Jump to content

Y&R: Old Articles


DRW50

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Thank you for sharing this as well! I enjoyed the Rawlins dinner follow-up and all the juicy awkwardness associated it with it.

The rest of the episode was overall a lot quieter than the previous one. Our Dynasty reject Marc strikes again with Lauren chasing after him before his date with Joanna? Eh No.

I like Skip & Carol but thought the story about Skip’s dead wife was a bit too much despite the nice warmth and chemistry the pair had.  What is overkill is the extremely saccharine scenes between John, Jessica, Christine and Danny. OMG. Absent any of the high stakes drama of the previous episode and just dreadful to watch. 
 

That would have been interesting. In the aftermath of Jill’s shooting it was fascinating to see both Carl and Paul had a clear disdain for Jack with Jack complaining about his ex in-laws, which was a nice touch for history as 1986 Y&R already was feeling a million years away from 1980-83 Y&R .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 14.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

I think the main reason Marc Mergeron worked in his first run (and seemed so out-of-place in his second run) is that he had a purpose the first time around.  Through him, we found out all about Dina's post-Abbott life in France with Marcel Mergeron, Marcel's will, whether or not John and Dina's divorce was valid, the Brent Davis scandal, and so many other things that made Marc a crucial part of the show.  The second time around, he was just a random playboy, not really even connected with the Abbotts, and he really did just seem like a Dynasty reject.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Please register in order to view this content

This is one of my all-time fave clips that have been anonymously posted in the Vault over the past couple years (now someone else has posted it to YT)

The scene just swells with emotion, knowing it was probably Robert Colbert's last ep.

Liz's dialogue hints to me some deep-seated insecurity, begging to be explored in future story, which it never was... does she truly think herself inferior to Stuart and not worthy of his love? I know past stories hinted at that. Is Liz's self-worth that low?

Or could it be the opposite? Could it be that Liz just knows herself well enough to know that she is happier being alone, and doesn't want to hurt Stuart's feelings?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I posted this promo in the 1980s Ratings thread. I spotted Doug Davidson (1:17), Jeanne Cooper (1:19), Nina Arvesen (1:20). Y&R was #1 in daytime but CBS was 3rd in primetime. Maybe CBS was hoping to get the Y&R fans to their primetime lineup.

Please register in order to view this content

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I wonder the real reason Bill Bell gave such a lazy end to that pairing? Most of Stuart’s daughters had send offs that sort of made sense, so couldn’t it have been too much to just have Stuart say he’s leaving GC to go live with Leslie or Lorie (and hopefully Brooks) and maybe grant Liz a quickie divorce? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I love how bizarrely feverish the normally staid recast announcement is here...talk about a harbinger for the next four years.

This whole sequence is peak Bill Bell Y&R. The opaque camera angles creating such an oppressive atmosphere and making the Abbott  home feel as much like a prison as a refuge. How deep in character and drive and yet how off Jill, Dina and Mamie all are in their own ways, which makes the scene feel increasingly delirious as we go from Dina spying on Jill to facing off with Mamie to facing off with Jill. As Camille Paglia once said about  Nikki, the scenes represent the essence of femininity and womanhood,  but in this case, in nightmarish ways. Everyone is trapped in their own hell and either trying to get out, or just don't know how.

I  didn't realize Bell just ended up re-using the hiding  letter idea with Dina, John, and that Constance Towers character 13 years later. Now I have even more disdain for that plot.

Edited by DRW50
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It’s such a strange ending. Most sources said that Stuart died but was never addressed on screen. It probably should have been. Like Jill being the sole Foster family left I do wish Bell had at least let one Brooks family member remember remain. I had read that could have been Leslie but the Laurence family story was weird as hell and flopped so that ended any notion. That said Liz should have never left IMO at all. I feel maybe Liz was Bell’s answer to Nixon’s Ada on AW and as was probably the only non-messy matriarch Bell wrote (as Jennifer, Katherine, Regina, Vanessa, Dina, Mary, Alison, Joanna, and Lilibelle were all very messy lol

@kalbirDidn’t Y&R get better ratings that some of CBS primetime shows in the 90’s? It’s always sad to me that everyone goes back to 1981 GH saying how soaps where big yet Y&R overall from 1990-1994 was such an unmatched juggernaut in ratings and really made Y&R characters household names.

LOL @DRW50 about the Audrey North story that went south. I am glad MR’s Mamie got some good airtime here and it’s first hinted that Mamie was in love with John herself while being the mother to the Abbott kids they never had yet still doing her old fashioned duties as “the maid/help” whole “staying in her place.” Bell was never progressive enough to do any racial storylines but he definitely nailed Victorian classicism to a tee when it came to these stories.

Edited by soapfan770
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yes, this was the most I've seen of Marguerite's Mamie actually  doing anything, and I  immediately got that vibe as well. I can actually believe it a bit more with her than with VRF, who was much warmer than the often very cold Abbott dynamics.  

