Y&R Episode Discussion for the week of July 13

[cara mia]

This show only works with fanwanks. Lily didn't tell Colleen about Cane because Lily thought Colleen's grandma might be quite ill and didn't want to burden her. Rafe is still virtuous but is now convinced Adam is innocent and that all of Adam's weird behavior is due to him being deeply closeted. Rafe doesn't feel bad about hurting Heather cause he thinks he's leading Adam to his true self and that will be better than poor Heather living a lie. P3 is like Spock! He has deep roiling emotions under the surface but he can't allow himself to feel them or he'll have a breakdown. Victor knows something is wrong with Ashley/Adam but he's secretly hoping that Ashley ends up leaving him so he can return to Nikki. Billy & Mac know the magic is gone but they've spent the last ten years longing for each other and can't admit that they have literally wasted the last ten years so they would rather hold onto the lie than face the truth. Nick doesn't believe in monogamy and hates having to play being in love with one woman or the other but such are the demands of society. Once Victor kicks the bucket, Nick plans on moving Newman Headquarters to Dubai, where he can be legally wed to both women and not have to worry about being judged. Jack wants a baby so badly because he has been trying to connect to Kyle and Keemo off-screen and both guys have told Jack to take a hike. FANWANKS make it all better!

Whoever compared MJ & Adam to Glo & Jeff were right on. They are just gross and empty. It pains me how Adam has gone from being one of my favorite Y&R characters ever to one I can hardly stomach. Maybe MJ can be saved? I am not sure. Glo & Jeff need to die already.

I have more tolerance for P3, if he ends up being like Traci, and trotted out for major family moments. Just don't give P3 any heavy emotional lifting.

[brimike]

Yeah, it's not the most optimistic outlook on things. LOL! Unfortunately, that's the problem with story moving SO quickly. By the time we're in September, who KNOWS where we'll be, and it could be better or it could be worse automatically - but now if they're changing things based on fan reaction, when for all anybody knows, it was better anyway before the changes. It's all a big guessing game. Sometimes they guess right. Sometimes they guess wrong.

[leevo64]

I just hate the way they're treating P3's return as if he walked out on them and drove off one night never to be seen from again. Um... THEY THOUGHT HE DIED. I would be feeling 900 different emotions if I were in the Chancellors' position. As for Chance, you mean to tell me that walking in and seeing your dead father is going to make you go "Oh... you're... my dad, right?" I wanted Chance to run out, break something, hold back tears. Not SHAKE HIS HAND.

The story needs a shot of adrenaline, and FAST. But I'm not going to jump on the Y&R Apocalypse train yet, though. I'll take this over ATWT or GH any day.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

What about people who have been complaining about things for well over a year? The unbalanced cast, the sh!tty writing for the minority character, the constant victimization of women, the over-reliance on death to propel stories, etc. Things like these aren't going to change in a few months. Not to mention the destruction that is being done to certain characters right now. It will take a long time, probably off-screen time, before I ever buy Adam and Mary Jane as real people who can be fully integrated into the show again. Decent storytelling in say September isn't going to change that. There's huge problematic long-term damage that is being done to this show right now that's been going on for a while, the trends I've observed earlier in this post have. Even when the show was fair decent earlier in the year, there were still severe pacing and execution problems, which have only gotten worse in time. I believe that is the writing style of this regime, and they probably have no idea how to change it or they don't want to.

Why should some people give Y&R time when no one wants to give the other soaps "time?" As much as I hated her time on this show, Latham got roasted in her two years or so for the many of the same things that are being done to the show now, it seems like this writing regime at Y&R is always being given the benefit of the doubt by many here, and I'm not understanding it.

Are some ever going to just come to the point this is how this particular writing regime at Y&R writes character/stories and there's really no changing that? You can give people all the time in the world, but it doesn't mean certain fundamental problems are ever going to change.

MAB is coming up on two years on this show, about as long as LML lasted, and regardless of how LML handled production that's irrelevant, many of the same damage to characters and nonsensical stories are still being done.

