Y&R Episodes Discussion, Week of October 12, 2009

[brimike]

It was a joke. I was being light-hearted. You're as dark and depressing as the show, Alvin. I miss the witty, fun post-er. Come back to us once in a while! You can still hate what they're doing to your show, and have a little fun on here.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Hey, I'm fun outside of the Y&R threads!

I guess we all know it's end times, but I still hold out hope the show can get better, even in these circumstances, just not with the people running it right now. There has to be someone out there that can try to save this show and make it relatable and true to itself again, even as it slowly fades away. Y&R is one of my shows and I watch it no matter how bad its gets, purely for sentimental and my emotional connection to the show. I think a lot of us are just so disappointed in Y&R and its current creative state that it makes for a very negative thread, not just myself. I find very little enjoyment in the show right now and it reflects in my posts, so it makes me seem like a humourless soul, as I assume it does with some others, but I'll keep watching until the end.

[brimike]

:D Total word.

And you are allowed to be disappointed. And angry. And beat drums. But humorless is no fun.

(P.S. Thanks for understanding the tone I meant that in. I had a whole post about "the dark and depressing Young and the Restless SON threads, and how anybody can think the kind of shock-and-awe posting this regime continues to inundate us with day after day would be entertaining to read", but I realized it might not be read in the joking manner I meant it in. LOL!)

[Y&RWorldTurner]

We'll leave that for your doppelganger to post.

Or maybe someone else will post it using your user-name in an attempt to gaslight you.

[brimike]

Touche.

[DRW50]

They aren't going to give any stories to black characters. I also don't know if this is about the character being popular. They don't care about what fans want. They probably like the publicity they got because of Kitty, and all that. So they want to see if lightning strikes twice. This one will probably go psycho too at some point.

[Cashton]

Lol! I thought it was obvious that this new character will give Patty new life not usher out PAtty! It's clear to me that Patty will somehow switch places with the good doctor. Patty ain't going no where! She also knows what happened to Patty since she left Genoa City years ago I bet.

And Alphan - sorry bt I theorized about those pills before you! I knew those pills were important cause before she poisoned Summer she went off them. Unbalanced people who go off their pills definitely can be dangerous. What I've always said is that it's not about Patty's redemption necessarily, but her recovery. If she can be sane again, she can stay or at least a while longer.

And there's lots of story building between her and Jack - and don't forget Patty knows Adam's secret. She's down but no way she's out!

[y&r_fan]

That doesn't even justify a response.

Of course they do. They got rid of Tyra, Sabrina, River and Eden #1, didn't they? They just don't always succeed in giving the audience what they want.

*sigh*

Some make TPTB out to be SO much worse than they actually are.

[Cashton]

repeat post

[DRW50]

I don't think getting rid of any of those characters was about fan reaction. Tyra stayed around for a year, unpopular the entire time. They probably got rid of her to save money. It was the same time they dumped Vail Bloom. I don't know if recasting Eden or writing River out were about fans -- if it was fan reaction, then Gloria and Jeffrey would be gone too. Sabrina's death was about shock value and trying to tell us this was a brand new day. If anything Sabrina was becoming more popular as time went on.

I have not seen Paul Rauch give any storyline to black characters ever. The last time he made an effort was apparently in the year 1981 or 1982. So the chances of good material for blacks is about as likely as everyone sitting around wondering if Hill Street Blues will get a second season.

[alphanguy74]

But Carl, Rauch is the producer, not a writer. He doesn't write for any character, I'm sure the WGA wouldn't let him.

[DRW50]

A producer also gets involved with casting and who does or doesn't get storyline. JFP basically wrote OLTL during big portions of her tenure with that show. I don't think it's a coincidence that we get such poor treatment of black characters when he arrives.

[BadZoe]

They knew she was a popular character from the moment she walked on stage, months before they had her go the irredeemable psycho route. I don't even think that poisoning Summer would have been as big if she had stuck with her original reaction that she never intended to seriously hurt her and felt terrible and ashamed of what she had done. Instead she ran around telling herself that it was necessary and Phyllis deserved it. That was what made her irredeemable, not the actual act. Same thing with Victor. Even if he refused to let anyone else know what he did, I really wish we had a scene of him talking to an unconscious Summer about how bad he feels because it is all his fault and he never thought that anyone close to him would get hurt. Unfortunately, it is these humanizing aspects that the writers just don't seem interested in playing out. Now we of course know that Victor couldn't be shown in a good light because this whole storyline was designed for them to play hard ball with EB in contract negotiations.

Cashton and Alphanguy are spot on with their assessment that Patty was on medication early on. She's obviously some kind of paranoid schizophrenic and would have been locked up in a mental institution if she wasn't considered stable on her meds. For all we know it could have been the boozing along with the pills that caused her rapid decline as she was often shown with a glass of chardonnay and when she did find where Kitty hid them, downed them with a bottle from the mini bar. I think this character can be saved, but it is going to take a lot of good writing and a lot of good character exposition that shows how she went from leaving GC, to winding up on the streets to being treated by a psychiatrist and stealing her face. Since that would take work I fully expect nothing much to happen between Patty stopping and saving her meds until she gets the chance to drug her DR and switch places with her so she can go on another psycho spree.

As for a love interest, I want her paired with Detective Hottie, was Gill his name? Unfortunately, aside from Cane and Nick there aren't a lot of men in Stacey's age range on the show and both of them are married.

[Paul Raven]

Why does Paul Rauch repeatedly get blamed for the lack of airtime for black characters?

He has stated that he is not involved in the writing-'merely delivers MAB's vision'.Do posters believe he went to MAB and suggested black characters be back burnered?

I know the OLTL story,but people seem to forget that under his leadership at AW,Quinn,Bob,Henrietta,Roy etc had front burner story.

Not sure of the GL situation,but I think the show's strongest black characters were gone by the time he arrived.And SB never had many black characters anyway.

I'm not defending the man,merely going on what I have read.

[DRW50]

Rauch was at GL for 6 years and there was never any material beyond filler for black characters. This was at a time when ATWT had a strong black presence, 1997-2002, even though before that time, every black character on ATWT had been written out except for Dr. Ben.

OLTL had no black characters, minus some rap story I have never seen so I can't really speak of it, during his tenure.

When he arrives at Y&R, Devon and Neil become trashier and trashier characters, until they finally just disappear altogether. The only black woman on the show is Lily. Olivia is treated like a glorified extra and is no longer asked back. Even Detective Gill is gone.