Y&R: Old Articles

[soapfan770]

Can’t speak so much for Nixon aside the from fact she may have or may not have killed off an entire family via plane crash(or was it car crash?) on AW that she didn’t care for lol. Nixon is also seen by some as abandoning OLTL and Loving at some point, something Bell would’ve never done. 

 

Irna was notorious for some pretty unpopular ruthless writing and production making decisions on GL, ATWT, AW, Peyton Place etc. Her finally run at ATWT has always been widely panned and did cause the show to stumble. 
 

Bell’s entire 25 years at Y&R is well studied because it’s an anomaly in all of daytime. Other writers like Labine and the Dobsons got pushed out of their own shows. Y&R came out as more successful eliminating its early years compared to other soaps and bounced back well in the recasts department compared to Ryan’s Hope. 
 

I do agree Bell should’ve tried harder to keep around Liz Foster permanently but I think did realize when a character reached their useful end, although a lot of exits on Y&R have been much left desired as leaving us always asking “what if..?” and/or those disappearances without explanation whether it was Dina in 1986 or  Leanna in 1992. 

[FrenchBug82]

Bell had flaws like any writer or any person, really.

Saying he was overall a great does not mean overlooking the things he didn't do that well.
And, dare I say, the things we mention here, while problematic from the point of view of purists and perfectionnists, are hardly cardinal sins. Writing a show for two decades and a half (with others beforehand) five days a week every week of the year while making the entire machin run - with business and budget concerns, human resource drama, scheduling issues, etc - is a huge endeavor and it is inevitable that it is going to require some shortcuts and inconsistencies in the final product.

And they don't even have to be the writer's fault. There is SO much we don't know about what goes on behind-the-scenes. We always assume characters get written out purely because the writer decided so or because the actor decided to leave. But like any business, there are a gazillion reasons people can be let go and that it would be uncouth to discuss publicly.
I have no knowledge of why, say, Carl suddenly disappeared but it could very well have been that the performer had some trouble with human resources for this or that reason and couldn't be kept around as an employee and that recasting would have drawn attention to a delicate situation, hence the abrupt disappearance. Who knows?
Identifying what Bell did wrong doesn't take away what he did right, of which there is plenty, OR that it may not always have been entirely of his only doing. 

[kalbir]

@FrenchBug82 We hold Y&R to a higher standard, but yes Bill Bell did have some missteps and he wasn't immune to following trends (Dallas/Dynasty and action/adventure), although one has to wonder how much of following trends was a CBS mandate. 

 

Also thinking about the time Y&R reached #1 (the height of Cricket eating the show) I think was more due to maintaining the audience it had during the writer's strike, whereas other shows lost viewers during the writer's strike. I don't think Y&R was drawing new viewers of the middle school and high school demographic back then. Nobody I knew of that age group at that time was checking for Cricket.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by kalbir

[Soaplovers]

Paul/Cassandra... and the George Rawlins saga was what got the show to #1.  And I did like how when Paul faked his death...Victor comforted Nikki..and was conflicted because he knew Paul was alive and couldn't tell his ex Nikki.

 

And Carl/Mary were featured quite well during the story while we never knew how involved Cassandra was in her hubby's death.  After all, didn't he want to kill Paul and that served as a motive for pinning the murder on Paul?

[FrenchBug82]

Also, there is no other show where the drop in quality once a headwriter first is not head writer anymore (1998) and then once he passed and wasn't around as a consultant (2005) has been so spectacular and obvious. The change was obvious and immediate in both cases and Lord knows Y&R since 2005 has been... well often not even good period, let alone in comparison.
So yeah his talent mattered.

[Broderick]

 

His talent was definitely behind Y&R's success, and so was his vision.   As long as he was around, the show was a unique product -- from the stylized acting, to the moody lighting and music, to the sometimes repetitious and awkward dialogue.   That was all part of the appeal of the show.  Some of us loved his show; other viewers found it stilted and unnatural, preferring the more "real world"-based look and sound of the P&G shows or the ABC shows.  But Bill Bell didn't waver.  Y&R was exactly what Bell wanted it to be, and once he was gone, so was the unique identity of his show.  

[BigMAnOnDeck]

Rewatching the Summer 89 episodes made me realize to this day he is the best Jack Abbott. No shade to Peter B.

[SoapDope]

Aaron Spelling was a big fan of Bill Bell and said he wanted to write a daytime soap like him. When Spelling did the movie Mr. Mom he used Y&R as the soap Michael Keaton becomes addicted to. Lynn Loring (ex Patty SFT) was working for Spelling when they produced that film. 

