Y&R: Pretty big Phillip III spoiler...

[alphanguy74]

Oh... MY!!!!! Nelson's latest report just said we should expect a romance between Phillip III and Rafe... I'm as giddy as a teenage schoolgirl!!!! If Branco's wrong about this, I'm slapping the taste outta his mouth with my pocketbook! I know some think Yani looks too young... but all we have to do is loosen his hair up and get him to wear a little stubble, he's look 5 years older easily. I guess Rafe might have been more age appropriate for Phillip if they had gotten someone like Wilmer Valderama to play him... but I'm thrilled with this turn of events. It should be HAWT!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think you're pretty much ruined when you abandon your infant son, wife, and mother, who all love you dearly and you know that they love you, simply because of your sexuality. That's a pretty offensive reasoning.

From what I've seen of Phillip III, he totally does not seem like the type of person who would be so heartless. It's basically assassinating the character before he makes his return.

[alphanguy74]

I guess that's just an "Agree to disagree" thing. I don't think it ruins him, I think it makes him seriously flawed. And he didn't exactly have some fabulous relationship with anyone in his life. Jill and Kay used him as a weapon against each other... did you see the flashback a few weeks ago where Phillip was arguing with Kay, threatening to leave and never speak to her again, if she didn't lay off of him? He was so very troubled, and he felt abandoned by Jill, so maybe he felt able to abandon her. As far as Nina, she loved him FAR more than he loved her, he cared for her as a friend. And the gay thing IS a stupid thing to leave your family for.. I agree with that. But it's about 10 times MORE stupid today than it was 20 years ago. We were in the middle of AIDS freak out at that time, also. In the context of the times then... it wouldn't seem so ridiculous. It would to a NORMAL person, but Phillip is portrayed as wounded, psychologically damaged... like Kevin Fisher, except without the criminal and violent tendencies.

[DRW50]

I don't have a big problem believing Phillip would leave his family because he was ashamed of being gay.

I do have a problem believing he would abandon his son, and I am hoping this will not be buried under the story about him being gay.

My biggest problem is that he would further slap Nina and his son in the face by bringing Cane in as some gift for his family. When Phillip was presumed dead, Cane's arrival was basically telling them that they were never what they thought they were. And now, when they find out he's alive, they will learn he had so little regard for them that he put far more effort into placating Jill and Katherine, almost 20 years after he was presumed dead, than he ever did for his wife and child.

I wish they could have just had him fake his death because he was in trouble. Then he could tell them that he's gay.

[cara mia]

Rafe is too young for NuAdam, let alone P3! I want to see P3 with Adam. I bet they have chemistry and they look more age appropriate. Rafe can stay on as the town lawyer. I just don't see the point of putting Rafe with anyone if his character isn't going to be developed.

[DRW50]

Adam would be calling Heather morning, noon, and night if he's with Phillip as well as Rafe.

Both Adam and Rafe are plot devices; I'd rather they just keep Phillip single, I don't see the point of focusing on his love life.

[SteveFrame]

Sorry but there is not character or performer that is worth ruining the credibility of a show I love. Or is worthy of stupid idiotic crappy unimaginative writing.

Sorry and I saw every bit of the story with Phillip. I am old enough. And this undoing of history, destroying a wonderful story like Phillips death and teenage alcoholism ranks right up there with the destroying of the first legal abortion in daytime.

Thank God AW is off the air or one of these hacks would go back and undo Pat Matthew's first abortion and thank God Bert Bauer is dead or one of these hacks would go back and undo the first real educational story by saying she never had cancer. Is nothing sacred to the hacks in daytime today.

It's all about shock, sucking up to fans, plot and screw the rest. They are destroying everything that has made daytime special. And sorry but no this is not worth it. As Bellcurve said there were a 1000 ways to have undone the Cane thing without disrespecting the audience and the great story that William J. Bell penned.

I personally feel just like Genie Francis did back in 1979. She played Laura as a rape victim wonderfully for a month - giving some of the best performances of her life. Then Gloria MOnty told her it was not rape. She said she felt like every emotion she poured in those scenes meant absolutely nothing. It meant absolutely nothing. And that is the way I feel about every tear I shed for Phillip and the anguish that the story gave me. MAB, Hogan Sheffer, Thom Bierdz or whoever was part of this damn mess just came in and gave me a big FU and made all of it mean absolutely nothing.

And they wonder why fans no longer get invested in their series anymore.

And I am not saying anything that I have not written them. I have written it to CBS several times already. And even sent it to the writers. And just this last week discussed it with Tom Casiello. He was very nice about it. And said he saw everything I was saying. He never said whether he agreed with me or not, but he did say he could see what I was saying. I appreciated that.

And sorry but I agree with Alvin. This is total character assassination on Phillip. I do not see this working out well for him at all. People will not be able to understand him leaving his child. They can understand the other stuff, but they will not be able to do that. I don't see it working out for the character at all. Phillip will forever be ruined in a lot of people's eyes. They might have seen him as flawed if he did it to Kay, Jill and Nina alone but he did it to an innocent child. If they had done something with Phillip to make it all not his fault with the Cane thing, maybe. But by trying to preserve the Cane character too, people will wonder why he went along with Cane or sent Cane and thus hurting his child in the long run. Plus the fact that he sent Cane to be his Mother's Child but not sent Cane back to his his son's father. He worried about his mother having a son but not his son having a father. OH yeah I see people totally forgetting that.

