Y&R: Potpourri Thread

[bellcurve]

Well I did fully wake up after the first half to see Adam bringing Mary Jane stuff in a brown bag. So, you got me there...score one for you.

But I enjoyed the hell out of pressing my snooze button during Price/Y&R.

Not to sound too politically incorrect, but they could explain his weight loss with a certain disease. Adam was in prison, you know. And, again, no offense, but Michael Muhney could certainly rock the "facial wasting" aspect of his character. I mean, that jawline...

C'mon Maria. Don't just sit there reading this! I gave you an idea. Jump right to it, girlfriend.

Colleen is tossed in a plot with Gloria and Jeffrey? Hmmm...guess they didn't want Jess Walton exceeding her guarantee for the week.

So, not only do they neglect African-Americans and make gay sex tamer than an episode of Saved by the Bell, but now they're intentionally throwing Colleen into a lame plot with Gloria/Jeffrey. I guess there really is "Australian Racism" out there.

[rhythmchyc]

I had to bring this into here.

The gaslighting story has to be on this long because once Victor finds out the truth Adam's gone. Victor's become all soft and gooey recently but I doubt tptb want Adam to escape him as easily as Mary Jane has. And Adam's end has to occur during November sweeps.

It's all about sweeps, isn't it?

In soap goodness, Adam should've begun a rivalry against Nick and/or Victoria, honestly, from the beginning. Victor/Jack got a good handle on their feud. They really didn't need any help.

And Morrow and Engen, even Heinle and Engen, had a solid animosity between each other. If tptb took interest in Victoria at all and if they wanted to develop Nick's business-man angle, watching those three fight over Newman would've been so much more intriguing to me. Or even watching Adam slowly ruin Nick and Victoria's lives.

[Sylph]

 

'Cause Maria, Scott & Hogan suck at pacing. Always did. And there is no cure for "pacing suckage".

[DRW50]

I never understood why they didn't pursue Adam having a vendetta against Nick and Victoria. They had a classic story where Adam was the favored son, with Nick and Victoria on the outs. Suddenly, Adam was the evil rejected child, while Nick and Victoria were back to being at Victor's feet. I think this Adam story spun out of control the longer it went on, and they seem to have now decided to only use him for shock value and to hide how incredibly dull Victor/Ashley are as a couple. The show also made a mistake in having Victor become all-powerful over the last year. There are still traces of this in how he deals with some people and it has negatively impacted his ability to have a meaningful rivalry or bond or conversation with anyone. They then went in the other direction entirely and had him become a complete dupe for this Adam gaslighting story.

I still think they may just be better off phasing most of the Newmans out over time. Or they would be if they knew how to introduce new characters or build up other characters.

[Cat]

There are so many routes they could have taken, I agree. I know Chris Engen is pretty much universally villified after All That Went Down, but he did have this certain latent sweetness in his performance that would have made for a very interesting match-off between him, the arrogant, pipsqueak outsider, and Nick and Vamptoria, the smug "golden" Newmans.

Even after he went to jail, Adam seemed to acquire this quiet wrath, and I couldn't wait to see him and the chosen Newman kids have a re-match. Even when it appeared that Adam was playing Victor, I thought that it indicated how much of Victor Adam had within him.

However, when the SL segued into Adam dressed up in Sabrina's clothes and causing Ashley's miscarriage while lamenting "Gosh, Ashley, I didn't mean for you to get hurt and lose the baby!", this is where it all went WRONG. He was gaslighting her for ages and never showed remorse until then (a big mistake on the part of the writers). Plus, what part of "a difficult pregnancy" did he not understand? He knew there was huge risk she'd lose the baby from the stress imparted by his actions.

[Greg's GL]

I've seen this alluded to many times. Is it a fact that MAB gets story ideas from fanfic or soap boards? I'd like to see the article that claims this "true story".

I wonder now how many (and I'm not one of them) people would welcome LML back to the show now? Or is MAB's reign considered "better" than LML's was? Are they about the same?

[DRW50]

They built up many months of story with the estrangement between Victor and his golden kids. I thought it was great drama. Then everything was flushed for awkward scenes of, "I know he wouldn't write those things in diaries, my father isn't like that," and the Walter Palin nonsense, and then finally the two of them going back to being Victor's favorites. This did neither character any favors, especially Nick, who has become such a disconnected twerp that I have a hard time believing any scene he's in with his family.

I think this story would have worked better with Sabrina, not Ashley, but even with Ashley, I would have rather seen Adam initially toy with her, then save her and save her pregnancy when no one else is around. Her kindness towards him while everyone else shuns him causes him to fall in love with her, and he begins plotting a life where he can get her and the baby away from Victor's toxic influence.

As it is now there's no one for me to seriously care about in the story because the story focuses mainly on shocks.

[rhythmchyc]

The newman's don't work anymore because tptb think the audience doesn't care about business strylines anymore and can't write them effectively. This is why nick seems like such a douche because this is what we seem him be 24/7. If Adam found a way to take down the newman children in the office, he would be so much more interesting. Now, he's summer material about to be taken down in november.

This is why Phyllis works well too because we see her at restless style working, even though the magazine is a flop. We see different shades of phyllis. Nick, on the other hand is one note.

So either they con't writing the newmans in this way as idiots without any business s/ls, they should immediately replace them with more people who they know. If y&r was full of chloe's, it wouldn't be y&r but it would be more interesting to watch and more believable.

