SPOILER- Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki)

[bellcurve]

I don't get what's so difficult to understand about what Bill Bell did pre-and-post Brooks/Fosters. You didn't have to "see it" to understand how Bill Bell ushered in his new characters while phasing out the others. It was eventually successful and it worked for him.

And isn't that the original issue to begin with?

And you still have YET to tell me where you heard Bill Bell went into "semi-retirement" as Kay Alden took over. How convenient you gloss over that. Talk about "cherry picking."

[alphanguy74]

It wasn't "official" until 1997, when Kay Alden got the co-HW credit. But at that time Kay's promotion was announced, Bill Bell did an interview with SOD where he stated that Kay had been taking a bigger and bigger role in the writing over the last several years, and his promoting her to co-HW was a reflection of that. He started putting more on the lap of Alden when B&B came about. Brad did most of the heavy lifting, but Bill was still involved in B&B quite a bit, and it fell to Kay to take up the slack on Y&R. And even going back to the 70's, not EVERY SL was written by Bell, Kay/Joann was hatched by Kay Alden.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Who doubted that he didn't have any faults? Once again, seeing things you only want to see, alphanguy?? The man is human, so obviously he was bound to mess up at some point. But he wrote a better soap overall than Maria ever has. He understood the soap opera format and how to pace, execute stories, the art of suspense, and character development than Maria and her band of hacks do and ever will. At least Y&R had an identity under Bell, then Alden, and then Smith. It lacks one badly right now.

Michael Logan said this in the recent TV Guide, and how true it is:

I just call it as I see it, and yeah, Maria's writing sucks and she is writing a badly executed soap opera that tries too hard to be taken seriously, when it's an utter joke.

And you know damn well you brag and spill your arrogance all over this place when you're right about something, so don't even bring that sh!t here, dear.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Alden's Y&R was a hell of a lot more intelligent, focused, and better produced that anything Maria's attempted as well...

[alphanguy74]

I liked Kay's Y&R better, too. You'll get no argument from me on that. But Kay's run saw the biggest drop in ratings overall. How do you explain that? I certainly can't.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Actually, when MarkH did all the data, Y&R's biggest ratings erosion happened during Maria Arena Bell's first year with Josh Griffith. Kay's run was second.

People fled Y&R more gradually when Alden was there, when compared to Maria's first year. All of daytime was also losing substantial viewers at the time Kay took over officially in the late 90's and early 00's.

[bellcurve]

But someone being involved and someone pitching stories does not a semi-retirement make.

Look at Sally Sussman-Morina. Great with Bill Bell when she pitched her lame story ideas, but she literally floundered on her own when she did Generations.

It's one thing to be an "ideas man" and it's another to actually implement those ideas in a way that makes for great TV.

[MarkH]

Yup, as a bona-fide MAB fan at the time, I cannot deny that her initial run with JG was the biggest week to week dropoff in ratings for the full era (about 1998) that I had weekly ratings.

Kay lost more viewers...but her weekly rate of decline was slower--she just lost them because of the years she was in the job. Still, Kay's solo run was the third-worst weekly dropoff regime (LML's post KA/JS run was the second worst).

[DeeeDee]

Indeed.

Amen/

[DRW50]

I thought today's show said it all. Literally every decent scene involved veteran characters. Three of whom are no longer on the show.

[KevC1980]

If Days can survive without John and Marlena, Y&R will be just fine without Victor and Nikki. Plus they would save a lot of money.

[DRW50]

If they keep bringing in tons and tons of newbies, paying a lot of the older actors to stay home, and not budgeting properly, then they're still doing to have money problems.

I still don't know who they are going to focus on. If it's Adam or Billy or Amber, good luck.

[MarkH]

What three?

I disagree. Victor and Nikki, in present story, are far more central than John and Marlena had been for some time.

[DRW50]

At the time I wrote that I thought EB was gone. Braeden, MTS, Beth Maitland.

[MarkH]

Well, we got more of out Maitland than I ever expected.

As for MTS, I'm still veyr nervous. Wanting her to go recurring is apparently still on the table?