Y&R: Episodes discussion, week of September 14

[DeeeDee]

How is Gloria still alive?

Why isn't she dead with Cane?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Because Gloria, Cane, and Amber are considered the important and necessary people of this show.

Colleen, Jill, and other core characters aren't worth it, so they're either considered expendable, or dumbed down comedic relief that isn't even funny.

The people running Y&R want to impose their interpretation of what Y&R should be and of what the soap opera art form should be, damn the history and damn the real legacy characters.

It's sad, but as mentioned before, no one is taking any lessons from Guiding Light's demise.

[Cheap21]

Im viewing Thursday's show now and I have to say WTF am I watching????

[MarkH]

Yeah, Thursday was a bit LSD-induced.

But Friday plumbed the same depths (if you'll pardon the pun) in a more relatable and emotional way. I enjoyed Friday more.

Everybody is acknowledging that we're in a deeply flawed period of this show. But, in containment, I thought Friday was better than many have been.

However, not having Colleen disappear to the strains of Nadia's Theme shows me how much the show underestimates the character's (not actress') importance.

[DRW50]

I don't think Gloria is important to Y&R so much as she is just another plot device. She is a B character who helps moves the story. She's a wackier version of Adam and Patty. LML did seem to adore Gloria and made her biases very clear, but I think the show's current use of her is more perfunctory.

As for fierce Ashley, I know I'm not being fair, but they cannot have this woman ignore her family 11 months out of the year and then expect me to be moved when she suddenly wants to get involved. Ashley has not been close to most of the Abbotts in a long time, and like Billy, I simply do not buy her in a family setting. It's ironic that the one they consistently want us to see as a failure to his family, Jack, is the only contract Abbott I can actually believe as loving or caring about his kin.

[Juliajms]

I wonder if they even understand that important character's should have Nadia's Theme played for them? I question if they understand what it means to many long term fans. Has this regime used it for a death? I hated Brad, but he deserved Nadia's Theme for being on the show 20 some years and he didn't get it either.

[alphanguy74]

I agree. I DIDN'T watch thursday's episode, cause I knew it would totally suck... I saw about 60 seconds of Colleen's "death trip" on youtube, and that was enough to make me not watch the show itself. CGI is NEVER realistic looking, even in big budget motion pictures... it's CHEAP, and the talking heads in the movie industry try to CONVINCE us that it looks better, when it really doesn't. There's just a certain percentage of the population that just swallows what theyr'e told by execs, no questions asked. I liked the Ashley/Traci exchange VERY much, and I thought the shots ringing out a the end scaring the ducks was effective. I wonder where they shot this.... but they FOUND a lake that didn't OBVIOUSLY look like it was in California.... kudos for THAT. I have to say, after waking up from her dream, Kahlil actually PERFORMED with satisfaction. She's so UNEVEN, she's sub-par about half the time, passable about 40 percent of the time, and "very good" about 10 percent. And FINALLY Hayley Erin acted a scene that didn't make me want to run for the alka seltzer... her scene with Eileen in the sunroom was touching, and well done. I cna't BELIEVE IT.. could it be she's been reading how HORRIBLE she's been, and she's actually TRYING? One can hope so. I thought Friday's episode was quite good overall, but I tell you, Kahlil and Erin could have EASILY sunk it, glad they didn't. Also loved the scene where Greg Wrangler just finally had ENOUGH of Billy's crap, and bit his head off. And he backed DOWN. I'm glad they dug him up for this reveal, it makes it much more believeable.

[lovely_m]

I know a lot of you are upset about the death of Colleen, but I still think the next generation of Abbotts can be saved. Only is this show is commited to it. They have Kyle, Kemo, and of course Carl's favorite Abbott Billy. Didn't Kemo have a little sister Mai? They could revamp Abby to be a better version other than a Blair Waldorf/Brittany Hodges wannabe.

MAB and company, I don't care how much praise the actors, get the Scoobies are not your next generation!

I think the only way they could get Brad Bell to give them Amber was if they promised not to kill her.

Stage 1 of grief: Denial

[lovely_m]

Sorry, Double Post.

[DRW50]

The problem isn't so much the future of the Abbotts as the future of any family on this show. The people at this show now do not do families. Never did I imagine we would have so many Chancellors on the show, after years of barely two or three, and yet none of them have any meaningful interaction or interesting relationships with each other.

Family is only used as a weapon, as something to make people feel bad, to cause pain. There's a real disdain towards family moments which is so ATWT Sheffer.

I can't imagine Bill Bell ever shipping someone's entire family offcamera while they are battling leukemia.

[Juliajms]

Of course not because family reactions are a huge part of the emotional punch these stories are supposed to pack.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yep. Exactly.

Family dynamics, character motivation, and individual personalities for characters simply don;t edxist on this show anymore. They only try to explore those things when someone is hurt or in the process of dying, so it all feels really false and contrived. That is not how you write a soap.

If anything, this week seeing Colleen's friends and family worry about her proved how much Colleen WASN'T close to any of these people, at least we never really saw these relationship dynamics explored since Tammin's been in the role and the character has been virtually back-burner since. It really highlighted how much they never really cared about this character.

[DRW50]

Oops, sorry. I don't know why I said leukemia, that's not what Lily is battling.

[lovely_m]

You could say the same thing happened to Brad. He was off screen for a while then given the SEC short story, off screen agiain, then rushed into the his life really sucks storyline, then his death.

The one person Tammin's Colleen had the most scenes with was Lily (dating her ex husband and taking over as "Fresh Face") and the rest was randomly thrown in.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

And with Brad, it was like they mourned him for like a week and then forgot all about him. No one has felt any significant impact from his death, they all got over it after one week.

I'm really sick of death, especially death of important legacy/core characters being the catalyst for story on this show. It's definitely been a recurring theme with this horrendous Maria Arena Bell, Hogan Sheffer, and Scott Hamner writing regime.

The sad thing is, when all is said and done, Colleen's death will probably have no real impact or meaningfulness anyway. I refuse to buy that this was the only way to reignite the Jack/Victor feud, which this writing regime has disastrously misunderstood from day one, since there were ample reasons for that feud to come back to the forefront with the other stuff Patty pulled.

It's like they make things up as they go along and don't worry about the long-term impact of their decisions.

Also, it really rubs me the wrong way how they're trying to insinuate that Victor brought Patty to town to kill Jack. Jack and Victor always hated each other, but they always had respect for one another underneath it all, and triggering the death of the other was NEVER their dynamic. It's like they want to say they're tapping into the history of the show, but they really aren't, they're just taking everything at face value and not digging deeper into why things are the way they are.