Speaking of production values, I tuned in today after a good month or so of not watching. What happened to the beautiful look of Y&R ? Every scene takes place in the Health Club. The lighting is drab and the show has a gray quality. I thought Paul Rauch would improve this shows look (well despite GL and OLTL's "interesting" production values under his reign). The show is dreary and lifeless. In every way.

Y&R looks like crap under Rauch. And that set for the ranch is just so small.

The ranch set is kind of iconic so I wouldn't want it changed dramatically, but it should definitely be updated. It should definitely be one of Y&R's grandest sets. It does not fit Victor at all. I know the shows are broke, but come on.

I'm never going to be able to see that set again without remembering Adam in the Sabrina dress.

With Stephen Nichols as her love interest (I'm betting "temporarily"), they are going to steer Walton as FAR away from becoming the "Duchess" as they can. She's supposed to be young-ish and sexy (something, IMO, that failed in her scenes with the much younger Ji Min).

But what you write, IMO, is clearly what Bill Bell intended. It always seemed to me that the long-long arc was Jill, boozy and lonely and horny, would eventually become the very thing she professed most to hate. Since the "maternity reveal" watered down all the hate and resentment, the story would no longer have the impact it once could have.

I'm not sure how temporary Nichols will be with Walton, he made a point of commenting that Jess has a very "sexual" energy and that he does as well, which he thinks will play off well into the future...As well, he's a little old to push with anyone other than Nikki (though Braeden can sleep with a fetus and no one would question it).

I'm glad you see what I see, meaning that Bill Bell's endgame for Jill/Kay was that they would realize that their lives were one and that one couldn't have existed without the other and that Jill became Kay just as much as Kay became Jill. Honestly, I feel the relationship, prior to the maternal bullsh*t, is the most complex, sick, twisted kind of romance to ever hit daytime. It represents the most toxic kind of symbiotic relationship in existence.

Damn do I ever miss it.

I'm not sure how temporary Nichols will be with Walton, he made a point of commenting that Jess has a very "sexual" energy and that he does as well, which he thinks will play off well into the future...

Man, "Sexual energy" is the biggest thing that Jess Walton has always been lacking, IMO. The sexual energy was one area where I feel Dickson always buried Jess under a snowdrift (that and clothing and style). Jess' main strength to me, has always been her expressiveness, especially in the eyes, and her emotional availability to the viewer. But everyone here is right, I miss the "de-fanged Kay... it made her much more fascinating. Oh well, at least we have some precious memories of her drunken wickedness:

Edited January 22, 201015 yr by alphanguy74

Man, "Sexual energy" is the biggest thing that Jess Walton has always been lacking, IMO. The sexual energy was one area where I feel Dickson always buried Jess under a snowdrift (that and clothing and style). Jess' main strength to me, has always been her expressiveness, especially in the eyes, and her emotional availability to the viewer. But everyone here is right, I miss the "de-fanged Kay... it made her much more fascinating. Oh well, at least we have some precious memories of her drunken wickedness:

Have to disagree with you alphanguy74, Jess Walton is so sexy. She may be at least 25 years my senior...but I'd hit it.

I love that weird jungle music they play when Jill accuses Katherine of killing Phillip.

What I hate the most about the way the show writes Jill now is that they seem to see her as a joke, and a loser. Not even as an afterthought. I think they are threatened by the idea of a woman over 50 having any sort of identity, so they take it out on Jill.

Premise: I am not talking about you.

But that sentence illustrates fully the trouble with people who watch Y&R today. They want it to be that old, Baroque, huge soap, with long stories and amazing payoffs. People live in the past, they want the same stories, the same people, the same moments being written again. Probably slightly differently, just for them not to be really the same.

It will never happen. This soap is in the gutter partly because of it. People's insistence on how it once was.

These people are a minority, they are 897 of them, while the other 9867 left the soap because it was "all the same". They just abandonded ship, with the most hardcore fans staying until the last moment before the last fade-out.