The Mamie/John idea was extremely daring, but something that Y&R was likely too conservative in viewership to ever pull off. I think if Bell had  been  more on all cylinders the idea would never have gone through. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It was good enough for a Golden Girls episode in 1989 but a long term storyline on Y&R? Yeah unfortunately absolutely not. By the time we saw John & Mamie together in 1995 it was already twilight time for Y&R’s older cast members. 
 

MR did some excellent work again towards the end of her run in late 89/early 90 with John’s heart attack. A while back I know we discussed it’s interesting that Bell made Olivia and Dru her nieces instead of her daughters, probably Bell’s easier way around some pretty awkward situations. I mean if Olivia & Dru had been Mamie’s daughters of course Olivia would be best friends Ashley and act like sisters but with Dru, ho boy that would have been one hell of very volatile relationship with Dru resentful of Mamie’s alleged preference for the WASPy Abbott kids for starters. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • What else? #May4th

      Please register in order to view this content

       
    • In my usual account on my most used video hosting site with the video title  DAYS 1-8-15 Will & Paul Sex This is an edit I began when I was first teaching myself to edit & at that time I couldn't make it do what I wanted it to do. I pulled it up & finished it this morning. 
    • Or Megan is shot as retaliation for Dave's unpaid gambling debts...while Julie confesses she's the biological mother of Special Guest Star Barry Bostwick's little boy.
    • Finland seemed such an odd choice for a location shoot. ATWT went to Greece and later Spain while GL had Tenerife and there were others in that timeframe. But Finland not being a known tourist destination or offering the tropical/sunny atmosphere usually associated with location shoots seems off brand. Maybe they were negotiating a deal with a tourist association and it fell through.
    • I was talking about 1986, but the glimpses of 1982 are about the same. 
    • I skimmed some of the 1982 synopses; Steve was planning on an opening an office in Finland, and I think Jim went there as part of the preparation. That probably was a big issue; AW had already gone to San Diego that year, with Rachel/Steve/Mitch. And to upstate NY with Pete and Diana. I wonder if upstate was as expensive lol  AW in 1982 has always fascinated me, because of how messy it was 
    • That makes sense. What a messy time for the show. And any changes they made were mostly for the worse.
    • The transition from Neal to Adam was very abrupt, and to be honest my theory is that the character of Neal was designed so that we think he is super shady but then it turns out that he was on the side of good all along so Neal could have seamlessly become a hero of the BCPD with no need for Adam. I don't know whether Robert Lupone was hired on a short contract or if he was fired from a longer-term contract because they decided they wanted someone who was more of a leading man type, but I can imagine a scenario where Charles Grant did both the undercover Egyptian treasure/flirt with Victoria and the straighter-arrow day to day police investigation. But in my imagined scenario the MJ prostitution plotline probably doesn't exist and instead he probably continues a relationship with Victoria. The story seems very odd to me. I assume that David Canary would have been included only because a plotline where Steve is going to Finland in which only Rachel is seen in actual Finland seems unlikely. The synopses explicitly mention that Alice can't go with Steve but would whoever was playing Alice at that time have had the kind of clout to get the remote cancelled? It also strikes me as unlikely that production would have approved the expensive location shoot and *then* cancelled it only because of jealousy. It seems more likely that they rejected it because of the expense but then the jealousy part got added to the gossip speculatively, possibly because while it was being worked out they justified not including more castmembers because of the expense. 
    • My comment has nothing to do with cast resentment, but does relate to the Finland location shoot: It may be a coincidence, but Jim Matthews died in Finland in 1982.  Hugh Marlowe's final episode was in April 1982, but the character probably didn't die untll May or June. (I'm unable to find the character's date of death, only the date of Marlowe's final episode). SInce Jim and Rachel had very little interaction after around 1975, it is unlikely Jim's death in Finland had any connection to Rachel's potential visit, but the choice to have Jim die in that location at that time is a head-scratcher.  I'm sure the writers sent Jim on an extended trip (and off-screen) because of Marlowe's illness.  But Finland seems like a strange choice considering the (then) recently cancelled location shoot.  
    • I totally understand your sloths concern about it and I agree with you. Let’s hope the show plays it’s cards right.    Further comments about the last few episodes: - I liked that one of the attendees was filming the scene. That’s realistic. I wonder if the writers will follow up with that.  - Martin and Smitty trying to drag Leslie out was very heteronormative, so perfectly in line with them two as characters lol.    As for the future: it’s obvious the Duprees will come to accept Eva one way or another, but the rivalry with Kay should be here for the long term   On the topic of acting: the only bad actors I’m seeing are Ted and Derek. Tomas hasn’t proven to be either good or bad, so far, but he’s certainly mediocre and uncharismatic. He sucks the energy out of the scenes and I don’t see any couple of women ever vying for him. 
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy