Y&R: Episodes discussion, week of September 21

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I heard Muhney trolls message boards and was banned from one after his feelings got hurt when someone criticized his acting. LOL!

I think MM is miscast, because he looks awfully older than all of the Newman siblings.

I don't think they should have SORASED Adam as severely as they did when they brought the character back with Engen.

[DeeeDee]

He really does.

[Paul Raven]

After moping around the Newman Ranch like a wounded bird for months,suddenly Ashley is at the hospital acting quite rationally.

Her whole psychosis isn't making sense.I think ED is doing a good job,but the writing isn't there.

The fact that Beth was given many powerful scenes this week shows that MAb & co have some sense of the history of the show and the loyalty of viewers.On other shows they'd give Traci an off hand mention and say she was too upset to come to town,or if she was there it would be background stuff.

With the focus on the hospital this week,it gave other stories a breather(apart from the Amber at the bank nonsense which was NOT funny)

Why is Jill being wasted in the nail salon.Really,a successful businesswoman would be reduced to this?Too proud to go to her sons or Katherine for help?Keatherine wasn't wondering where Jill went every day.

Jill should be dealing with Billy/Phillip/Chance and Cane.Visiting Lily.There is so much going on at the Chancellor estate that allows for character interaction.

Katherine decides to look for her daughter and Jill has to deal with that.She decides to find her real mother to retaliate.These are stories that flow from what has been happening,not some wacky plot point.

[classicmoment]

Maybe it was a bit more of a challenge than he could handle but I don't know I guess I wasn't disappointed. I like the The Good Ol' midwestern boy with a twist. He met my own ideas of Adam I guess

[DRW50]

Yes, I do think that I am looking back and giving CE too much credit at times. I don't mean to make him out to be some martyr, or a great actor. I think he was an OK actor with potential to grow, although we don't know. I guess I just thought he looked like what I believed Adam would look like, and he was able to be both Victor's son and Hope's son.

[MarkH]

Well, I'm here to say that I really DID NOT ENJOY Friday's episode.

I had problems with performances, and I had problems with structure. Both things took me out of the episode.

My acting problems were with (in this order)

Hayley Erin

Christel Khalil

Amelia Heinle

Thad Luckinbill

Each performance was sooooooooo bad, it utterly destroyed my ability to invest in the writing (which was actually okay for their scenes).

Erin was the worst. HER DAD AND SISTER ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY NEAR DEATH OR DEAD. She JUST lost her adopted dad. THIS KID SHOULD BE A FREAK. Instead, for the most part she looks like they ran out of her favorite lipstick color at the mall. Even her "breakdown" was mostly dry-eyed. Grief does not look like that.

Khalil. Well, let's put it this way: When she came into the hospital with that nun's habit and a mask...all three people watching in my house let out an audible gasp. later, I realized that maybe the "get up" would serve to hide her face during the emotional scenes...and this might actually be a good thing (given her limitations). Instead, it was like watching a muffled mess. As with Erin, I sensed NONE of the devastation. I could have bought that if they had said "Colleen brought her peace". But they didn't really play that emotional note either.

Heinle...in those scenes with MTS...had this wan smile and...that was it. Huh? Zero emotion.

Luckinbill. IMO, Colleen was the LOVE OF HIS LIFE! Remember his desperate frantic search for her when she nearly burned in the Gina's fire? Here, he was dry eyed. At least he managed to be a little bit "haunted", but when he was complaining to Paul that it was "not fair" and "why Colleen?", it seemed like line readings....not real emotions.

===

As for the structure of the the episode, the time travel here really hurt my ability to invest.

As near as I can tell, it was late in the day. It had been night time in Colorado...and I saw no evidence that a new day had dawned.

Nikki and Paul apparently got from Colo to GC within 30 minutes or something.

We were told Victor would be in a "long" procedure...but he was out of surgery within the episode, with no usual open-heart surgery embellishments (ventilator, CICU). He was TALKING? None of this remotely seemed real.

Yet all during this "long" procedure in the middle of the night, Nick seemed to be having a single conversation with Sharon, and Ashley was going all over town including being admitted to the "fricking funny farm".

The sole saving grace of this episode was Beth Maitland and (to a lesser extent) Eileen Davidson's continuing emotional "selling" of her material (even if the plotting of it is problematic). I could not believe MTS. I got no sense that she was "devastated" that her "good friend" Victor was near death. Maybe she does not yet realize the reality of his situation??

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Back when the show was written with emotion and characters had depth and integrity?

It's funny how the old Y&R occasionally did something as grand as a fire and rescue, but it meant so much more than the little stunts this horrendous current writing regime pulls out of their asses.

Like the character of Colleen for example, barring preferences for the actresses that have played the role, we felt something when she nearly burnt to death and JT rescued her at Gina's. Hell we felt something for JT and Colleen as a couple. Compare that to how we felt when she was kidnapped, and hell, when we knew she wasn't going to make it under this regime. The emotional depth and resonance just isn't there.

The JT/Colleen fire and rescue at Gina's was one of the last times my heart was racing watching a soap opera. It could be considered a "stunt" but the impact felt real and at that point, I knew and genuinely liked both characters and the bond they shared. It didn't feel cheap and lacking in emotion, like how Y&R feels these days.

Eh, I went too far off on my tangent again...

[MarkH]

I totally agree on this point. The only real emotion I am getting out of CeeCee's death is coming from Maitland. I suspect as we move to the next beat, Bergman and maybe Miller will sell me more too.

