2 minutes ago, Khan said:

I don't remember which show it was, but one of those dreary UK soaps, if I recall, actually had an airplane CRASH into the neighborhood, killing and injuring a whole bunch of people. When I read about that, I said, "Well, whether it's a serial killer, or an airline disaster, people on soaps can't just leave town anymore."

That was Emmerdale.

The Emmerdale Plane Crash (30 December 1993)

10 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

The character he killed off was Pat Butcher.

Oh man, I had no idea he was the one who did that. What a blunder IMO.

I knew the baby swap story was very controversial but I didn't know it caused the BBC to come down on the show in a permanent way.

3 minutes ago, Khan said:

I don't remember which show it was, but one of those dreary UK soaps, if I recall, actually had an airplane CRASH into the neighborhood, killing and injuring a whole bunch of people. When I read about that, I said, "Well, whether it's a serial killer, or an airline disaster, people on soaps can't just leave town anymore."

That was Emmerdale, and the plane crash (riffing on the real-life Lockerbie tragedy) was well done. I think most of it is still on YT. But yes, the UK soaps have always been very raw and at times grim in many ways, which can be refreshing at times and tedious at others. I think EE has gotten too relentlessly and repetitiously grim, which is why I stopped keeping track of it much in recent years. It's still very well produced, acted and often scripted, but you can only take so much of people making the same mistakes and being the same doomed failures. Killing three core matriarchs (at least!) in 20 years is too much for me. I thought it was too much the first time, when it was just Pauline Fowler, the original matriarch, dying alone in the Christmas snow after phoning her son and begging for forgiveness.

Edited July 7Jul 7 by Vee

2 minutes ago, Vee said:

I think EE has gotten too relentlessly and repetitiously grim, which is why I stopped keeping track of it much in recent years.

Believe it or not, EE is currently the most lighthearted of the UK soaps. Only last week they had a big chunk of an episode devoted to comedy with a drag queen visiting for Pride and the Vic and the local gay bar (mostly attended by straight people, naturally) fighting over who would host her. Corrie in particular is about as miserable as you can get, which just makes me feel sad as that was never what that show was intended to be.

3 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Believe it or not, EE is currently the most lighthearted of the UK soaps. Only last week they had a big chunk of an episode devoted to comedy with a drag queen visiting for Pride and the Vic and the local gay bar (mostly attended by straight people, naturally) fighting over who would host her.

If they've finally found a way for me to tell the current Ben Mitchell and husband?/partner? Callum Highway apart in a line-up I'll consider taking a look.

I'll give Khan another prime example: EE has developed a tradition of having shock twists, and often shock deaths, around the Christmas/New Year's holidays. It's a solid plan for a holiday break when people are at home and viewership is up - I have often said our soaps today need to make more of those intervals and end the year with a bang like they used to - but EE tends to go to the well a bit too often at this point.

In 2016, the popular Mitchell sisters were written out. The show, as ever, chose to do this with a bang: Ronnie Mitchell marries her love Jack in a sumptuous ceremony at New Year's. On New Year's Day 2017, Ronnie and her sister Roxy go drinking by the hotel pool following the ceremony, only for Roxy to dive in, suffer a heart attack due to her drug use and drown. Ronnie dives in after her in her wedding dress, is weighted down by the heavy gown and her sister's body, and both drown together as groom Jack reads a fairy tale bedtime story to Ronnie's son. Happy New Year! Roll credits.

This is mild for Eastenders. (And BTW, I loved that scene.) But they just keep going back to more of these shock deaths. I hated Mel Owen but did she truly need to get steamrolled by a truck on the highway while hallucinating her also recently-deceased son?

Edited July 7Jul 7 by Vee

4 minutes ago, Vee said:

If they've finally found a way for me to tell the current Ben Mitchell and husband?/partner? Callum Highway apart in a line-up I'll consider taking a look.

They did find a way as they sent Ben to prison in early 2024. Rumor has it the producer at the time was just done dealing with the actor who played Ben; after said producer left, they brought Ben back for a funeral pass for a few days to test him returning permanently, but that hasn't happened yet. Callum doesn't appear very often but is still around, dating Johnny Carter.

I have gone off topic so I'll apologize and stop but before I do I'll say the show is kind of a mess so I can't come in recommending based on great quality, but the cast and tonal balance are better than they have been in a while.

U.K. soaps and American soaps are fundamentally different beasts and the writers/producers would struggle to translate across each.

Dare I suggest that a Bryan Kirkwood or Chris Clenshaw (because I think I saw his name mentioned elsewhere) would either produce the show based on what they ‘perceive’ an American soap to be, hence it misfires. Or they try to transpose the most sensationalist elements of U.K. soaps or storytelling models (à la Mal Young moving the Trevor Jordace/body-under-the-patio story over to Y&R), hence it misfires also.

9 hours ago, Khan said:

Taylor Sheridan is a journeyman actor turned producer who is the "genius" behind such inexplicable* hit shows as "Yellowstone" (and its' 4000 prequels and spinoffs), "Mayor of Kingstown," "Tulsa King," "Landman" and "The Madison," starring Michelle Pfeiffer. (He's also the only thing that's keeping Paramount + from being folded into the Petco app).

As a writer/producer/showrunner, Sheridan's philosophy is for his shows to have as little plot as possible, so he can focus more on characters. Which would be admirable, if his characters weren't two-dimensional and racist as hell. Subsequently, whenever I've caught a few moments of any of his shows in the past, I didn't feel I was watching a drama series so much as I was watching a recruitment video for the right-wing militia.

(I say "inexplicable," but I think it's obvious why his shows are so beloved. coughMAGAcough)

Oh he can keep all of that. All of it. Please. We don't need nor want him to apply.

1 hour ago, LondonScribe said:

U.K. soaps and American soaps are fundamentally different beasts and the writers/producers would struggle to translate across each.

Dare I suggest that a Bryan Kirkwood or Chris Clenshaw (because I think I saw his name mentioned elsewhere) would either produce the show based on what they ‘perceive’ an American soap to be, hence it misfires. Or they try to transpose the most sensationalist elements of U.K. soaps or storytelling models (à la Mal Young moving the Trevor Jordace/body-under-the-patio story over to Y&R), hence it misfires also.

There is zero reason to remove/replace Sally McDonald as executive producer, though. And Mal Young worked exceptionally well as executive producer and head writer in my eyes; however, he should not have held that position at the same time. I just don't think Young's writing was suited for The Young and the Restless. Had he gone to another soap, I think his writing would have been better received. But his Y&R was not-to-miss, to me.

8 hours ago, DRW50 said:

That was Emmerdale.

The Emmerdale Plane Crash (30 December 1993)

Ah. Thanks, @DRW50 !

8 hours ago, Vee said:

But yes, the UK soaps have always been very raw and at times grim in many ways, which can be refreshing at times and tedious at others.

I swear I heard once about a UK soap doing a story where someone had contracted tetanus. Tetanus! I am not here for a story about lockjaw. I will NEVER be here for a story about lockjaw. Not even if I HAVE lockjaw.

8 hours ago, Vee said:

Pauline Fowler, the original matriarch, dying alone in the Christmas snow after phoning her son and begging for forgiveness.

Charles Dickens would be so proud.

Take this even further away from Y&R and their HW search: how did the BBC censor the baby swap story, @DRW50 ?

Edited July 7Jul 7 by Khan

8 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Believe it or not, EE is currently the most lighthearted of the UK soaps. Only last week they had a big chunk of an episode devoted to comedy with a drag queen visiting for Pride and the Vic and the local gay bar [...] fighting over who would host her.

Please tell me John Oliver guested as the drag queen.

I’m glad we’ve decided to reignite this thread. I love seeing all the different ideas of who could/should write for Y&R. The anticipation is killing me though, why haven’t we gotten an announcement yet? Maybe by Friday?

6 minutes ago, Ryanc2 said:

I’m glad we’ve decided to reignite this thread. I love seeing all the different ideas of who could/should write for Y&R. The anticipation is killing me though, why haven’t we gotten an announcement yet? Maybe by Friday?

My guess is Giffith’a firing/announced departure leading into a week-long holiday hiatus for production stalled things. They’re probably reaching out to people this week or reassessing pitches they may have gotten in preparation for this.

I would guess we will know something in the next few weeks.

3 hours ago, LondonScribe said:

Dare I suggest that a Bryan Kirkwood or Chris Clenshaw [...] would either produce the show based on what they ‘perceive’ an American soap to be, hence it misfires.

That's how I felt about Mal Young and the return story he wrote for Thad Luckinbill's J.T. I never could shake the feeling that I was watching something he had tried and failed to pitch over at the U.K. Even some of the curveballs he threw into Dina's Alzheimer's story - didn't she attack someone with a knife or some scissors, and then later set fire to some house? - were a little grittier than American audiences had been accustomed to.

And I've heard that that body-under-the-patio story ran for, like, two years? I think even Bill Bell would've thrown up his hands at some point before then and said, "Cut this [!@#$%^&*] already!"