[MarkH]

Well, the thing is that I enjoy many of these fanwanks !

I'm the Glo-Jeff/Patty-Adam comparer. It's just that I'm starting to see both pairs scheming with little motivation.

It's not Bierdz, per se, I'm having a problem with. As Alphan has noted, it is IN THE DIALOGUE. "You drove me away". "It's hard with this family". And so forth. It's in the direction (no affection, nothing).

They played more affection yesterday at Cane leaving, than ever with P3.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Really? I think everyone in this quad story and in this gaslighting story have been totally zapped of their personalities. Whatever individuality they once had has been forgotten to move inane plots ahead. I don't know who Sharon, Nick, Phyllis, Jack, Ashley, Victor, and Adam are anymore - all front-buner character that this regime never wants to give a "rest" period to. Not to mention how STUPID many of these people have become.

Everyone in the Scobby gang is intentionally stupid and boring, who really cares about those characters anymore? They don't seem like the same characters I liked just a few months ago.

I don't need to go into the Colleen travesty again, or how aimless Mac and Billy are.

Well, it's unrecognizable to me. Meticulous plotting from this writing regime? When everyone loved the Kay/Marge storyline earlier in the year, there were HUGE plotting problems and the fact that this writing regime constantly goes in circles with its storylines and doesn't know how to end or transition out of them are HUGE problems. Again, this has been going on for a year already.

You have that much optimism for this show? If other shows aren't doing that in this climate and Y&R hasn't been doing it for a while now, what makes you think that is ever going to change? Couldn't one say that this is just the writing style and patterns of these current Head Writers on this show? It's hard to break certain habits and from what I've observed many of the same writers on Y&R's current Head Writing team have had the same problems on various other shows. Again, how and why should we have faith that this will change when it hasn't for these same writers over the years?

I hope you're not thinking I'm coming down on you. I'm just fed up with this show that's been going down the tubes for months now. I'm past the point of giving it time and patience. I'm sick and tired of these problems being rationalized and others taking it easy on this writing regime when compared to other writing regimes.

[cara mia]

You cannot separate writing from acting. WHY of the hell WHY does MAB not understand that? Marge/Kay worked because Jeanne Cooper is supremely talented and she had amazing chemistry with Michael Fairman. We overlooked a lot because the actors sold this campy storyline with very natural and nuanced acting.

SH, while talented & arresting, is NOT a naturalistic and nuanced actor. When Mary Jane gets too crazy, SH can't save it. Her range does not include subtle, lower registers. You all know how I feel about the disastrous recasting of Adam. If CE is not playing this part, the role MUST be rewritten. It takes a very unique take, really channeling Antony Perkins crossed with Jimmy Stewart, to make such a disgusting wretch work. The only way to salvage Adam now is to completely rewrite the character after sending him off-screen for years.

You can't write campy over the top stuff unless you have naturalistic actors to deliver it. Otherwise, you're no different from Days of our Lives. I don't mean that as a compliment.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

But Jules are you only having problems with one or two stories? I think all of these storyline are problematic now. Not just the Phillip III and Adam/MJ messes. I mean the Quad, the Scobbbies, the others invovled with the gaslighting crap are all flawed and poorly told stories if I may say so myself.

Not to mention how boring and poorly planned this Mac/Billy and the Colleen board seat stuff is.

I think overall this entire show is very problematic. Some might say they're watching for scenes or for the actors, but all of these storylines are damaging in the longterm and poorly plotted and executed.

The whole show has huge problems, and it doesn't help the same group of characters are ALWAYS on the front-burner and how been for over a year when others are neglected and while some could stand to be written out.

The problems this show have are not little, they're pretty big IMO.

[brimike]

It's not about optimism, A. In a perfect world, I'm just saying... but in a perfect world, TPTB see these complaints and listen. (Again, hypothetically, in a perfect world) So they listen, and they realize they need to make changes. I'm just saying that BEST CASE SCENARIO, the earliest changes will be seen on air is about three months from now, give or take a week or two. That's just the nature of the beast. So if you're expecting changes in next week's shows, that's impossible, as they were written in April, before the MAJORITY (not just you and Sylph and a few others, but the majority of posts) started to disagree with the direction of the show.