 

Janice Lynde reminds me of Loring. Lynde may have been a good recast for Patty on SFT in the 80's. 

[FrenchBug82]

Well I'd reword that and say that version of Jack Abbott was best - which is not only down to TL who was obviously great but also to the writing.
Jack *was written* differently back then too and that's important to note when we look back at it with nostalgia.

 

[BigMAnOnDeck]

Jacky was more in the Vein of a Yuppie JR Ewing at that time Terry played him. To tell the truth the first two years of Peter B. you can tell he tried to capture Terry Lester style

[FrenchBug82]

 

Yes.
And as I mentioned in the past I suspect one reason he detested the LuAnn story so much is that not just that it was a bad retcon, but it was the key moment where Bell just turned Jack into something else - almost sappy - and for Bergman, that might have felt like a vote of no-confidence that Bell felt he wasn't pulling off the Lester-style Jack.

It is not that mellowing Jack with age was an absurd move in a vacuum but to PB it probably read as Cliff-izing the character, which he might have been bummed about.

And it also turned Jack as a perpetual loser - thereby propping Victor up - rather than the rascal he had been. All of this is at Bell's feet, whatever his reasons.

So I don't necessarily blame PB per se. He doesn't do badly when he has to be a bit meaner, although he doesn't do the oily charm thing as well as TL did but that could have been easily fixed by adapting the dialogue. Instead they adapted the character entirely.

[yrfan1983]

The biggest problem for me is that TL oozed sex appeal while PB possessed none.

 

Just watch the beginning of this ep, and how the camera lingers over TL's torso...https://youtu.be/BRb0tDDcCgE

 

[FrenchBug82]

This is kind of lost on me as I didn't find TL attractive. But I think it rejoins what I was mentioning under the broad umbrella of "charm". That, I do see.
PB is a good actor but he is very bloodless. He can sell Jack as being in love but I can never see the part where Jack *seduced* whoever. TL's Jack was never really in love but I could totally see him seducing and charming his conquests.

 

[Soaplovers]

The one thing PB's Jack did capture was the sarcasm TL infused Jack with.  Also, early PB's Jack was more elegant than sensual/sexy.

[Paul Raven]

I was thinking about Bill Bell's 25 yr reign as headwriter and this this acheivement was unmatched. 

Irna Phillips wrote ATWT for 14 years straight. How long was Agnes Nixon actually headwriting AMC?

 

Looking back, I can sort of see 3 distinct 'eras' in that 25 yr stretch and it's interesting to look at decisions that were made over the years.

73-83  was obviously the original Brooks and Foster families with new characters brought in with the expansion to 60 mins.

From the 1980 influx Bill still tried to keep the original characters involved. The Fosters and Brooks were still strongly represented.

But slowly they were diminished... Peggy,Chris, Lorie and Leslie all departed as did Snapper and Greg. Liz and especially Stuart were reduced to occasional support.

So by 83 Bill was writing practically a new show.

The characters that survived that transition were refashioned and their history edited.

Nikki was now the stripper rescued by Victor. Her past marriages to Greg and Kevin were never referenced nor any of her previous shenanigans- Rose Deville, the cult etc

Paul was now the hero with the vixenish wife - no mention of his deadbeat past, marriage to April or fathering Heather. Once Patty departed he was treated as an only child.

Victor was the ruthless businessman-imprisoning Michael Scott in the cellar was never referenced. When Julia returned there was no mention of the emotional abuse she suffered as Victor's first wife-they were on good terms.

Jill and Kay -the biggest links to that era were defined by their conflict over Phillip, yet the years long battle over Derek was forgotten.

Liz- her marriage to Stu ignored, Even Douglas' shady past was forgotten.

83-93 

That was basically playing out what was set up and it worked well.

But by end the stories were concluding

Ashley/Victor/Nikki/Jack story was over. They'd all swapped partners and it hadn't worked out.

Jill v Kay that resulted in her divorcing John,the battle over Phillip 111, the arrival of Rex and his subsequent marriage to Katherine.

Traci's marriage and divorce from Brad.

Paul's marriage to Lauren and romance with Cassandra.

Cricket's romance and marriage to Danny.

 

So by this time Bill Bell was facing a new challenge in that he had never written a show for that length of time. He had to make decisions that would carry the show forward...

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Paul Raven