Y&R: Potpourri Thread 2

[Sylph]

Ding-dong! But it's definitely ironic how it all backfires. Every single time. This regime, this show as it is now cannot be exculpated and absolved, it has to end.

Forget how something was supposed to be. Bill Bell could have lived 10 more year and not have Alzheimer's. But sadly, that did not happen. The world if full of potential happenings, rarely do they end the way someone envisaged it. Knowing when the writing went bad changes nothing. It is just horrific, vet-hating, misogynistic, dark, unethical, immoral, sickening and so on.

[dm.]

Exactly.

[MarkH]

No, in this case, I really was not looking to shift the blame. It's just that when Tony laid out the story so clearly, I was struck by the disconnect between what was supposed to be and what was.

So, then, since many of us here are interested in process, it became interesting to figure out exactly how it went wrong.

I really think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the mistake of putting Engen on the backburner in prison (so we couldn't experience his transformation). I also agree with dmarex (and others) that the character shift in Adam was sudden and out of the blue...because they didn't really know what to do with Engen at that point.

In my opinion, even his "little Napolean" routine after Victor died and his subsequent participation in the diary were diminishing and misguided plot twists.

I don't agree Carl. Yes, it's true, in the first week or two Adam had to be dragged into the Newman world. But almost from the first minute he was in Newman, he started with the snarkiness and the one-upmanship. That was a very early development with Adam.

So, I am not yet onboard with the "miscast" bandwagon (but you know I'm usually late to these things). I definitely believe AH is miscast (to the nth degree). But with what Adam has now become, I'm on board with Muhney.

I also feel like he's connecting with Sharon Case. I'm eager to see how that progresses. And (yes, sorry), I'd like to see them at least try for an Adam redemption. Which is why I wish he wouldn't do dirty tricks @ Newman.

As a "passenger" (a viewer along for the ride), you're right, of course. Take the show for what it is, and judge it on those terms.

But I've tried to emulate your collective more "critical" stance. In that case, we try to understand what went wrong, and why. This doesn't change anything, but it serves as an object lesson for what to avoid in the future and (more importantly, for a viewer like me), when to recognize the next veer into sh!t.

[DRW50]

Snarky comments and one-upmanship is a far cry from being bitter and going on revenge schemes. That describes practically every single character who worked in the business world at that time.

I don't believe that the show's plan for Adam all along was to make him a monster who throws fetuses in a fireplace, seduces men for shock value, and has his stepmother examined by a rapist.

The show makes the stories up as they go along. I haven't really seen anything in any story which makes me see any long-term planning.

Fans constantly have to justify or rationalize everything this show does. We make tons more effort than anyone at Y&R seems to make.

As for an Adam redemption, the problem is what is their idea of redemption? The leading men on this show generally behave like jerks as it is. They treat women like garbage. Or, as with Deacon, they rape a woman and we're supposed to think she sort of wanted it. So aside from having Adam make sad faces and get with a woman he knows is mentally ill and is struggling with the loss of a baby he took from her, which is, to me, not redemption, I don't know what they will do.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Frankly, I always had issues with the way they SORASED Adam. In actuality, this character is only a few years older than Noah, and should not be older than Colleen and Lily.

I had problems with Hope dying too, it was another unnecessary death that prevented the fabulous Signey Coleman from appearing on the show again as her very unique creation. Hope's death is big void that cannot be filled where the Adam character is concerned, and her relationship with Victor was very different from his relationships with Nikki and Ashley. No fake voice-overs from ghost Hope is ever going to solve this.

IDEALLY, Y&R would have had a very strong writing team and a very story teen set, in terms of both writing and casting. If Hope had to die, a teenage Adam could have been sent to Genoa City to live with his mega-powerful billionaire father, and we could have seen his struggle to adjust to this very world that wasn't a farm in Kansas. Also, Victor adjusting to being a father of a teen this late in his life and his struggles with it.

He could have served as Noah's rival, and given that they're related, it would have had another dimension.