I'm not saying it's GOING to happen. Just what the best case scenario is, based on when the majority of online fandom turned on the show.

ETA: I'm not saying this as opinion. I'm stating it as fact. IF (and again, it's a big "if") anybody at the show is paying attention to this, you won't see changes until after the stuff that was written three months after the majority of the web started to revolt.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

^I see what you mean, but damn, shouldn't TPTB be looking at their own show objectively and seeing what's working and what's not? Could it possibly be that hard for them without internet reaction?

I don't want them to pander to internet fans or rabid fanbases, but at times, it seems like this show is trying to please everyone, and it all falls horribly flat.

They can attempt to fix things, but my point is, even with that, there's a style to the structure of writing this regime puts out that will probably very hard for members of this Head Writing team to alter.

I guess time will tell IF this situation works out and things change, hopefully for the better. I'm just not very optimistic for that to happen, especially with this writing regime, that's all.

[lmfan]

How about ratcheting some of these problematic stories down to two three days a week, and give some of these screen hogs a bit of a break so that when we see them front and center again we will like them more. If they insist on Nick going back to Phyllis, then have him "recommit" for the tenth time, and let Nick and Phyllis help Summer mostly off screen. Same with Sharon. Jack can be there more for Ashley and advisor to Billy and then when Sharon's baby is born in late fall, early winter rathet them back up again.

Let's see Nikki and Paul's relationship more and how he will deal when he finds out about MJ. Intro P4 to the canvas gradually by mixing with the younger crowd and dealing with his issues with his father. Nina can support him through this process and then when they have some resolution, exit P3 to be seen just on holidays.

Oh and I don't know maybe write a nice little story for some who has been backburned for quite awhile. Say someone like Lauren and maybe Michael with a story about someone going after Lauren's company or Michael dealing with some trouble in the past.

Whatever, but it would create a breather to see some faces we haven't seen much on the screen again. And figure out how to write some romance in and not just the kind where Lily and Cane are devastated because she might die. This is a soap for goodness sakes and many tune in for romance and not just meaningless sex.

If they mix up their cast and focus on some other stories, they might be able to give themselves time to figure out what type of show they want with Y&R. Maybe there is some fighting going on behind the scenes with what direction they want Y&R to go in the future, but they need to look at what allowed the show to flirt with a 4 earlier ths year and it wasn't a story about shock and awe, it was a story with heart, hope and emotion.

[lmfan]

Well I can tell you as a Michael and Lauren fan, they are not trying to please everyone.

I think this writing regime seems to have a bit of a split personality. Is this show about darkness and shock, about mysteries or about valuing the history of the show and it's long term characters?

This show we have been seeing the last few months feels nothing like the show we watched last fall and early winter. Why is that? Why the change in direction and feel? Yes, they had problems last fall but they knew how to play the emotions and seemed to be able to please a large part of the audience. So why did they change how they were handling the show?

[brimike]

Well, sure. Absolutely. Again, in a perfect world. But we're not dealing with the world of Nixon, Marland and Bell. We're dealing in a world where every day, ratings go up and down, and nobody knows why. Second-guessing what you do is the NAME OF THE GAME. All eight shows are scrambling for viewers, so NOBODY works on the "auteur's" way of thinking. In fact, it's the opposite. All eight shows are looking at the trend of other shows, and what shows are successful and what aren't.

Do I, personally, agree with this? HELL NO.

Is it what's happening?

Kinda. Yeah.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

That's true, the show feels very chaotic, it's definitely having some sort of identity crisis.

ETA: Assuming they listen to many fans and make changes. I mean, how long have people been complaining about Amelia Heinle and the writing for Victoria, but has that changed? No.

[MarkH]

Even NB had something to say about Heinle this week. Enough that when Thad Luckinbill next sees him, he's gonna punch NB!!

But NB basically said what a few of us have been saying...if they need to fix Victoria, the solution is across the hall!