Article: Y&R: Y&R: The Good, the Bad, the Excellent, and the Unwatchable

[MoTheGreat]

Hi Deeedee!

[LondonScribe]

Wholeheartedly agree. It gets annoying to all my friends and family how much I rave about Y&R in 2003. When Y&R returned to UK screens in 2007, it began with the first episode of 2003. Such a pleasure to watch. Kudos to Bill Bell (although I don't know how much of a part he had to play by then because of health), David Shaughnessy and Kay Alden (sorry Sylph) and later in the year Jack Smith...

[DeeeDee]

LOLOL Hi Mo!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Agreed on 2003 being the last truly great year for the show. 2004 was hit and miss, and 2005 was the beginning of the end...

Even though I didn't like everything in 2003, I do remember the show being very consistent that year, having top notch production values, and the show still had a lot of heart (which it no longer has). 2003 was actually better than much of 2001-2002 from what I recall as well.

[sheilaforever]

ICAM.

2005 was hit and miss again but 2004 was just horrible with Brittany & Friends 24/7 and some other ludicrous stories Jack Smith came up with. Of course it was all well plotted and had good dialogue (one can't say that for years...) but the overall direction was TERRIBLE.

[DeeeDee]

2005 was horrible as 2004.

The only thing that helped 2005 was Cassie's Death (Y&R's last solid umbrella story) & even THAT was botched.

[Sylph]

Six years of dreck.

[DeeeDee]

And all for NOTHING.

[dawn9476]

I loved 2005. It was 2006 that the show really started to suck with the beginning of Phick. I will admit that Phick was hot as an affair but when it turned to wuv and Phyllis got knocked up, everything went down hill.

[DeeeDee]

2005 had a few good character moments ("Have A Seat", Michael/Lauren's wedding) but outside of Cassie's Death it was really bad.

Early 2006 was only a little bit better (helped a lot by Leon & Sherwood) but by late Spring Bill's Y&R was completely gone.

[soapfan770]

You mean this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfW0gi6ZMBw&feature=player_embedded

I remember thoroughly enjoying Y&R February-May 2006 because Y&R seemed to become grounded again after all that went down with the Tom and Sheila stories. Both Leon and Sherwood were fantastic. All those developing storylines--Brad's past, JT/Victoria, Victor's illness, and tainted face cream at least started out as interesting.

[DeeeDee]

Yep.

The problem was LML would just shove random characters into her cliche stories & it was a disaster every time.

She was to Y&R what Pratt was to AMC.

[DRW50]

That was a great clip. I've heard a lot of criticism of Sherwood's acting style (too loud or whatever else) but didn't see any of that in this clip. KSJ also seems to be at his best. And Victoria Rowell lets them take over the scene.

[DeeeDee]

Davetta was stiff when she started but after the first month or two she was fine.

[MoTheGreat]

You have did it now, Deeedee. Somebody going to come & say Davetta was so ghetto talking in that clip.

What really help out Davetta is that it didn't hurt that she had a family vibe going on with both KSJ & VR. I would have love to see Davetta chemistry with SM & the lady that plays Olivia.