Sony has a clip of MAB discussing the cancer storyline. (not embeddable)

http://www.theyoungandtherestless.com/multimedia/videoswf_4786.html

In it, we learn some very interesting things behind the scenes! This may explain MAB's long hiatus from writing...and even some of the clothing choices some of you have been ridiculing.

It feels like cancer touches the lives of almost everyone. So, I felt like it was such a powerful and relatable story, particularly when it happens to someone who is young and in the prime of life.

The way that we're playing the struggle that Lily faces is that it very much is like it would play out in real life. There are days where you feel exhausted and you feel powerless, where you ou run the gamut of emotions. There is acceptance and frustration at the same time. There are so many different emotions that play out when someone has cancer.

It helps that on our writing team we have one writer who is currently suffering from breast cancer, who put a lot of her own heart and soul into this story. Um, I myself am a cancer survivor from two different types of cancer. So I think it is something that we all can relate to very strongly in some way. And so I think that, you know, for Lily herself, you know, to show who she really is as a person. She's gonna summon strength that she didn't even know she had, you know. Lily has a cancer that has a 25% survival rate. What we hope is that, you know, Lily is going to be in that survival, you know, percentage. Um, and that's the hope of everyone who is battling cancer. It is a battle, it is a fight. And that is what the story is about.

And I hope that anybody who's watching and going through it will not say, you know, 'Oh, I'm tuning in and this is depressing me further, given that I have to face this everyday.' but instead feels 'You know, I'm looking at this, and this story is so very like my story, and so very like everyone's story who goes through this.'

I have felt this way. I have seen this happen. I know what it's like.

I agree about Lauren, but I never get these statements like Michael is done story wise. It doesn't make sense. If they can continue to write story for Victor, Jack, Katherine, Jill, Phyllis, etc they can write story for Michael. He is a complicated character with a rich history. It is the writers ineptitude and stubborness in refusing to write him a story that is the problem not anything inherently wrong with the character that makes him impossible to write for.

Yup. And he's an Emmy machine. He's got the chops--he just needs to be written for.

When they're ready to break up this couple (not that I want that) they'll both get oodles of material...esp if the divorce is messy.

MAB sounded kinda robotic... sort of like a text-to-speech program, with Hogan Sheffer writing in what to say and then making her say it.

Oh goodness. There's nothing she can do right for folks these days, eh?

That said, I found (with all the "you knows" and other speech fillers) that she sounded (to me) [ a ] distracted, [ b ] surprisingly midwestern (I knew she was from Chicago, but I wasn't expecting that) and [ c ] strangely passionless.

I mean, cancer has touched her life personally. You'd think she'd be awash in emotions as she brings that to the screen. Instead, she was strangely cool.

I wonder if this means she maintains an incredible level of detachment from her material. If that is true, it would possibly explain why she doesn't "feel" the dissatisfaction of fans (per her interview with NB), and if if explains some of the lack of emotion in her storytelling these days.

What if she is just a "thinker", and not a "feeler". That would explain a lot, and would be consistent with her self-presentation on that video.

LML, for all the criticism, was definitely both.

Ha Ha heee heee That's a good one. TS might have been good in Far & Away where she can use her own accent. But on Y&R she was hardly use. How can you tell who is better between the two.

"Far and Away"?

Oh goodness. There's nothing she can do right for folks these days, eh?

Nope. MAB could say, "The sky is a beautiful blue today" and someone, and we all know who, will post, "But it's not the shade I wanted it to be! Bill Bell would have gotten it right! She needs to be fired!"

I agree about Lauren, but I never get these statements like Michael is done story wise. It doesn't make sense. If they can continue to write story for Victor, Jack, Katherine, Jill, Phyllis, etc they can write story for Michael. He is a complicated character with a rich history. It is the writers ineptitude and stubborness in refusing to write him a story that is the problem not anything inherently wrong with the character that makes him impossible to write for.

The show has budget problems and they need to make tough cuts. LeBlanc would be one of those cuts for me. He's a secondary character (never a true lead IMO) with unnecessary ties to the canvas. I'd also can Greg Rikaart, Emily O'Brien and Judith Chapman. These characters need a rest. The writers have burned through so much story for them and no longer seem inspired to write anything even remotely interesting for them. So I say write them off, save a lot of money and use the budget to boost the existing families.

There have been Emmy winners who've left Y&R before. Hell, LeBlanc has left before.

Nope. MAB could say, "The sky is a beautiful blue today" and someone, and we all know who, will post, "But it's not the shade I wanted it to be! Bill Bell would have gotten it right! She needs to be fired!"

In fairness, that would be something right up Maria's alley, since she studied art history and worked in fashion for years!

But yeah, she would somehow find a way to f*ck that up too and say, "Well Bill would be SO PROUD!"

Edited September 7, 200916 yr by bellcurve

Nope. MAB could say, "The sky is a beautiful blue today" and someone, and we all know who, will post, "But it's not the shade I wanted it to be! Bill Bell would have gotten it right! She needs to be fired!"

Whatever, dayplayer poster. My gripes and the gripes with others concerning Maria Arena Bell is the crappily executed, badly paced, cliched storytelling, stupidly written, and overall uncreative show she writes. If she doesn't want to be scorned by message board posters, then she shouldn't go around pimping her big ego in interviews and talking about how her show is mistake free and how all the unevenness we've seen is "by design." Everyone's, including my gripes with Bell and her writing has been explained in detail (but I guess, you've skipped over my detailed posts about her writing). If you have issues with a poster, then take it up with them, instead of pulling lame crap like "we all know who" and generalizing things about them that you either don't know about or you choose to focus on only certain things about what they've posted on this message board, despite them explaining in detail often what their position is and why they're saying what they're saying.

