14 hours ago, Maxim said:

This may be a little more to do with just overall bad writing, but I think it could fit in the criteria of a bad "rewrite". Brooke... after just barely being married to Thorne... (after fighting like a maniac to get him) decides all of a sudden that No! It's still Ridge that she wants, so she disregards Thorne... violating everything that was written before... and starts going after Ridge again... only to get rejected again and that ultimately let to Deacon. Some will say that this was in character for the mess that Brooke was... but I think it was too sudden too early. Smelled like a rewrite. Brad Bell sometimes just randomly decides to shake everything down to starting point. And that starting point is always Brooke begging Ridge for attention.  

I mean weren't they married for like 3-4 months before Brooke decided she's in love with Ridge again?! 

That was such a head scratcher and a disappointment. I thought Brooke and Thorne had amazing chemistry, and after everything she did to be with him, she tossed him aside in all of about one episode...just to get on the Ridge wheel of doom again. It made ZERO sense. And, then, Thorne was left was nothing to do once again.

17 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

It was good TV but I hated it at the same time 

It had Stephanie looking like a whole entire hypocrite, but I continued to love the character anyway.

One rewrite, or shall I say just a brand new idea altogether, that I wish showrunners would've thought of was making "cuzzos" out of these two. 

It worked so well for Dynasty/The Colbys Alexis and Sable.

7 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

AW: Maggie Cory's paternity. It was already a big arc back in the 80s that the father was either Jamie or Sandy before it was discovered that Sandy was the dad. Then Maggie comes back to the show and is on the show already for about 2-3 years and in pops Cecile who then decides that Cass was Maggie's dad. Meanwhile, wasn't Cass not even really Cecile's orbit until after Maggie had been conceived? It just made no sense along with Cecile didn't need to trap Cass via a child. Cecile's natural temptress ability would bag Cass. All they had to do was a simple seduction story where Cecile seduced Cass as he grew anxious and bored about the marital life. I feel like this arc ruined Cecile and later Maggie, who had a personality transplant for the worse. 

They claimed that Cecile and Cass had had a hookup before they were in Bay City.

I do wonder what the original plans for this story were, as I can't remember if they ever let viewers know that Cecile was lying until near the end of her exit. 

There still could have been interesting story with Cass acting like a father to Maggie as he leaned on her after Frankie's murder, but Maggie was written out not long after, and I'm not sure if she was ever even mentioned again. 

You're right that it would have made sense to have Cecile make a move on Cass, who was at a low (Frankie and just had another miscarriage and they were estranged). I think JFP likely did not see Cecile as attractive by that point. She really seemed to dislike the character (and most characters - just a wretched run).

I didn't even remember that Stuart Brooks and Dina were meant to have a child or grandchild together. That was clearly all pointless. Is that something Josh Griffith ignores because he wasn't there then or was that Griffith?

4 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

During the cult story Paul had sex with another cult member and /or Sumiko the cult leader.

So they could have give Paul a son from that and found something else for Nikki to do.

Or Dylan could have been Nikki's half brother as it was quite possible Nick Reed would have had another child.

That's another Y&R rewrite.
Originally, in 1980, the cult leader was the Asian (or Asian-American) woman "Sumiko", played by Helen Funai.  That's who aired onscreen when Nikki and Paul were in the cult.

The 2014 rewrite was that the cult leader was the white male "Ian Ward" played by Ray Wise.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

They claimed that Cecile and Cass had had a hookup before they were in Bay City.

I do wonder what the original plans for this story were, as I can't remember if they ever let viewers know that Cecile was lying until near the end of her exit. 

There still could have been interesting story with Cass acting like a father to Maggie as he leaned on her after Frankie's murder, but Maggie was written out not long after, and I'm not sure if she was ever even mentioned again. 

You're right that it would have made sense to have Cecile make a move on Cass, who was at a low (Frankie and just had another miscarriage and they were estranged). I think JFP likely did not see Cecile as attractive by that point. She really seemed to dislike the character (and most characters - just a wretched run).

I didn't even remember that Stuart Brooks and Dina were meant to have a child or grandchild together. That was clearly all pointless. Is that something Josh Griffith ignores because he wasn't there then or was that Griffith?

I need to go back and revisit the Cecile return arc back in 1995, but they didn't know each other prior to Bay City, did they? I always heard they didn't. 

I did like how they teased Cass being a surrogate parent for Maggie, but that's all he needed to be. But as you pointed out, Maggie was stupidly written off in that horrible trust fund/fake my death story. I was not critical of Maggie shift from sweet ingenue to vixen b/c if I am not mistaken, didn't Cecile make the shift when she first came on and was jilted at the altar? I didn't mind Maggie being a vixen like Cecile because she was peeved that Nick was fixated with Sofia. I do think it should've been paced better given how she and Tomas were built up to be the young supercouple prior. 

Yes, Josh Griffith was behind Theo (if I am not mistaken). He seems to have a knack for undoing history to meet his plot instead of using history logically. And the rewrite was pointless because Theo amounted to nothing was instantly ushered off. If you were going to undo history like that, they might as well had used Theo as a vessel to bring the Brooks back to the canvas. It still boggles my mind how Chuckie, Jennifer, and Brooks have not been brought back when they are a nod to old Y&R and literally blank canvases to do whatever. 

🩸Y&R - The Jill & Katherine mother/daughter retcon
Decades of history erased in one paternity test. Fans still debate it.

 

🪦 Y&R - Philip Chancellor III “returns from the dead”

He was definitively dead - body, funeral, years of fallout. Then suddenly… he faked his death because he was gay and wanted to start over?

 

🧟‍♂️ OLTL - Victor Lord’s “not actually dead” return 

Victor’s death in the ‘70s was one of the defining moments in the show - Viki’s split personalities, the Lord inheritance, all of it hinged on his death.
Then decades later… boom! He’s alive, the body was fake, and suddenly everything we knew about Viki’s trauma and the Lord family saga got shredded for a stunt twist.

 

🧟‍♀️ B&B - Taylor Hayes - second resurrection, zero logic. The first resurrection was classic soap gold. The second? Utter nonsense.

 

💀 DOOL - Stefano DiMera - lost count of his deaths. By the 10th death, even Marlena stopped reacting.

Edited November 6Nov 6 by asafi

2 hours ago, janea4old said:

Originally, in 1980, the cult leader was the Asian (or Asian-American) woman "Sumiko", played by Helen Funai.  That's who aired onscreen when Nikki and Paul were in the cult.

The 2014 rewrite was that the cult leader was the white male "Ian Ward" played by Ray Wise.

I love Bill Bell to the moon and back, but between the Asian/Asian-American female cult leader and the African-American attorney posing as a White man in order to infiltrate the mob...all I can say is, none of that [!@#$%^&*] would fly today ATALL, lol.

AW: the rewrite of bringing Steve Frame back via David Canary. The whole story was a mess and trying to redo the triangle of Alice/Steve/Rachel with recasts was doomed from the beginning. 

AW: changing Donna's backstory from always being smitten with Michael as a young girl to having had an affair with his brother, John. The story was icky and then totally forgotten once Anna Stuart returned as Donna. 

OLTL: Jessica turning out to be Mitch's daughter and Natalie the "real" Buchanan. Only to be corrected before the finale. 

OLTL: wasn't it headed in the direction that Rex was going to be Mitch's son too during the story of Stacey stealing blood/marrow that could save Shane? Then Rex became Clint's. 

19 hours ago, Maxim said:

This may be a little more to do with just overall bad writing, but I think it could fit in the criteria of a bad "rewrite". Brooke... after just barely being married to Thorne... (after fighting like a maniac to get him) decides all of a sudden that No! It's still Ridge that she wants, so she disregards Thorne... violating everything that was written before... and starts going after Ridge again... only to get rejected again and that ultimately let to Deacon. Some will say that this was in character for the mess that Brooke was... but I think it was too sudden too early. Smelled like a rewrite. Brad Bell sometimes just randomly decides to shake everything down to starting point. And that starting point is always Brooke begging Ridge for attention.  

I mean weren't they married for like 3-4 months before Brooke decided she's in love with Ridge again?! 

Ugh, that was so frustrating. Winsor Harmon and KKL had such scorching chemistry, and there was so much potential in a Brooke/Thorne pairing. I think the sudden turn in this story was when I first started losing a little bit of interest in B&B, and then came the Brooke/Deacon story... 🤢

11 minutes ago, asafi said:

🧟‍♂️ OLTL - Victor Lord’s “not actually dead” return 

Victor’s death in the ‘70s was one of the defining moments in the show - Viki’s split personalities, the Lord inheritance, all of it hinged on his death.
Then decades later… boom! He’s alive, the body was fake, and suddenly everything we knew about Viki’s trauma and the Lord family saga got shredded for a stunt twist.

Viki's split personalities started before he died, but that was definitely a factor in her ongoing struggles. 

The show made so many retcons with Victor, I'm not surprised Malone thought he could get away with one more, but there really was no story to be told. Victor was a very old, very ill man. Then he died again. What was the point?

I still have a lot of issues with the retcons of Victor sexually abusing Viki and Viki killing Victor. I think it was all just too much, it basically assigned Viki's entire formative years to the pits of hell, and it helped lay a path to the Heart of a Lord fiasco.

This was also a blueprint for the Tess retcons - one of the most disgusting stories ever on OLTL.

2 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

I need to go back and revisit the Cecile return arc back in 1995, but they didn't know each other prior to Bay City, did they? I always heard they didn't. 

I did like how they teased Cass being a surrogate parent for Maggie, but that's all he needed to be. But as you pointed out, Maggie was stupidly written off in that horrible trust fund/fake my death story. I was not critical of Maggie shift from sweet ingenue to vixen b/c if I am not mistaken, didn't Cecile make the shift when she first came on and was jilted at the altar? I didn't mind Maggie being a vixen like Cecile because she was peeved that Nick was fixated with Sofia. I do think it should've been paced better given how she and Tomas were built up to be the young supercouple prior. 

Yes, Josh Griffith was behind Theo (if I am not mistaken). He seems to have a knack for undoing history to meet his plot instead of using history logically. And the rewrite was pointless because Theo amounted to nothing was instantly ushered off. If you were going to undo history like that, they might as well had used Theo as a vessel to bring the Brooks back to the canvas. It still boggles my mind how Chuckie, Jennifer, and Brooks have not been brought back when they are a nod to old Y&R and literally blank canvases to do whatever. 

Thanks. So many failures with Griffith.

I remember Eddie Drueding writing about the horrible story that seemed to be done out of nowhere be done to make Maggie the heavy.

By the summer of 1995, Maggie began to get very frustrated with Tomas, who was trying to hold down a job and schoolwork and who couldn't devote as much time to her as she wanted. Her attention strayed in the direction of Nick Hudson, a young punk with a chip on his shoulder the size of Maggie's ego.

She found him terribly exciting and rubbed herself up against him at every opportunity. Yet she still wanted Tomas as her boyfriend. Maggie began exhibiting schizophrenic tendencies as she schemed to get *both* Nick and Tomas, at the same time. When they found out, they dumped her unceremoniously.

34 minutes ago, Melroser said:

AW: the rewrite of bringing Steve Frame back via David Canary. The whole story was a mess and trying to redo the triangle of Alice/Steve/Rachel with recasts was doomed from the beginning. 

AW: changing Donna's backstory from always being smitten with Michael as a young girl to having had an affair with his brother, John. The story was icky and then totally forgotten once Anna Stuart returned as Donna. 

OLTL: Jessica turning out to be Mitch's daughter and Natalie the "real" Buchanan. Only to be corrected before the finale. 

OLTL: wasn't it headed in the direction that Rex was going to be Mitch's son too during the story of Stacey stealing blood/marrow that could save Shane? Then Rex became Clint's. 

I think so, yes. 

The Rex retcon was garbage, as anything with "Cartini" by that stage. And it made Clint look monstrous as IIRC he had known all of this while being extremely reckless and behaving dangerously toward Rex and his own grandchild. The show passed this off as saying he was "just like Asa." [!@#$%^&*] that [!@#$%^&*]. 

Didn't John rape Donna, but they claimed she wanted it? Ugh. 

2 hours ago, asafi said:

🩸Y&R - The Jill & Katherine mother/daughter retcon
Decades of history erased in one paternity test. Fans still debate it.

 

It was such an illogical place to take the story. But, I might even suggest that undoing it years later was even worse.

1 hour ago, 1974mdp said:

It was such an illogical place to take the story. But, I might even suggest that undoing it years later was even worse.

Yes -they never heard of 'two wrongs don't make a right'

Jill as Laurens sister? Katherine as Tucker's mom/Devon's grandma? Ughh!

My solution.

Bill Foster revealed to Liz he has impregnated another woman. This would be in character. She dies in childbirth and Jill is raised as their own. That would at least make Jill a Foster.

Katherine had a daughter. They trace her only to find she became a nun, ironically taking the name Sister Katherine. She devoted her life to good deeds and died years before. 

Return to status quo.

AW

Iris' un-adoption.

There were wayyyy too many holes in the story, and I've always wondered why Lemay chose to re-write his own story when he came back in 1988