Noah being the fully integrated teen of the Newman family, with Adam being the social outcast that's trying hard to win his new family over, though he knows he'll never fit in. There could have been potential, with the right writing and casting for a love triangle with some teenage girl between the Newman teens. Noah could have been the golden prince, Adam could have been the sarcastic bad boy (not an outright villain).

[dm.]

I've always felt that the writers just went from month to month and then came up with new stuff that didn't exactly fit what the character was about the month before. It's sad.

This has got Hogan written all over it.

Yep, Adam could have been as young as Noah, or could have just stayed the way he was with Engen. With Muhney, it's like they added another 5 years to an already unnecessarily SORASed character.

[Sylph]

Am I the passenger or are you the passenger? It's really futile to think about those things, one can just sigh at the thought of what might have been.

It is still a mystery to me. What went wrong? I don't know. In the first place, Maria shouldn't have been hire at all. But she was. How on Earth did she turn this show into what we're seeing now? Her own family's show made completely unrecognizable?!?! What is going on? I can find no reasons and I can find even fewer for Bill Jr. & Lee watching this as if nothing's happening.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I wish we could somehow erase that Adam was ever brought to this show and his egregious SORAS-ING...

But we can't and Adam has been written into an unforgivable corner. This character really needs a few years of prison off-screen (hell, I'd settle for a year and a half) and a better recast when he's eventually brought back.

Adam had so much potential had he been allowed to stay in the teenage demographic on the show. I know most people hate teens on soaps, but that's only because very few writers know how to write realistically for them. I think most Brit Soaps are much better when it comes to teens than anyone in US daytime.

I think the last time I really enjoyed a teen set on a US soap was Lucky, Liz, Nicholas, and Emily on late 90's GH, and look how crappy they are as adults now...

I also liked the early 00's Y&R teen set, and look at what Billy, Mac, and JT have morphed into now, not something I consider to be good or entertaining.

Of course, ideally, we would have better writers who know how to write for teens and better casting for teens as well...

[MarkH]

Well, they also sit blithely by as Bradley does whatever he wants to B&B.

[DRW50]

Mark, I did want to say I didn't meant to come across strongly against your comments. I see where you're going with Adam. I'm annoyed at the show for what they've done, but not at people trying to interpret the show.

[DeeeDee]

Where TPTB made the mistake was having him cause Ashley's fall & the rushed mop up of her miscarriage.

[BadZoe]

Well I just saw on the news that music with violent and suggestive lyrics is what is turning the kids of today into hooligans. Maybe that is what happened to Adam, he went to prison, stopped listening to gospel, picked up rap, and it has changed his character completely.

Warning to all the fans of the Scabies, Lily, and Restless Style, those are the featured stories of Tuesday's filler show!!

Just a prediction but I think Maria is going to undo that horrible Pheila storyline that Jackass Smith brought to the show. That probably was a Sheila and Lauren story obsessed nutjob who just wanted to see what it was like tormenting Lauren. Then real Sheila can be Ryders mommy dearest.

[DeeeDee]

Engen was tanking.

He's an ok actor but the stuff TPTB were asking him to do before his Ashley haunting was beyond his range.

Muhney like Billy Miller is a good actor that needs a strong director to help him grow.

[Chris B]

I think Billy Miller is an extremely limited actor. David Tom was my favorite Billy and I think he would've saved the character in his current incarnation. At this point in his life he can pull off the tortured playboy, but with a vulnerability that Miller doesn't have. All Miller can play is smarmy snake oil salesman and the playboy aspect of Billy. He's very dull.

[DRW50]

I don't know if any actor could save what Billy has been for a lot of his return, as he's been all over the place (we're simultaneously supposed to pity him and believe that he's a bad-ass, we're supposed to think he's better than his family, yet see him as a loving Abbott, we're supposed to think Mackenzie is his soulmate, yet enjoy his somewhat trashy relationships with various women). I do think Billy Miller lacks chemistry with a lot of his co-stars, and struggles to play emotional scenes. It's especially glaring against people like Beth Matiland.