Y&R-Mal Young Out, Josh Griffith Taking Over

[titan1978]

Thanks.  Then I don’t remember anything he was doing during that stint except Carmine.

[sheilaforever]

Didn't Nikki get some sort of illness (MS?) during his tenure? I thought it was a solid tenure (mostly due to Lauren/Carmine), but lacking the big bang story moments. 

[Aback]

lol nothing is going to change for the better, like ever. 

[Chris B]

 

This is how I feel. I’m happy Mal is out but I don’t care who replaces him because it’ll be more of the same. I feel Sussman and Alden was our best shot at a true revamp, but with network interference you’re going to get a slightly different show with the same overall tone. 

[EricMontreal22]

That's not quite right...  As Vee said Malone's 90s work was always strongest with Griffith as co-HW (even Malone basically admits as much) even if love it or hate it things like Todd and his legacy were more Griffith than Malone.  The final year of Malone's OLTL in the 90s was a bit of a mess (the endless Irish mob stuff, etc) and that was after Griffith left and Malone was solo (of course it was still better than much that came after).

However you have your credits wrong for the 2003-2004 stuff.  Griffith was hired first yes, but with Malone as his creative consultant and then after four months they became co-HWs again (and I think Malone was more involved than just as a consultant before then--he just wasn't sure if he wanted to take on a HW job again).  However Griffith again left, due to difficulties with Frons, *before* Malone did and Malone did wrote from the end of March to the end of Nov 2004 solo without Griffith and the writing simply got worse again (though that whole run was a mess).  So Higley was cleaning up Malone's mess not Griffith's.  Though I thought Higley's OLTL was so wretched I would never say that...

*Edit I just realized you prob mean Higley cleaned up Griffith's work on DAYS which I know little about

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Still my point stands.

And I see I responded to Whitney too soon--as you said already what I posted.  But it bears repeating

[soapfan770]

First of all , good riddance to Mal Young.

 

Second of all, third time is definitely not going to be the charm for Griffith, who has had a penchant of decent but overall mediocre storytelling with some really banal and pretty contemptible low points mixed in during his co-stint with MAB in '08 and then his 2012-2013 solo stint, which in spite of the show being dullsome it was a big improvement overall from MAB until it went very awry(the Summer paternity debacle) and of course Griffith lost his own sanity in the process. 

 

After a completely unnecessary, very offensive rape story Griffith wrote on Days in 2015, I wouldn't even trust him to write any soap at all ever again. I'm glad that Anthony Morina got a promotion, not sure though if that would make any difference. Too bad Esser and Slater weren't promoted as well. 

[Errol]

https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2018/12/yr-stars-give-hope-promise-big-changes-coming-to-daytimes-no-1-drama

[Paul Raven]

Changes ...definitely 

Improvements...????

 

[Soapsuds]

Eh...the same empty promises every time a new HW takes over and EB comments about how hard being a HW is doesn't give me much hope that the new/old hack HW will be different this time around.

[LondonScribe]

That roughly translates as ‘Welp, you’ll be seeing more of me going forward. Enjoy’

 

Though the total sidelining of Doug Davidson in his milestone 40th year as Paul was quite jarring.

[victorlord75]

To be fair, I have never been a viewer of Y&R, but, I never had high hopes for Mal Young to last as EP and HW all in one.  There is such a thing as biting off more than one can chew, even if one knows the biz.

[Faulkner]

I won’t miss Mal, but gotta say I didn’t miss DD or KSJ in spite of having been fans of both in the past. Paul and Neil are tired and have been for a very long time. Devon is so much better without Neil in his stories.

 

I do miss Victoria Rowell, Tricia Cast, Heather Tom, and Jess Walton. VR/HT are out of the question (Dru would only make sense with Neil still there), but TC and JW would do a lot to add vitality to the show. 

 

But Y&R has a lingering dude problem that they’ve only recently begun to address, and their two male leads are bores (Thompson and Morrow). Adding more women wouldn’t help that without firing some of their faves.

 

I wouldn’t mind seeing the entire Newman family gone from top to bottom (including Sharon and Mariah, tbh), which I’m sure would save some $$$$, but I also understand that would be instant suicide for the show at this point. They’ve invested too much in that side of town over the years, and EB is still the show’s Susan Lucci-like avatar.

[Aback]

Nobody gives a damn about Paul or Neil. They haven't been interesting in 30 years. The female iconic characters, on the other hand, are solely missed but they've been off canvas for ages. I wish the stars of the show would complain about THEIR absence as much as they moan about DD, GR or KSJ and so on.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Speaking as a "nobody," I must protest. Paul and Neil are two of the VERY FEW characters seen within the last few years that I care about.

[Paul Raven]

I understand the need to move on as the cast can't be top heavy with older actors, but Paul added familiarity to long time viewers and if Heather was still around,that along with his police role would have kept him involved.

They kept writing him as a grouchy buffoon.

Neil apparently is returning...