Y&R August 2023 Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

CLB hasn't been on contract for years. He was unavailable for some reason. Or maybe Vail is cheaper.

[1974mdp]

I wonder if he has some of agreement for them to let him stay listed as contract in the cast...perhaps the same at Kate Lindner, who I do wish they would use more. She would have been the perfect character to take over the coffeehouse versus tying Sharon to it.

I watched the closing credits of a 90s episode on YouTube and counted the number of contract actors listed. It was 40! And, then some recurring characters were listed as well. I miss when soaps could have such a large, well-rounded cast.

[DramatistDreamer]

Oh how the mighty have fallen! 

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Remember when soaps would actually use real roller coasters?

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[Errol]

This (as in the Y&R clip) will be what we can expect as the budgets continue to dwindle for these shows, the continued use of CGI and the advancement of AI. No matter how cheap it looks, that's the best we can get.

[lucaslesann23]

I'm surprised the show even set up a set for the judges chambers.

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[Paul Raven]

It's a sad state of affairs when we are surprised to see that set. Once upon a time it would be taken for granted that we would see a courtroom , hospital etc

What continues to puzzle me is the random nature of the use of these sets. Jack and Diane get a bedroom and we see a judge's chambers but no bedrooms or offices or living rooms for other characters.

Doug Davidson, Kristoff, Kate and Christian were always listed in the contract cast despite recurring status.

Didn't Doug explain that he was offered recurring but no statement would be made and he would stay in the credits as contract-ostensibly out of respect to the actors but actually to avoid backlash.

[GLATWT88]

Honestly, it's not that bad all things considered. Definitely doesn't have the same impact compared to the ATWT scene, but the did okay for what they've got. I would have expected a lot worse from soaps these days. Unfortunately, this is what we have to accept. 

[1974mdp]

Right?! I'm surprised the judge didn't just meet everyone at Crimson Lights or that same hotel room have the characters live in!

And speaking of that same hotel room everyone lives in...

I get it. It's budget reasons, but the least they could do is sort of change up the set decorating a bit. When it's the SAME room set up in the SAME way, it just makes things look even cheaper.

Edited August 10, 2023 by 1974mdp

[DramatistDreamer]

Speaking of sets, I understand budgets dictating what sets are constructed, maintained and showed and it obviously dictates storylines and how they play out, but I found it odd how the show wants to do a story like the one that led to Sally’s stillbirth without a decent hospital set. They had her in a clinic that looked like it belonged in a rural area, rather than the cosmopolitan city that Genoa City was supposedly known to be. As unlikely as this will sound, maybe they shouldn’t do any stories that involve hospital scenes unless they have an appropriate set?

The other thing that my sense of logic just struggles to comprehend is Nate’s foray into business. If he was going into business, I would have thought that biotech would have appealed to writers as a way to connect Nate to the business world without completely divorcing him from the profession that he obviously spent so much of his life dedicated to. It would have been better had Newman acquired a biotech division, as many conglomerates have biotech divisions . Nate could still have been shuffling papers like he does at Newman media, etc and maybe the the tension would come in if/when Nick suspected that Nate wanted to extend his reach into Nick’s territory and was angling for an executive position in the main office then Victoria’s decision to temporarily remove Nick just adds fuel to the fire. 

Maybe things have changed since I last watch- I stopped watching again awhile ago but I still find it sad that they completely disconnected Nate from his medical background in favor of a fairly generic career path.

 

[Paul Raven]

@DramatistDreamer you are completelly right about Nate. I get having him as a doctor was limiting  but his path to big business was poorly written.

The show is being written like it is still the 80's and the intrigues of big business are a must see, despite having  no sets and extras to support it and piss poor writing.

They needed to be scaling things back as much as possible. Broken record but make Jabot the focus with lots of characters working there. 

And the whole Phyllis debacle ends with a slap on the wrist like we knew it would. 

 

[Faulkner]

Viewers seem confused: Nate seems like a totally different person now. They don’t love to hate him. They just see him as a loser. The writers hoped we’d suspend disbelief since we barely knew Nate before, aside from his medical background. He wasn’t fleshed out at all. Generally good guy on the surface. He was kind of a cad, yes, but his affairs were very plot-driven. In his story with Amanda/Elena/Devon, he was the only character that lacked a real POV.

Certainly, having Olivia return in some capacity would have helped us understand Nate more, perhaps giving us insight on his treatment of women and his identity as a physician, but I feel like we’re giving more thought to Nate as a character than the writers do.

Maybe if they’d deepened the friendship between Ashland and Nate, making Ashland more of a business mentor and a bad influence on Nate, it would have done a lot of the work to explain his shift, in addition to the anger he felt toward Devon over his career-ending hand injury. Or Imani as his Lady Macbeth goading him to more and more devious acts would have helped. But it feels like these shows are written week to week instead of planned out, and promising stories get dumped on a dime.

Nate as a big exec at Newman Enterprises just isn’t credible, and since he’s so opaque and ill-defined as a character, the audience doesn’t have anything to hold onto with him. These writers don’t want to (or aren’t allowed to) do the work.

[Vee]

Nate is there to be Other Black Guy. Almost all characters of color feel interchangeable and disposable on Y&R to me, but many of the white folks too.

[DaytimeFan]

Doug can spin it however he wants, but I take everything he says with a huge grain of salt because he’s so bitter.

The arrangement is no different than what Tracey Bregman, Beth Maitland, Eileen Davidson, and Jess Walton have all received. 

[DramatistDreamer]

After I made my post earlier, I started to think about Olivia and what it meant to both not have her around, even for brief periods of time, and then to have Nate no longer be connected to the medical field. To me, it felt as if they were disconnecting Nate from his past, disconnecting Nate from Olivia. It felt sad to me.

I definitely agree with those who have said that Nate lacks an identity and just seems to be there. From what I saw, it seemed like he was there simply to service Victoria and the Newmans.

[Faulkner]

I wish they’d let Victoria be single for a while. Bring back Reed and let her focus on that mother-son relationship or something. It’s tiresome to watch her be made a fool of time after time, in addition to looking incompetent in her role at Newman. Have her develop an addiction. Anything but the same sad desperate dance she does for Victor.

Olivia’s absence has been deeply felt, and Nate’s been back in Genoa City, what, five or six years? It’s unbelievable that she’s been off the canvas for more than a decade, and they never considered a recast if TLW wasn’t available or interested in a return. Amelia Marshall would kick ass, even if for a short stint like Tricia Cast or Jess Walton do from time to time. But I just don’t think they care that much. They especially don’t seem that interested in reconnecting to the Barber side of Lily/Devon/Nate’s family. Mamie spent more time doting over her geriatric Abbott kids than bonding with her actual kinfolk during her most recent return.