Y&R: Week of November 23 Discussion

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Sad thing is, with this writing team, it could happen.

[dm.]

I'm just waiting for them to reveal that there is a twin town somewhere around where every single person is duplicated.

[DeeeDee]

I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm just saying that the failure that was Jack/Sharon wasn't just because of Case.

For me Sharon Case sold Sharon not loving Jack but wanting to & Bergman sold me that he loved the idea of Sharon much more than the reality.

But Morrow never convinced me he cared about Sharon beyond sex post plane crash & has never sold THE GREATEST LOVE EVER he supposedly had with Giggly Heffa.

Amen.

[DeeeDee]

This is the same creative team that eliminated two cancer survivors from a current cancer patients story.

The same creative team that had two rape victims treated by a doctor that molested his patients.

The same creative team that encouraged incest & sexual manipulation over writing for minorities.

The same creative team that killed two members of the same family in almost the same way in the same place.

Twinoa City!

[YRBB]

WIN.

[MarkH]

LOL. Yes, you're right. But chemistry (for me) can compensate. In other words, if love blossoms on top of the rotten foundation and horrible ruins, it will add emotional complexity to the Adam-reveal down the road. For me. To be clear, what I'd love is for Sharon to fall as deeply in love with Adam as she ever has with any man. And I want Adam to reciprocate, deeply and passionately and with regret. I want him to want to impregnate Sharon in some misguided attempt to "give her back" what she lost. And then...when the love can go no deeper...I want Sharon to learn what Adam did. And I want her to shoot him. . Think Nina-and-David-Kimble, LOL.

I don't agree on the chemistry part.

And you know why I can't blame this show for "toxicity"? Because I just watched (fascinating, shocking) episodes of another soap where a movie star artfully stepped on a dying man's throat, and then artfully arranged his corpse. If that is what is going on elsewhere in daytime (and it was truly compelling to see, I might add), Y&R still feels like Romper Room compared to that.

Pretentious, check. Hammy, check. Damn entertaining, check. Emmy winning, check.

See above. I'm really looking forward to that shock, though. Think Nina-and-David-Kimble, and it all comes into focus.

Yup. Likey is getting a story, that seems clear. These selections never seem to be accidental.

[DRW50]

If we're going to compare Y&R to what has been the most violent, nasty show on daytime, one of the nastiest on all of TV, for a decade or more, then that means our expectations are so low for Y&R we no longer bother to have any hope for them. And once again, Y&R's problems are not their own fault, someone else is always there to take the blame or the attention.

Even then, GH does not have women examined by molesters.

The problem with all of this with Sharon/Adam is that it's not about Sharon at all. Her part of the story, her grieving, was ignored. The rest is all about Adam and Nick. Poor poor Adam who suffers so much at being in love with the woman whose baby he stole. And poor poor Nick who has to deal with the heartbreak of one of his women getting cozy with the brother he hates.

It's all very by the numbers. They ignored any real complexity in the characters because they just cared about the big "gotcha" moment of Sharon hooking up with the man who essentially killed her baby.

[Sylph]

Y&R is worse. Doppelgangers, invented sexual orientations that pop out of nowhere, the return of the dead, massive carnage of every single character, the massive influx of new, terrible, poorly developed "characters", abysmal production values, vomit-worthy dialogue, nonexistence of long-term planning... GH at least has the best writing team in all of daytime sans Guza and it looks very good in HD.

I didn't actually understand your last two sentences? I.e. who did Mark blame now for Y&R's problems? And if GH doesn't have women examined by molesters, aren't you than saying it's better than Y&R and that it contradicts your first sentence, making Y&R the nastiest piece of cr*p on TV today?

[DRW50]

GH and Y&R are nasty in different ways. You get a general level of woman hatred on both shows, but GH is more about mobsters and mobster worship, with the women just props, but Y&R tends to focus more on degrading these women almost like some sort of a sick whim.

My point about someone else being to blame is that when Y&R does something awful, then we are likely to hear from the soap press or fans or somewhere that other shows are worse, that daytime is dying, so what can we expect. They are rarely expected to take responsibility for their own poor quality.

[Sylph]

True.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Subjectivity, check.

Awful writing team, check.

Y&R in the creative gutter, check.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

EXACTLY.

Something crappy going on at another show does not negate how awful Y&R is creatively and shouldn't excuse the awful writing on the show or be used to justify it in any sense.

[MarkH]

LOL, Mark blamed no one for anything.

Mark said that to call Y&R toxic because of this Adam-Sharon stuff just doesn't hold water for me...there is much nastier stuff on daytime.

Incidentally Sylph, I agree with you on all the bolded elements in your list. I don't personally consider GH (what I have been seeing of it) or Y&R toxic. I have to say that GH is just so compelling to me right now. Indeed, after I watched the Franco body-arranging scenes, I was so disturbed, I watched the Sopranos scene where Adrianna tried to get away from Silvio on her hands and knees as he aimed a gun at her head. Both were disturbing to me...and both were "can't turn your head away" in the sense of "what evil can humans do to one another".

I don't think it is bad or wrong to show this dark, disgusting stuff. It is a lens on an aspect of the human condition. Like Dexter on Showtime. At least GH is vaguely original for daytime.

Turning back to the episode thread, I have to say that the CBS Thanksgiving promos for this week look good...a nice mix of family, drama, humor.

LOL. I love you. Sincerely! Subjectivity fully acknowledged on my part, by the way!

[Sylph]

And we have a couple!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Y&R is toxic for more than just Sharon/Adam dear, just take a look at the path the show has taken overall this year.

And none of that is Y&R, the show can't go on being something it's not and that it doesn't have the budget to pull off.

And by toxic, I meant more than just tone. I mean the piss poor and inconsistent character writing,the inconsistent and sometimes TERRIBLE day to day writing, the reliance of psychos and shock value, crappily paced storytelling, horrendous execution, TERRIBLE casting, and a lot more of the "little things" that make the "big picture" so awful.