. The most consistent piece of daily entertainment.

Ugh, I hate Sarah Buxton. Totally one-note actress that can only play a scheming whore.

I never really liked SuBe. It never had a real identity anyway, it never knew what it wanted to be. I think the reason why it became so popular in daily daytime viewings in the UK was because British audiences saw it as a hour-long sitcom, rather than a soap.

Edited June 17, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner