1 hour ago, Planet Soap said:

Yeah Y&R was in a really bad place in the mid 2010s... well it still is.

The Nick in a JT mask mess was the stupidest of the stupid.

Oh god I forgot about that holy [!@#$%^&*].

22 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Hand in hand with the atrocious writing is the non existent budget.

Of all the soaps it's insulting that the #1 show is done so cheaply.

There are few sets, with the restaurants used constantly. But no money for extras, so they are like ghost towns. For some reason, Crimson Lights suffers the most. Often there are no customers.

A few other sets are utilized, but due to restrictions they are then seen repeatedly for multiple episodes, so everything has to take place at certain locations.

The decision to focus on business with few office sets.

Most characters do not have homes so again stories are limited.

Only a handful of characters appear in each episode and often the same conversation continues throughout the episode, so things don't progress at all and the pace is turgid.

Lake of time means scenes are unimaginatively staged so characters don't move around much. It's very static.

No budget for extras, day players and recurring characters. There are no servants, staff, assistants etc. And children are not seen.

So the focus on supposedly uber wealthy business people is not supported by anything onscreen.

And it means the story focus is pretty much limited to the same characters who have been on the show for decades and are worn out. The only option for those characters, if they must stay, is to put them in new situations with new people but there is no money for that so variations of the same story play over and over.

The most disappointing thing is that the ratings are holding.

 

Thanks for saving me time. Every single point you made is on point. In addition, 

-- At least we get to see Victoria's tack house grow every time we see it. Thanks, Jill Farren Phelps!

-- Billy had me HOWLING when he said he'll live on his train -- an exact duplicate of the one in France because he has identical trains on every continent. 😂🤣😂 I don't know how Flynn and Stafford got through that dialogue.

     OF COURSE this cheap ass show can't build Cane a home for a billionaire. They have to use a set they built for a 3-month trip to nowhere.

-- You're so right about the static staging. All soaps do it, but none like Y&R.

-- The lack of extras is bad at Crimson Lights, I agree, but I think it's even worse at Society. We're getting scenes with no customers, no bartender, no wait staff, no host, no nothing.

 

Sure, who wouldn't visit a millionaire on a stationary train?

11 minutes ago, ranger1rg said:

Thanks for saving me time. Every single point you made is on point. In addition, 

-- At least we get to see Victoria's tack house grow every time we see it. Thanks, Jill Farren Phelps!

-- Billy had me HOWLING when he said he'll live on his train -- an exact duplicate of the one in France because he has identical trains on every continent. 😂🤣😂 I don't know how Flynn and Stafford got through that dialogue.

     OF COURSE this cheap ass show can't build Cane a home for a billionaire. They have to use a set they built for a 3-month trip to nowhere.

-- You're so right about the static staging. All soaps do it, but none like Y&R.

-- The lack of extras is bad at Crimson Lights, I agree, but I think it's even worse at Society. We're getting scenes with no customers, no bartender, no wait staff, no host, no nothing.

 

Wait Cane’s set is literally going to be the train set?! You’re KIDDING me!!

six-minute video released by Y&R on June 19th
showcasing the plastic maze set and the traincar sets.
(Previously posted in June on the spoiler threads.)
Posting here in the nonspoiler thread now only because it contains an interview with the set designer -- discussing how the set is done.
and because, as Cane said today August 4th, they're KEEPING the train sets.

Edited August 5Aug 5 by janea4old

Billy Flynn just did a nine-minute video interview with Entertainment Tonight - the interview is on the train set.  
Released August 1st on ET website and August 3rd on YT.
BF says Cane will have his office on the train. I guess Cane will sleep in a sleeping car?

behind spoiler tag in case you are strictly unspoiled.

It shows two characters visiting Cane on the train set . . .  but no audio for what they say.

One character is unsurprisingly interacting with Cane, so the only thing spoilerish about that character is their wardrobe for the future episode but nothing else about them.

One character who has been airing all along, nothing surprising, but you may or may not expect to see them interacting with Cane in a future episode  - name behind spoiler tag

Spoiler

(Mishael/Amanda) is still airing in September

---------------
The major "spoiler" is that Billy Flynn shows a script cover for Sept. 4th which has Jill Farren Phelps listed as one of the producers, but that's already discussed on the writer-director thread as well as Errol's thread about JFP
---------------

Youtube behind spoiler tag

Spoiler

 

Edited August 5Aug 5 by janea4old

When Y&R told people to get on the Cane Train, they were not using a euphemism.

The posts on this board are infinitely more interesting than the show itself.

Same.

The Cane/Nice story was all wrong on so many levels.

This nonsense with the train set-was that all in place from the beginning, or did they realize there was no place for Cane to live and they came up with this hare brained idea to keep the set?

The whole reveal could have happened in GC, with Aristotle inviting them to his estate on the outskirts of town. Then they could have built him a set in town. The reveal could have happened there.

Having them trapped in Nice and all walk around the maze for 5 weeks served no purpose.

The only thing I can think of is that the budget was severely drained (how I don't know) and having them on that one set saved money. It certainly didn't create suspense.

 

You have to be kidding me. That line Cane delivered about having an exact replica of his train on every continent was absolutely ridiculous LOL

As much as MS gets on my nerves as Phyllis, most of the time, I did enjoy her sparring with Billy. 

The worst part about today's episode; They had Cole's service off camera and then they talked about what happened at the service. Make it make sense, please!!!

On 8/4/2025 at 12:02 AM, Paul Raven said:

Of all the soaps it's insulting that the #1 show is done so cheaply.

The most disappointing thing is that the ratings are holding.

 

Yup! As I've said before, to much controversy, it's baffling that this is still the number one soap. I think that number one status has blinded the writers (and the cast) as to how bad the show actually is.

Y&R peaked under a single creator's vision and when he died the show went with him. It's sad that no other writing regime post Bill Bell has been able to do the show justice.

At this point the writing team just needs to watch pre 2002 episodes and copy that storytelling/presentation technique however they can on the current budget.

I was reading another one of those fake Facebook posts about “so and so is leaving Y&R!” Which is clearly a fake group posting it & the amount of people who buy into it time and time again is astonishing. Today it was “Melody Thomas Scott is leaving Y&R!”. Firstly, if her or Eric were leaving it would be front page news and all the outlets would be picking it up. I honestly don’t know how some people tie their shoes in the morning. 
 

I can at least have some understanding about the old folks who believe it, they didn’t grow up with technology and will easily fall for anything but a lot of these people aren’t even elderly, they just look like they live in a trailer park and never left their small town in Kentucky 🤣🥴

I could it if Y&R was set 100 yrs or 120 yrs ago but it’s modern times are there even enough sidings store the train when using the US on while  he was here before he was able move back to GC.

40 minutes ago, oakdalefan8127 said:

I could it if Y&R was set 100 yrs or 120 yrs ago but it’s modern times are there even enough sidings store the train when using the US on while  he was here before he was able move back to GC.

What?