And yeah, I do say she should be fired a lot, but it usually ties into huge errors I see in her amateur writing. If it's too bad that I and others want better for a show that was for many years the most consistently written show in daytime, until your girl Latham showed up and tried to change the identity of the show and failed miserably (hence why she's gone!)and now Maria and her henchmen are continuing to do it in their own way, then so be it. We'll be the "we all know who's" of this and other message boards.

Edited September 7, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

The show has budget problems and they need to make tough cuts. LeBlanc would be one of those cuts for me. He's a secondary character (never a true lead IMO) with unnecessary ties to the canvas. I'd also can Greg Rikaart, Emily O'Brien and Judith Chapman. These characters need a rest. The writers have burned through so much story for them and no longer seem inspired to write anything even remotely interesting for them. So I say write them off, save a lot of money and use the budget to boost the existing families.

There have been Emmy winners who've left Y&R before. Hell, LeBlanc has left before.

The existing families are hollow even with extra members. The Chancellors barely interact and when they do they repeat the same old conversations. The show is anti-family.

If I were going to make cuts it would be:

the girl who plays Eden

Clementine Ford

Billy Miller (this character needs a rest of at least 6 months if not a year)

Adrienne Frantz

Sean Kanan

Ted Shackleford

Judith Chapman

Amelia Heinle

Michelle Stafford (if they cannot find something new for Phyllis she needs to go)

Stacey Heiduk (MJ/Patty is destroyed beyond repair)

Kristoff St. John (he's on the way out anyway)

Bryton James

Michael Muhney (awful recast)

Eileen Davidson (she is the generic damsel in distress and Ashley is much too old to work in this role)

the girl who plays Abby (send Abby off to boarding school)

I would actually go even further and dump Eric Braeden, but I know that will never happen.

I didn't list Daniel Goddard because I think he's probably one of the lesser problems on the show now.

The show has budget problems and they need to make tough cuts. LeBlanc would be one of those cuts for me. He's a secondary character (never a true lead IMO) with unnecessary ties to the canvas. I'd also can Greg Rikaart, Emily O'Brien and Judith Chapman. These characters need a rest. The writers have burned through so much story for them and no longer seem inspired to write anything even remotely interesting for them. So I say write them off, save a lot of money and use the budget to boost the existing families.

There have been Emmy winners who've left Y&R before. Hell, LeBlanc has left before.

Sure they could do this but it would be idiotic. You don't dump a three time emmy winner (CLB) and a longtime vet (TEB) just to prop lesser talent. I can't say I would be shocked if they did this, but these writers are adding family for Kevin so he is staying. Do many really think it would be a smarter move to write off CLB and TEB as Michael and Lauren just so they can center the family around Kevin and Jana with Ryder. Not to mention the bad press they would get. CLB might not be a favorite of MAB or HS but he is popular with his cast and the industry as a whole. Dumping him on the heels of winning another emmy while hiring and centering on lesser talent would be a bad PR move.

As for the writers burning through so much story for Michael I just don't agree with that. The show is writing Gloria and Jeffrey into the corner with their Natasha and Boris routine, but there is so much story to play with Michael and Lauren. And it's about time to write for them because they have not been frontburner for a long time. They need to give the quad a rest, and move on from this glaslighting story this fall and give Michael and Lauren a story. Or how about having Kevin supporting a Michael story for once?

Edited September 7, 200916 yr by lmfan

Nope. MAB could say, "The sky is a beautiful blue today" and someone, and we all know who, will post, "But it's not the shade I wanted it to be! Bill Bell would have gotten it right! She needs to be fired!"

No offense to Alvin but that's hilarious.

No offense taken y&r_fan, it's just lame when posters who obviously don't read the posts of the people they're mocking generalize those people as if they don't explain their position for saying the things they say. It's also quite transparent when they can't even confront the posters directly that they're mocking. Also, when those same posters rarely post or contribute anything to the discussions on this board and start mocking other posters in threads where that isn't even relevant or needed, it's very eye roll worthy. Not like this is the first time Scryber96 has done this and directed towards me. If you're going to mock someone, make sure you have your facts straight, MAB isn't picked on because it's the "in" thing to do, she's picked on because of her writing abilities (or lack of) that don't please many. And since we're the viewers who watch this show, we have every right to post about our dissatisfaction (or satisfaction) with the show and demand better writing and better writers, even if it is done often. But oh wait, I assumed "we all know" that.

Anyway, back on topic...

Edited September 8, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

As for the writers burning through so much story for Michael I just don't agree with that. The show is writing Gloria and Jeffrey into the corner with their Natasha and Boris routine, but there is so much story to play with Michael and Lauren. And it's about time to write for them because they have not been frontburner for a long time. They need to give the quad a rest, and move on from this glaslighting story this fall and give Michael and Lauren a story. Or how about having Kevin supporting a Michael story for once?

It's really pathetic, even though I'm not the biggest Michael fan, but soaps are supposed to be rotating ensembles, where everyone gets something significant to do in a calendar year. Y&R used to be very good at this, and Latham for all the havoc she reeked, she wrote more of an ensemble show than what we're currently getting from Maria Arena Bell, Hogan Sheffer, and Scott Hamner.

I took it as DG helping Heyou get more invested and interested in the storyline, even if it's not a favourite of her's...

Exactly! Why do some have to read into things that just aren't there?