Y&R: June 2017 Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

Dina should have been working with Keemo all these years.

 

Ravi might have worked if he had challenged Ashley by being a sexy younger man. Instead they went with goofy nerd.

[juniorz1]

 

Ok, THIS I take issue with.  Y&R was NEVER an umbrella story kind of show.  Never, never, never.   And yes, they DID have stories.  But they moved VERY slowly, which helped them to be able to balance 5 or 6 stories.  There were days where not much happened in a story.  And they certainly were never a show where Monday wrapped up the prior week's story while kicking off that week's story, Tuesday-Thursday build to Friday tag- Y&R NEVER ran that way.

 

ONE story would climax, while story B was building, story C was in the middle, story D hadn't hit its first arch, story E was starting, and seeds were being planted for story F.  That was the classic Y&R structure.

 

BUT rarely was there an umbrella story, in the truest sense of the word.  The one that I would say came closest was Victor's "Death" in 1993, only because his return impacted so many characters and stories (the climax in the Collonade Room is one of my fave sequences EVER on a soap).  Even that wasn't a true umbrella story- those were always more of an ABC and P&G style, never the Bell soaps or even Corday.

[juniorz1]

 

Actually, Maura West had potential as Diane- her first week was delicious!  Her encounters with Victor, Nikki, and Ashley- all on point!  Then they did literally NOTHING with her for weeks on end.   When they brought in that creepy kid to play her son- GENIUS!  They could have gotten miles out of that!  Instead they threw her at Nick and kept her in all of the wrong characters' orbits.  By the end, they had gotten so desperate that they threw her in story with Adam.  Adam Newman was beneath the character of Diane Jenkins.

 

HOWEVER, the best, most complex, interesting version of Diane will always belong to Alex Donnelly.  Talk about an actress that had chemistry with everyone!   She was such a different beast of a Y&R character too- hardened features, husky voice, masculine mannerisms- there was just something about her that drew you in and made you want to watch, even if you hated her character.

[DramatistDreamer]

Unfortunately Alex Donnelly wasn't allowed to age and play Diane at the same time.

It's little wonder that botox and filler treatments abound these days on Y&R/B&B.

[DeeeDee]

 

It's a shame Y&R threw her under the bus for Nikki & Phyllis. With Donnelly (and to a lesser extent Walters) you could understand why Jack (one of the biggest mistakes of the past 15 years has been the total destruction of their love story) & Victor (who never met a woman whose dreams he didn't want to crush) fell for her.

 

She also provided a perfect bit of contrast to her contemporaries (Nikki, Jill, Ashley, Lauren, Leanna, Hope) without being reduced to an irredeemable villain (Mari Jo, Veronica, Sheila).

[Taoboi]

Playing catchup

 

TUESDAY

 

Still loving the Dina story, but while I like SSM playing the Ashley/Graham seduction per Jack plan beat, I don't want Gloria popped into it like people thought she would be. And *glares* at the Graham phone call about the 'will.' Add me to the DON'T KILL DINA train.

 

The lawsuit continues to be best story here. And so far...like I mentioned Juliet is centered at the moment. And AH even came out to play.

 

Wow. Felt MTS's pain when her MS kicked in. Eyes actually watered. And just like that, invested in Nikki's story. Also loved the Nikki/Sharon scenes.

 

Abby/Scott better than Abby/Sharon. Kinda like Sharon being alone and building herself.

 

 

[Aback]

@juniorz1 to me business storylines used to be Y&R's concept of 'umbrella' storylines.

 

As for the rest, I pretty much LOVED how certain characters kept restrained to their bubbles. For example: you would never see Victor hang out at Crimson Lights or with the likes of Scotty Granger. Because they belonged to two different worlds, two different classes, even though they lived in the same city. (don't get me wrong, I hated that the Barbers/Winters were confined to their own orbit, that's a whole other matter)

 

And yeah, I still remember how every episode was made up of about 5-6 sets of characters discussing different stories. Sometimes you would be watching the second half of the episode and see some other character pop up, that you did not think would be featured in that particular episode. Of course that's not doable now. But it's nice to reminisce. 

[DaytimeFan]

 

+1 to this. I didn't mind Y&R's isolation of storylines and characters at all. If anything, it was more realistic and true to life. I always had the impression we were watching events in Genoa City, not following a group of people all intertwined. The UK soaps, to an extent, maintain this separation.

 

[Taoboi]

WEDNESDAY

 

That ending was juicy.

 

One video tape and Lane's world went BOOM!!!

 

Other than that...everything was just setup.  I hope this event with Nikki leads to a bombshell of stories for everyone.

 

And calling it...Zach is bad news...and Scott will either have to save Sharon, Abby, or both.

[DeeeDee]

 

And those business stories were used to weave various characters into different orbits.

 

Hence Victoria & Phyllis working together at Newman or Lauren forming a mutually beneficial partnership with Jabot or Cassandra & Victor running Ra-Tech or Paul and Olivia becoming friendly via Nathan.

 

 

[Soaplovers]

Young and the restless was big on little to no character interaction...so if two characters in desperate stories interacted...you knew it would led to a story down the line (a la Nikki and victor...nina/ryan/victoria...etc)

 

The method of four or five different stories playing at different paces is what is missing from all soaps....days also employed at back in the day as well.

[Taoboi]

See? I honestly believe she (or KA?) have found a way to her stories across interference be darned now.

 

By the time, the interference try to interfere, fans will be hooked and they can bow down.

[YRBB]

Monday & Tuesday were pretty good. 

 

Love the sexual harassment suit, Nikki's MS flaring up and that great scene with Sharon, Dina and her story of course, even Scott and Abby was fun.

[MoTheGreat]

I do not like how they write Lily, can't relate at all. Needy. whiny, & just being victimize. When she's going to get a backbone. That's far I'm going to go.

[DeeeDee]

Gloria & Graham have chemistry.