[lmfan]

I agree and it is strange, but it feels like some of these actors aren't really feeling what is happening on screen. The only real emotion I am feeling is obviously from Tracy. Anything I feel for Colleen is solely due to Beth Maitland. I feel Paul's sadness/guilt and Ashley's nuerotic tension as she suffers her mental collapse. I hate the story and find Ashley irritating but at least she is convincing even if it is just to set up their next plot driven mess of a story.

Adam is just irritating following Ashley around doing anything to cover his ass. Adam is cold and never stops manipulating. His tears or whatever that was at Victor's bedside and his little talk with Ashley in the chapel did nothing for me. Billy Miller was not good this week and his anger about everything is getting old. Billy Miller is a decent actor, but he does not play the needed emotion for this story well. I swear Billy Miller was trying not to laugh when he first saw Lily walk in to the hospital. Lily was the same as always and this cancer story just feels so contrived because we all know she will not die and she will be looking for a surrogate for the latest "miracle baby" sometime next year. Any emotion I felt for her occurred when she was in the hospital and Neil and Olivia were around making me feel for her. Now her many scenes with Cane are just monotonous, and I really hate to say that since this is a cancer story.

So many of these younger actors have real problems showing true sadness and because of that I can't feel for them like I could feel for a Tracy, Paul, Jack, Nikki, etc when they are sad/grieving. Their poor emoting takes me out of the scene.

I did like Paul and Nikki arguing in her hotel room about her obsession over Victor.

As for the Scooby gang - it looks like Gloria and Jeffrey are being thrown into their story, and I guess she fits. Michael and Lauren made their second token appearance for the month. No doubt we won't see them again until Colleen's funeral I am sure. What a friggen waste of the talents of CLB and TEB.

When they finally had Cassie die I was devastated, and I remember literally sobbing as they played the Y&R theme out of the show. Theoretically I feel for Colleen because a young woman has lost her life, but I just don't feel much sadness. I have not shed a tear and although there has been some good acting, I just feel like the actors are going through the motions and so am I as a viewer. Colleen's death is just yet another extended plot device. Just like with Brad, in another month or so her death will probably mean little. I know what I am supposed to be feeling as a viewer, but since I am feeling little the story for me at least has been yet another fail.

[DRW50]

It's interesting, because I felt so much more from Steve, who has not been on the show in 15 years, than I did from her supposedly loving uncle Billy, or from Lily, or Abby. I guess back then Y&R knew how to get these actors to truly believe in their characters and the actors worked harder to make connections with each other. You can feel that connection between Traci and Steve. It's not like, "Oh yeah, they're married, I forgot."

I think that many of the younger cast members have big problems in making emotional connections to other actors. I think that's one of the reasons many of the couples are a bust in that set. The only connections I see are Kevin/Jana (based on kinship, not passion), and I also believe that Cane and Lily love each other, even though everything else about Lily has become too ridiculous to believe.

Even worse is that I also don't believe a lot of their friendships. The only ones I believe are those that have been painstakingly built for years, like Kevin/Daniel. That's something which Y&R used to do quite well, they would be criticized for having repetitive scenes, but these scenes built up connections between actors. Now we get Billy and Rafe as supposed friends since high school, only for them to almost never speak. We get this great supposed bond between Colleen and Rafe, and he never sees her at her bedside, is not even mentioned. We hear about the supposed bond between Billy and "CC", yet he barely spoke to her most of the time since his return, and when he did go to the hospital, he made it all about him and didn't care about her or about Traci's pain. It was yet another showcase for his macho posturing. We hear about the supposed friendship between Kevin and Colleen, but they barely spent time together recently enough for viewers to feel for Kevin.

It doesn't help that the relationships are often poorly defined. I still have no idea how I am supposed to feel about Billy/Mac or Billy/Chloe or Chance/CHloe, and the actors seem so ill at ease with exactly what to do that I don't believe in any of those bonds. Amber/Daniel are the same way.

The show thinks all they have to do is tell us what to feel, and we'll feel it. Yet they don't even seem to know exactly what to tell us, it just drifts and then we get hit with it and then we go back to drifting until the next wave crashes over us.

[DeeeDee]

I liked CE too but the character TPTB were trying to create was beyond his range & his problems with emotional scenes would've been even more of an issue if HT were still around.

Her scenes with Traci were horrible.

Poor Beth.

Maitland & Wrangler are doing fine.

Bergman, Davidson, Miller & Luckinbill are really hollow.

The less said about Erin the better.

[DeeeDee]

Paul's eyeroll was

BINGO!

[MarkH]

I agree there needs to be payoff, but I'm fine if it takes 5 years to happen...and if by then we've seen more of Adam's good side...so it makes the "justice" more painful.

That's what Bill Bell would have done.

[alphanguy74]

It's that back then, Y&R was cast by Bill Bell... and he knew how to PICK and actor. Beth Maitland performed just as good when she was 24 as she does today, and she's got an emmy from 1985 to prove it. I think Billy Miller is fine, he just needs tweaking you can see his talent is there. I actually thought Hayely Erin was OK this week... of course it could be that this week's performances looked stunning in comparison to her past work, which wasn't even worthy of a high school play. So that's quite likely. I think the reason some are not getting the emotional jolt they should is because of the PACING. Everything comes at such rapid-fire, you have disaster after disaster, death after death... and it has DE-SENSITIZED the viewer. When you kill off a character too often it loses it's IMPACT. I will say that when Cassie died, I sobbed for the ENTIRE AFTERNOON, and I'm not joking. I did cry this week, but nothing like THAT.

[Juliajms]

He was not alone, although I didn't succeed. I had teared up a bit from watching Traci and then I went into a laughing fit when I saw Lily and wondered how the cast managed to keep a straight face. I don't think I would have been laughing if CK had sold me on Lily having cancer in the first place though.