Y&R: Discussion for the Month of December

[DaytimeFan]

But Tom wasn't the last Billy to be sentimental. Ryan Brown and Scott Seymour played that vulnerability, especially with the Jill, as well and they're both post-Mac recasts. Billy Miller literally severed that part of Billy and I just don't buy it. No son of Jill's would be like that.

Jill as Jack's Hag makes me laugh. Probably because that's true. I also see Jack & Jill as having a bratty brother and sister chemistry.

[Saving ATWT]

Jack and Jill have great chemistry. Honestly, I wish they never had sex unless there was a way to pair them up like Lauren and Michael. Jack is gay, but Bell could never say this in the 1980s--look what happened when Kay played Go Fish.

As for Billy, I'm willing to apply some suspended disbelief. Due to his age, he will never be part of the core Abbot family anyway. I like Miller's bratty wise guy bad ass take on the role of a cynical detached trust fund kid. By now, you have to figure the he know's about his mother and brother having sex along with all of the other family drama. Also, I never viewed that Abbots as all that loving a family. To me, they all seemed bonded by the trauma of Dena walking out and this more than anything linked and defined them.

[DaytimeFan]

Ahhh I get it now. That's the difference between us, I hate Miller's acting. Just generally, I hated him on AMC and I hate him here. The writing has *gutted* Billy Abbott.

I like the point you make about the Abbotts being bonded due to their trauma from Dena, I think that's probably how I've always seen it, just never articulated it like that.

I really liked Jack with Diane too. But I think Jill is, quite simply, the one who got away.

[Khan]

Jack is NOT gay. Peter Bergman is just an effeminate individual who can't "do masculine." Believe me, if Terry Lester were still alive and playing that part, I don't think you'd feel the same way.

[DaytimeFan]

Honestly, I don't see how people find Peter Bergman effeminate. But that's just me.

[Khan]

Something else: if Jack and Jill convey some sort of bratty sibling chemistry these days, then not only do Peter Bergman and Jess Walton have no earthly idea how to play their characters, but this show truly has erased its entire history. Jack and Jill fucked each other and toppled a marriage (hers) in the process. That should be coming through loud and clear every time they're even in the same room (and no, that doesn't mean they should be together, only that that history should shade every passing glance and conversation), but it isn't, and frankly, that pisses me off.

[DRW50]

When I read my replies back to Saving ATWT I realize I sound like a big a$$...or even bigger than usual, anyway. So I will just say that I think you make far more effort in trying to explain what Billy has become than the writers have spent.

I don't think Jack comes across as gay. I think he comes across as extremely weak, and pointless. I really just wish he'd leave. The Sharon marriage, and the weeping over her, is always in the back of my head every time I see him.

[DeeeDee]

They weren't bonded because of Dina.

Very few Y&R families before or after loved each other as much as The Abbotts.

Aunt Jack was ruined long before Sharon (thanks to St. Giggly).

[Juliajms]

I'm torn on Nick telling Sharon she has to stay away from Adam. On the one hand Nick is insufferable when he gets all paternalistic and condescending. The real problem for me is that Sharon has been written as someone who needs to be told to stay away from Adam and to keep Faith away from him. Why can't Sharon have some common sense all on her own?

As much as I enjoy MM, it's really hard for me to respect Sharon when she is with the man who kidnapped her baby. Nick is a tool, but I can hardly blame him for thinking that Adam is a danger to Faith. I think it's entirely possible that he would do something to Faith again if it suited his purposes. I agree that SC/MM have chemistry, but Sharon should not be Adam's love interest.

Normally, I would be incensed with someone using a child to blackmail the mother. I hate it when this happens on police shows and the mother is threatened with having her child put in foster care if she doesn't do what the police want. In this case, it's harder for me to get upset, after everything that's happened. Sharon just got out of prison! No one should have to tell her to stay away from the man who kept her in there and away from her daughter once again. How much time does she have to lose with her second chance daughter, before she realizes that Adam should not be a priority?

I'm starting to enjoy Genevieve a lot more now that she is acting sane. If she could stay the way she's been these last few weeks I think she'd be a good long term addition to the cast. Jack really should be settled with a long term love interest at this point.

[DRW50]

The whole idea of Sharon under these "writers" is that we're supposed to be turned on by her having no ability to control her own life and by various big men shoving her from one corner to another. That's been every single scene, every single storyline she's had since Sheffer arrived.

A sane Genevieve is just a paler version of several female characters they barely use.

[Juliajms]

I think there are some fans that like this sort of love story and that is their right. We all like what we like. I can accept tortured soap couples, but when a man messes with your child, that is another level. It diminishes a character when he/she puts a man before a young child.

Of course, the days of character integrity have passed us by, so it's almost a moot point. Maybe this isn't that much worse than Victor Newman keeping a cancer stricken little girl away from her daddy because Victor needs to control the love life of his grown daughter.

[YRBB]

Khan, I feel the same way. I think it just may have to do with the actor. I always thought he was gay (though I believed him as Jack) even after I found out he was happily married.

But Jack is most definitely not gay, not with all we've seen from him lol

Again, you voiced exactly what I was thinking. Jill and Jack always had that underlying (sexual) tension between them, for various reasons. Their past, the sex, the attraction. It should never be gone.

As for Billy, it's a double whamy: He's written horribly AND I have no sympathy for him, based on how Billy is playing him. With Tom, I felt for him, despite some of the things he did. With Miller, all I see is smugness.

[Khan]

Exactly. I realize Nick's ultimatum is there to create tension, but I'd be less upset about it if Sharon were written with more intelligence.

[Khan]

AFAIC, Victor will never be forgiven for that. Not even if he allows himself to be nailed to a cross and left to die.

[Khan]

For all the arguments for why recasts aren't such a big deal, this is one argument for why they are. Without Terry Lester as Jack, and Brenda Dickson as Jill, all that history and subtext is just missing from Jack and Jill's relationship now.