Maybe people that are so wrapped in Thom Bierdz and don't care just as long as they have him back - yeah it won't matter to them. But those that could care less about that will take it out on Phillip.

[alphanguy74]

Cara mia... do you have a problem with age difference in other characters? The age difference between Phillip III and Rafe is around 15 years (Granted, for the actors it's 25 years, but we can fudge that because Beirdz looks young, and Gellman can look older if need be, HELL give him a goatee if you have to!) It's no different than John Abbott/Jill, Phillip/Jill, Katherine/Derek Thurston, Victor/Sabrina, Victor/Nikki, Douglas/Boobsie. I think Rafe is going to be developed... it seems obvious, theyr'e just barely starting to do it. They need to STEP IT UP.

[alphanguy74]

I understand your point of view. I guess it's a difference of you loving the character and wanting to see it's integrity preserved, and me loving the character, and wanting him back at any cost. I just don't in any way see this as making him irredeemable. Kay is certainly LOVED and REVERED... and for God's sake, the woman drove her husband off a cliff! It certainly hasn't damaged her character's integrity today, has it? But they MIGHT come up with something that wasn't Phillip's fault... we don't know this yet. I'm waiting to see how it plays out. I think alot people are rushing to judgment before it's even on the screen.

[cara mia]

It depends on the characters. I had a huge problem with Jack/Sharon. I didn't mind Victor with Nikki or Sabrina because Victor is a dirty old man, so that is in keeping with his character. I have a problem with Cane/Lily but their chemistry saves that I think. I would rather see them split up though and Cane put with Sharon and Lily go back to Daniel.

YG looks so so young. I am so not feeling Adam & Rafe and I know a big part of it is the apparent age difference on my screen. MM looks well into his thirties and YG looks early twenties at best. TB & YG might surprise and might have the same chemistry that DG & CK have -- anything is possible. Part of the problem is that Rafe is so very blank as a character that I can't imagine him being mature for his age because I can't imagine anything about him. The fact that he's either being played by Adam OR willing to have sex with a man he believes is setting up his aunt does not do him any favors as a character.

[SteveFrame]

I will be the first to admit that my judgement is totally clouded in the beginning by the undoing of the death. I have lived through so many in daytime now that I detest them. I used not like them - now I see it as a copout and totally a sign the writer is a hack and has no talent. It is totally done as nothing more than a stunt and that is all the hack writers today know how to do is to write stunts.

So immediately it is nothing.

And I am only going by on what we know and what we have seen play out. And this regime tries to play two sides way too much as if trying not to anger any fans. And I know that Hogan is not totally in charge over there but what has happened with this story and with the quad story so reeks of what he did at Days with the EJami and Lumi fans. He constantly played both of them never willing to make a decision with anything.

Everything they have done so far with Cane is to work not to make him look bad and to preserve the character. Sorry but in the end fans are going to look for someone to blame. It's natural. And I think unless they start to make Cane look bad, I think they will take it out on Phillip for the very reasons that have been mentioned.

I mean you would have never told me that people would be hating Jill as much as they do now. But the things I have read in the last week about Jill on some boards and in private PMs and Emails I get due to the top ten my board does. People that once loved the character absolutely hate her now and find her to be so stupid. So evidently the writing is not working out for her.

I think too this is going to be a bad approach to take with trying to educate and get people to understand being gay. I can see people that don't fully understand us having a hard time with a man abandoning his child because he is gay. And they are not going to care how hard things were 20 years ago. Sure other characters have abandoned their children in the past for many reasons, but I lived through many of those stories (Bill Foster on Y&R; Barney Dancy on The Doctors; Bill Bauer on GL; etc.) and let me tell you fans did not forgive them that quickly. They had to be redeemed in fans eyes for abandoning their families. So I don't see fans welcoming Phillip at all or forgetting that he abandoned a child.

Bill Bauer I remember had a really hard time with fans. And a lot of fans never did forgive him. They saw his reasons to be totally selfish and never came around. And in this case Phillip's motives can come across very selfish. Someone at GL didn't see the story ever working at all, and finally just cut their losses and killed Bill off. Of course Pamela Long would revive him years later.

So not all of these stories end happily. And this one could very well go bad for Y&R and for Bierdz and Phillip in the long run.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I just finished watching Friday's US episode. Thom Bierdz has never been a stellar actor. Wait until you see the way he delivers his two lines in tomorrow's episode, it's like a bad MadTV parody of soap opera acting.

He's sucked with what little they gave him so far and he wasn't good on those two Melrose Place episodes I saw him in.

I already hated this story from the beginning, and the spoilers don't make me hopeful. But Thom Bierdz's ATROCIOUS acting is going to make this storyline much worse and painful for me.

[DRW50]

That makes me sad. This team has degraded Jill for months now, turning her into a shrew one minute, a buffoon the next. I couldn't believe they actually had to have her ignore Katherine's health problems during their argument, just to reinforce for us again how awful she's supposed to be. They have to make her look bad with Katherine, with Victor...I think they are doing this so they can phase her out and fans won't be upset, and also because they have this idea someone always to look bad so others will look better.

Bierdz has said he's not an actor and doesn't want to be an actor. Perhaps they should have recast. I wouldn't say that if this story wasn't going to have heavy dramatic material, but it is.

[y&r_fan]

In his latest interview he basically said he didn't want to act and that he was pretty much just going to play himself.

Hopefully he'll either leave or get fired when his contract is up.

[JackPeyton]

and with that Y&R becomes The Hills, except not as good...