[bellcurve]

It's not a "FACT" but it makes me wonder. Mary Jane's identity is a mystery for months and then all of a sudden, she's Patty Williams, some long forgotten, "who-cares" character from the 1980's, who has some sort of score to settle with Jack? I didn't even begin to see "Patty Jane" on Y&R until after Cashton and MarkH started talking about it and wanting SO bad to make Patty/Tawny or Patty/Mary Jane a reality.

And didn't someone on this board say that Cashton alleged he was contacted by someone who works at Y&R, thanking him for his feedback?

And don't even get me started on the slash fiction that was Adam/Rafe, dating as far back as December last year.

I don't think it's entirely Maria's fault that she's catering to fans, even the ones who come up with these ridiculous theories. We wanted someone who would use history instead of pissing on it and making up things that never happened in the character's backstories. But Maria claims to use history while pissing on it at the same time and I often wonder if that's not more offensive.

Well, you do the math: they both write fast-food fiction, they both write boring ass art stories, they both heavily rely on their talentless co-HWs to drive story, and they both play the same ten characters each week.

In math, (x) clearly equals (x).

[Greg's GL]

Hmmmm. Interesting. I wasn't aware of the Cashton thingie. In-T-Way....didn't Victor bring Mary Jane - as a bandaged woman - talking with her about using her to get to Jack? Not that she was Patty at that time. Or perhaps there was no intention of making her Patty then - but she did have a score to settle with Jack from the beginning. I'll say that much.

The rest of your post is....Things that make you go "Hmmmm".

Just curious as to what everything thinks with MAB vs LML. That's all.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I've come to realize that MAB is really no better than Latham, yet she's praised for the same crap Latham pulled. The rewrites, the dumbing down of characters, the manipulating of history use, the neglect of characters, the atrocious pacing of storylines, characters talking about stuff we never saw actually played out, etc.

MAB is LML-lite, and no, that's not a good thing.

[Greg's GL]

I see your point. But .... I wonder where the wheels started to come off. Not to0 long ago - or maybe it was - everyone was saying how characters were behaving "in-character" again after MAB took over from LML's crap fest. And now here we are with the plurality of posters here (I'm not one of them but getting there a little more everyday) wanting MAB gone forever.

Could be this is more of Sheffer/Hamner/Rauch than MAB. But how do we know for sure?

When Rauch was at GL, he and B&E told plot after plot. Annie Dutton, the Clone, Terri DeMarco, etc. etc. His first lil bit at Y&R was promising, but I wonder if he's not pulling the strings with some of these stories. Not that MAB shouldn't shoulder some of the blame since she's said that it's "her vision".

The whole "twist" with Mary Jane living in a potting shed isn't making me love the show right now.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

MAB's shitprints are all over this show. The art crap and the pacing style for one thing. These have been two big problems with her from day one. As well as the embarrassing writing for the minority character, the women on this show, and a few others things I've said a lot in this thread.

Some of her situations might be more in character than the Latham era, but that's worn off over time. The character writing is appalling right now, IMO. It's kind of back to the one-note way Latham wrote for the characters.

Sheffer and Hamner's worst tendencies are apparent too, but again, this is Maria's show and she's letting it all happen. She's the one married to the boss, she's the one with the Co-EP credit, and she's the one going to the press calling this show her "show" and her "vision."

Yes, but when Rauch joined the show, CBS said in its release that he would be handling only the production aspects of this show, while Maria handles the story aspects.

Maria has had problems since day one at this show, long before Sheffer and Rauch joined and they seem to be getting more and more apparent over the last couple of months.

[alphanguy74]

You know, there's quite a few posters HERE that don't like MAB... but I honestly do not not see that anywhere else. I was on the sony board for 8 years, from Alden's reign, through Smith's, AND LML's. And today, at least over there, there is about the same amount of complaint as there was during Alden's and Smith's reign.. but not NEARLY the avalanche fo complaints that were there during Latham's run. I'll be honest, completely honest, Latham's moves as EXECUTIVE PRODUCER toubled me FAR MORE than what she did was a writer, because she had some good CONCEPTS, but sucked at the follow through. I think some people have turned their minds against MAB at this point, and even if she stood on her head and whistled dixie, they wouldn't like it. For some, they have TURNED... and she can do no right, no matter what. A perfect example: I've heard alot of complaints at Victor being "Dumbed Down" for this SL. I don't look at it this way at all. I see it as Victor getting screwed by his own meglomaniacal personality and overconfidence. He doens't feel he HAS to outsmart anyone, he has enough money and power to just roll right over anyone that gets in his way.. he's been this way for DECADES, we KNOW how Victor treats women, he's never seen ANY WOMAN, even Patty Jane as any kind of threat to him. So her being loony enough to bring him down is a delicious prospect. The only time I ever felt Vic being "Dumbed Down" was him buying Adam's "Needles in the eyes" story. Not really any other time.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Are we viewing the same Sony board? I constantly see threads there about how new writers are needed, what a hack MAB and company are, and how bad the show currently is. I think it's as bad as it was during the Latham era on that board currently.

That board is filled with much more complaints than this one is about the show. Not that I blame anyone for that.

MarkH and few others have also noticed the widespread hate for the MAB & Company regime at this show over the past few months across the internet too.