Y&R November 2017 Discussion Thread

[edgeofnik]

I thought the Neil/Victoria scenes were great. It also helped flesh out the Ice Queen's motivations: her admitted failure at B&S; chasing Billy who literally poisoned her/company; and the very true statement that few would question her 'it's just business' attitude if it came from a man. I prefer this version of Victoria far and away than the thirsty for Billy one. 

 

@ajsp35801 I agree about RA - he's handled the material far better than the rest of the newbies in this story - Tessa, Scott, that Crystal thing, etc. I would've like to see more of Alice/Zach. 

[Ponds]

It's so stupid that Scott & Abby would try and apprehend Zack without so much as a weapon.  Call the [!@#$%^&*]*ng police and let them do their job.

[Juliajms]

Me too. It's been a jarring transition though. Victoria was pretty cold when she found out that Reed and Billy were in danger too. I'm here for it, but at first I was thinking WTF? I guess if you are going to transition a character in a major way you might as well pull the bandage off.

[StepBack]

Catching up this week - the Victoria/Victor/Ashley/Nikki/Jack stuff was great. Actually, so far it looks like Amelia Heinle is getting the best makeover in terms of writing (to her strengths).

 

Sharon Case is a beautiful woman, she should not have gotten that work done. 

 

I wish they would give Lauren more to do than ranting to Sharon and crying over Scott. Lauren should be taking more of Phyllis/Billy/Victoria screen time.  

 

I liked that FBI agent - she was smoooooth

 

Edit: also the days going by faster, is actually working out better than I thought. I hope they recast Scott! Actress who plays Abby is doing pretty good work

[MichaelGL]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds the actor that plays Zach pretty good. Hopefully he finds work on the other remaining soaps. 

[edgeofnik]

 

Actually, I could see him in Prime Time. 

 

BTW - Does anyone know if KSJ missed any tapings? He decided to seek treatment about 3-4 weeks ago. It wasn’t clear if it was inpatient or outpatient. It’s been really great to see the smart, savvy and tough-enough-to-standup-to-Newmans Neil again. It was a huge mistake to remove Neil from Victor’s inner circle. 

[DeeeDee]

 

And make him JACK'S best friend.

[ranger1rg]

I yelled at my tv more during this past week than I did during the last year of Sally’s writing. So much is just awful.

 

Yes, it moves faster and more happens. I hope you “plot plot plot” fans are happy. I hope you fans of characters who do stupid things are happy.

 

So now we get stupid Scott and Abby going after Zach instead of calling the police. We get Scott doing his PTSD shake every 3 scenes or so. We get stupid Scott and Abby failing to convince all-of-a-sudden psycho Zach that Abby loves him. These two are so dumb they deserve to die.

 

And why the hell would Zach keep his important files and paperwork in that storage locker? You know, the one where sprinklers were set off and nothing got wet?

 

We get stupid Jack and Ashley who take FOREVER to know that Dina has Alzheimer’s. Hearing Jack yell “Our mother has Alzheimer’s” should not be a roll-your-eyes moment.

 

We get stupid writing that has the FBI freezing Newman accounts because of the sex ring ties. Huh??? In what universe? Honestly, I get so tired of letting things like this go.

 

The Hilary Hour is worse than ever. Mariah never has a clue as to what’s coming next. Hilary dishes gossip on the fly. Nothing is vetted or checked. No reality. Oh, and Jordan and Chelsea stand 3 feet away from the anchor desk while Hilary trashed them.

 

It happened under Sally, but not like this. When you’re screaming through plot, writers are forced to create situations where viewers have to ignore the complete lack of reality.

 

The Y&R I grew to love is gone, all because viewers are so damn impatient and need something to be blown up every 10 minutes. Sally wasn’t perfect, but she was Shakespeare next to this sh*t.

[slick jones]

+1000 Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank You.

[Aback]

I'm with @Khan on this, I get a twisted pleasure out of watching Mal's Y&R implode.

 

So far he's just wrapping up Sally's stories, so it must be relatively easy for him to carry the show -- although he's still making it unwatchable. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with, once he has to create his own storylines and day-to-day breakdowns from scratch...

[Faulkner]

I liked Victoria and Neil and the emotion of Jack/Ashley/Dina (although I hated the line "She has Alzheimer's!" I know it's typical soap, which is very on-the-nose, but it was a groaner in an otherwise nicely done scene).

 

The rest of the show seems to be flailing a bit, and the Zach/Abby/Scott drama is just poorly written, awkwardly directed garbage. 

[Soaplovers]

There is this thing called balance...perhaps Mal should look up the word.

 

Also, when Sally was announced last year ad head writer...i knew the pace would slow down and there would be more talking.  Seeing her cr3atuon Generations...the first six to nine m9nths of that soap was set up..and just ad the action was getting good..it got canned.  Her Days was different cause she was writing an OTT soap though she did start grounding it as her run ended some.  

 

I think a happy medium is in order...slower pace, but not a snails pace...some conversations but not too many...enough conversation to cover beats...and if you want a little filler..mix it in with some action scenes.  And the shoe doesn't film in order so just edit scenes into each episode that keeps the flow going so that 9ne storyline d oesnt dominate all week long.

[Faulkner]

And humor. I could have tolerated SSM's Y&R if it weren't so damn humorless. And I'm not talking about the Amanda Beall budget snark that they used to use for Mariah. The Y&R I grew up watching could be laugh-out-loud hilarious, from Jill/Katherine, to Nikki's snootiness, to Nina and Dru's shoot-from-the-hip candor to Lauren's bitchiness to Lynne's puppy-dog crush on Paul. It wasn't all gothic sturm und drang.

[Soaplovers]

 

THIS!! I recall Nikki wearing black the night she had Sharon over for dinner when she and Nick had started dating.  Or when Nikki had a coffin in the living room in the late 80s when she thought she was dying in order to keep Victor from leaving her...or eating a day old tuna fish sandwich to fake symptoms of her illness lol. 

[Taoboi]

My apologies. I worded that wrong.  While SSM was still HW and MY took the interviews in magazines talking about story and previews for things like sweeps, there was no sign of Juliet going anywhere.  SSM looked like she was actually going to keep as that interloper between Cane and Lily. LA had just did an interview herself about how she was enjoying how they continue to write for her though it had fizzled a bit.

 

And this is perfect timing because the just released SOD has a new interview with LA about her exit. At a glance basically said yep, it was a MY move.