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Y&R: Potpourri Thread 4


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Does Y&R have fanboys? It seems to me Y&R really isn't the show to attract fan bases like Days, ATWT etc. It always seems that when Y&R is good, everyone shares the belief that it's good, and when it's bad, same thing occur. Now they might be disagreement because what is good and what is bad is but there is a general sentiment. For example over on the Soapdom boards one poster claimed how they were still enjoying Y&R but conceded that the stories were very un-Y&R and felt the show needs stronger writing.

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Historically, Y&R has never been the type of soap to court fan bases the way DAYS and GH often would (and still do). Especially when Papa Bell was in charge, you either went along for the whole ride, or got the hell out of the way. IMO, he looked not at couples, or relationships, but at characters. He asked the same questions that Agnes Nixon does: "What's wrong here [with this-or-that character]? What could be wrong?" Granted, his work often drove me nuts, but I could never accuse the man of not exploring every single facet of his characters' individual personalities.

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Well...

For one thing, I couldn't stand how Papa Bell would S-T-R-E-T-C-H every story point past the point of believability. Don't get me wrong; I'm not someone who thinks everything should be dealt with, put aside and forgotten in one episode. After all, soaps are not about the situation, or event, but about its' ramifications. I'm just saying, I used to joke how someone on Y&R would go answer the door at the end of Friday's episode, but by the next Wednesday, they still hadn't made it past the living room couch. There's "making 'em wait," and then there's "making 'em not give a damn anymore".

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Actually, I could always forgive the former (Papa Bell was king at building up anticipation), but the latter....

Character A: "Please, [Character B], it's very important that we talk about this."

Character B: "I thought we covered this already, [Character A]."

Me (to T.V. screen): "I thought we did, too! Like, five minutes ago!"

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LOL - that's actually what I loved most about the old-school Bell show style: building up anticipation and by the mid-90s at least on B&B this formula was handled with lots of chuckles and irony. I kind of miss those days; although it was basically all rinse and repeat at the same time it wasn't because the dialogue was crisp and fresh always variating things unlike e.g. on JER's DAYS at that time where the dialogue was in constant repeat mode...

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That wouldn't have worked out now.

It was something appropriate for that era, people now have no patience for that.

Sadly — or not — these network executives are right in that the pacing needed to change. But certainly not the way they imagined it and Latham materialised it. And certainly not the way Guza sped up the pace on GH, he doubled the amount of scenes a typical Claire Labine episode would have.

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This has nothing has nothing to do with today's Y&R except for some ages but:

J. Eddie Peck was way too old to play Cole. He was 35 and Heather Tom was only 18 when their characters married. It was one thing for Ryan and Victoria, but for Cole, who was supposedly Victor's son with Eve to be that old at the time is absurd. Cole should have been played an actor roughly the same age as Tom give or take.

Rowell and Williams were probably too old to be playing Dru and Olivia, but keeping good, youthful looks was an advantage (Rowell is five years older than St. John IIRC).

Of course this comes to today, where Frantz and Rikkhart are too old for the characters they play, mainly because the shocking real life age differences. Both are almost a decade older than their counterparts. Of course Amber should be 30 anyways but she's always been interested in younger men (Hello Rick and Thomas!!!)

Just one of those complaints of when an actor's age isn't in synch with the character's age.

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The problem is that Amber and Kevin never age in the script. Amber has been onscreen for almost 15 years and she's still a brat. At least Dru and Olivia aged.

Heather Tom looked a bit older than her age so I wasn't bothered by the age difference. I was bothered that they had the same damn boring story for 2-3-4 years.

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