Passanante/Altman are Y&R's new Head Writers

[Chris B]

Well when Jeanne first died she said she didn't know if the Chancellor set would remain, which is ridiculous. With Billy, Jill, Esther, Chloe and all their offspring it shouldn't even be in question.

[Cat]

I wish this were the case but MAB pretty much destroyed whatever goodwill was left regarding the Bells. For Steve Kent, this is a case of 'been there, done that.' Bill Bell Jr's position has been much diminished as a result of his vapid wife's shenanigans, Lee Bell is retired and enjoying her grandchildren, Brad Bell is at B&B and happy with the complete autonomy and Lauralee is probably the one who alerted her family to the fact that MAB was ruining the jewel in their father's crown. The Bells have surrendered their claim on Y&R and, consequently, they are never going to get it back.

Absolutely. Moreover, 98% of all the flashbacks used at Kay's memorial were from 2007 onwards... nothing from Y&R's golden era except where it related to Brock (for obvious reasons), and some smart person went on YouTube to collect a snippet from when Kay begs Philip not to divorce her.

Do the Bells have any say in Y&R anymore? Are they just sitting back and rubber-stamping all this? Or did they give up their right to Y&R when MAB was fired?

[SOAPSFOREVER]

No way the Bells are "rubber stamping" this mess. They just don't have enough clout to challenge a CBS/Sony tag-team. If they did, you can bet one of Bill Bell's proteges (Alden, Smith, Sally SM, or all three) would be back at the helm, either as EP, HW or both. There must be bad blood between Steve Kent and the Bells. He's hellbent on hanging on to JFP even though she's done little, if anything, for the ratings in any of the key demos. B&B is kicking Y&R's butt most weeks, which must gall Kent, since B&B is succeeding with the old Y&R/Bill Bell formula of storytelling and production, but with a modern vibe. Meanwhile, back at Y&R, JFP brings in Steve Burton to ignite the ratings, but even that hasn't worked. The woman is void of ideas, which speaks to why she chose SA and JP as co-heads. Neither has a record as a strong head writer. JP's history is especially notorious. The perfect nodding heads to do Jill's bidding. Shame on Angelica McD at CBS for letting this happen.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Lee Phillip and JFP were chummy at the recent Y&R fan event apparently, and were even photographed together.

Lee very much still frequents public events for the show, but doubt she ever really cared passionately about the creative output anyway.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Putting on a pleasant public face and being photographed with someone doesn't mean LP or the Bell family have fond feelings for JFP/ST. LP's known as one of the sweetest, nicest people in the world. She'd be the last person to go public with how the Bells really feel about the mess Sony/CBS have made of her husband's legacy show. She's got too much class. By bet is that JFP's trying to ingratiate herself with Lee.

[EastMA2]

Why would Jill need to ingratiate herself with Lee? Jill's contract was renewed, Lee has little to no say in what happens at Y&R. Jill doesn't need Lee.

[Days22]

The joke that is recycled soap writers never ceases to amaze me.

[cassadine1991]

And it's always the really bad ones

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Jill's one of the most polarizing, loathed EPs in daytime. She may not "need" LPB, but the Bells still have a financial stake in Y&R. Maybe not a majority, but it wouldn't be smart of Jill not to ingratiate herself with LPB.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah she did a lot of the breakdown work for the now classic Malone/Griffith era in the 90s at OLTL. That seems to be where she made her reputation--because when she briefly was co-HW when Malone left the show was awful, her AMC work was even worse, etc, etc.

[Cat]

I thought that Charles Pratt was widely considered to be AMC's worst and most destructive HW.

Are you saying that Passanante was worse than Pratt?

[Chris B]

Pratt didn't even come close to what Passanante did. And honestly, I will say that I mostly enjoyed her ATWT for what it was. It was cheap, forgettable fluff that was mostly held up by a good producer and a great cast, but that style doesn't work for Y&R.

[Cat]

Well, then, this is going to be disastrous for Y&R. Maybe it will be Guza&JFP-on-GH disastrous (with a killed-off vet every sweeps), maybe it will be Kim-Zimmer-peeing-in-a-field disastrous. Y&R has been dented by 6 years of bad writing and mismanagement. I don't know how much longer it can withstand these consecutively terrible appointments in the HW/EP departments.

[Skin]

No one was worse than Pratt the Butcher in regards to AMC, just no one.

I couldn't agree less with you. Pratt nearly killed AMC. He pretty much destroyed everything AMC was, by the end of 2009 the show felt completely decimated.

[Chris B]

I just don't know what to think, honestly. I want to hope it will be different, because I do believe Passanante was oppressed by strong management. At AMC everyone had their hand in the pot (similar to now with CBS, Sony AND JFP jockeying for control), then at ATWT, Passanante was known for being a weak HW who basically let Goutman steamroll her. I don't know how much faith I have, but we'll see.