That does not mean Latham or Arena are an alternative — most certainly not — but it shows how the lack of evolution took a huge hammer and hit the ant who was just passing by.

I am virtually shaking your hand because your post is SPOT ON!!! I have been watching this show for over 30 years and I don't want to see the same stories played over and over again. And MAB is doing that ad nauseum...it's as if she went into the Bill Bell archives, pulled out the old scripts and just substituting the characters..BLOODY UGH!! And she's even copying stuff she did over a year ago..WTF!!

For almost every s/l she has penned since she's been HW, I can go back and remember almost the exact same s/l except she's doing a poor job of even copying the past. For the past 2 months I have been practically reduced to reading about the show more than watching it when I can find something NEW AND ENTERTAINING to watch on so many other channels.

Forget the excuse that women/people are no longer home to watch soaps, it's the coward's way of not saying...my show is not compelling and entertaining enough to make people want to watch. People will flock to it by all means necessary if it's entertaining and doesn't insult our intelligence.

Edited January 22, 201015 yr by JimTolkien

You can innovate without having to reinvent.

Keeping production values consistent but telling relevant stories is the way to do that.

AMEN! and I thought Daniel's internet porn addiction SL was really in that vein... but they dropped it. It was the msot interesting thing Graz has ever done, and it slipped through his fingers (Pun intended).

Edited January 22, 201015 yr by alphanguy74

I thought Daniel's internet porn addiction SL was really in that vein...

Literally.

It was the msot interesting thing Graz has ever done, and it slipped through his fingers (Pun intended).

+1.

I am virtually shaking your hand because your post is SPOT ON!!! I have been watching this show for over 30 years and I don't want to see the same stories played over and over again. And MAB is doing that ad nauseum...it's as if she went into the Bill Bell archives, pulled out the old scripts and just substituting the characters..BLOODY UGH!! And she's even copying stuff she did over a year ago..WTF!!

She rips off the most generic elements of the show without understanding them. Her own attempts to add something different, or someone's attempts anyway, are repulsive and poorly thought out (Adam's turn to the dark side; Phillip's return; Sharon shoplifting = opening her legs for half the men in town).

I think viewers left Y&R because the show moved so far away from the stylistic and thematic elements that made the show stand out. The show is very hollow now, and this has been building for years. I think Y&R is one of those shows which actually would have kept viewers if it had stayed the same, as long as it also kept up a standard of history, quality, and characterization, and good plotting.

She rips off the most generic elements of the show without understanding them. Her own attempts to add something different, or someone's attempts anyway, are repulsive and poorly thought out (Adam's turn to the dark side; Phillip's return; Sharon shoplifting = opening her legs for half the men in town).

I think viewers left Y&R because the show moved so far away from the stylistic and thematic elements that made the show stand out. The show is very hollow now, and this has been building for years. I think Y&R is one of those shows which actually would have kept viewers if it had stayed the same, as long as it also kept up a standard of history, quality, and characterization, and good plotting.

Yep.

AMEN! and I thought Daniel's internet porn addiction SL was really in that vein... but they dropped it. It was the msot interesting thing Graz has ever done, and it slipped through his fingers (Pun intended).

That's not saying a whole lot. I thought that story was god awful for SO many reasons, including Lily's shock that her husband was looking at porn.

That's not saying a whole lot. I thought that story was god awful for SO many reasons, including Lily's shock that her husband was looking at porn.

I liked surfer Daniel, troubled Daniel who got drunk at picnics, Luke-and-Laura Daniel who went on the run rather than face prosecution for killing Cassie.

That Daniel was young, reckless...and I could buy him as the son of young and reckless Phyllis....with a slight leavening by Danny's influence.

I dont' get the current selfish idiot. Why is he being so MEAN to Amber about her "son"? I get that he doesn't want kids...but why is he so nasty and supercilious?