Y&R: Potpourri Thread 2

[MarkH]

LOL!

[MoTheGreat]

I was getting ready to say that. But then again they can always blow up the plane as it takes off leaving GC airport.

[DRW50]

It just reminded me of your writing style. You're one of the more persuasive advocates for staying with Y&R, perhaps they're borrowing from your words.

[DeeeDee]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[DRW50]

And she took the seat meant for Jack, right?

[MarkH]

So many of us are having a hard time keeping track of Adam's motivations (me included).

Tony, over at Usenet, has offered the best summary I have seen. I think he's picked up the throughline that the show means us to have gotten, and he also captures the effect of the recast.

Now, I'm not saying the way Adam was transformed was good. I'm merely saying I think this represents a summary of how we're supposed to understand the story thus far.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs/msg/91f8447827a21058

[Sylph]

Oh, God. More denial, more rationalizations, more "Maria isn't a hack, Maria is a fabulous Bell heiress", more "We got it all wrong, look how nicely this rationalization paints it all". It never ends.

[dm.]

They can try as much as they can, but this was a really bad change in his character. Hope's son wouldn't do that.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Perhaps all of that would have worked better had we actually seen Adam in prison and his mental process throughout his entire prison experience. Instead, Adam was neglected FOR MONTHS while he was in prison, and it wasn't until Heather was able to get him a house arrest was he seen substantially again.

It still doesn't explain why he thought tormenting a pregnant woman was the best way to get his message across. Seriously, did he not anticipate that doing that to a pregnant woman could enable her to miscarry or cause her and her baby some harm? There were other, more effective, ways of getting back at Victor and Jack. They tried to make it seem as if Adam had no idea that doing what he did to Ashley could possibly result in harming her unborn child and her.

And still, Adam is all over the place as a character. Maybe they mean something, but they have no idea how to translate and execute what they mean. It's all lost in execution, a major problem with this horrific writing regime.

[MarkH]

Well, I'm not sure I agree with this. He is also Victor's son. But I don't think even Victor's son would have done what Adam did. So, we're all in agreement that they took Adam too far down the dark road.

I think the best written Adam would have been in a constant war between his Victor and Hope sides. I'm hoping, going forward, that that is how it plays out.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Exactly.

No offense Mark, but I get the sense that even though you acknowledge this show is deeply flawed and not getting any better, you still try to pass the blame to third parties than the actual writers at times, even with the mistakes that seem to be repeated often.

But to be fair, Mark acknowledged that the writers might have meant for all of that to come through, but they didn't understand the process in which to write it on the show, nor did they have the obvious talent to make it happen.

[MarkH]

That is SO RIGHT! If all this change happened to Adam in prison (after Victor told him to be a "man" and "act like my son"), it would have helped to have SEEN IT! That is a spot-on diagnosis of where this story really went wrong!

Again, we're in total agreement. They took Adam way too far.

I just thought it was interesting how Tony laid out what the story WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. I think he's right. I think that the difference between this logical layout, and the perennial "huh?" that we've all experienced is a beautiful demonstration of when the writing went bad.

I'd really like to know what happened. Why DID they neglect Engen all those weeks and not develop the story? My guess is because they had no idea what to do with him after the diary debacle...and they came up with this "Adam goes to the dark side" arc on the fly, as they developed their next 6-month projection.

[DRW50]

This basically ignores the time that we saw Adam mourning Hope, the time he did NOT want to work at Newman, but Victor manipulated him into doing so, the time we saw him with friend Skye and saw him developing feelings for Heather.

This basically says that Adam was some horrible person from the beginning and he existed only for some type of vendetta. I don't agree.

The problem is that there was NO REASON why he "couldn't quite get at Victor and Jack". We saw Mary Jane VERY EASILY get at Victor and Jack. She raped Jack. She killed Victor's dog. She nearly killed Victor's granddaughter.

This description is basically what the show has already been selling us for a year now. That is when they aren't trying to make us pity Adam by having Michael Muhney make sad faces and hear the voice of FakeHope.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The character would have worked best as a gray character.

Not a one note cartoon villain that torments pregnant women, burns their fetuses, and kidnaps babies.

I don't think Michel Muhney can play anything other than a mustache twirling villain though. He's the type of one-note, miscast actor they want for the role.

[dm.]

It would make sense if it wasn't SO obvious that they didn't know what to do with the character and they came up with an idea out of the blue and went with it. Plus it doesn't help that Muhney isn't who Adam should be.

Miscast as much as Anemia Heinle is? No. But still miscast.