The Young and the Restless Watching The Young and the Restless

[Monzo]

It has now been almost two years since Diane returned from the dead. What I learned from this is how important it is to have the right actor in the right role. Actually, not much has happened with Diane since her promising return, but an underused Susan Walters is still more interesting to me than Maura West's Diane, who was on fire every single day until she was finally killed by Nikki which was just a relief.

On the other side is Tucker. His storyline is no better than Diane's, but since I don't like Trevor St John in the role, everything about Tucker seems bad to me now, even Ashley, who reacts too un-Ashley-like when it comes to Tucker. Maybe Tucker's storyline wouldn't be so bad if Stephen Nicholas was still Tucker, but right now I wouldn't mind a drunk Nikki killing Tucker the way she killed Diane.

 

[Monzo]

After November sweeps and year-end return now we got Jordan's third run of horror in February sweeps, a bit too soon for me, I would have preferred May or November sweeps for her next return. Even though I don't enjoy Jordan the third time around (yet) as much as the first two runs, her story is the best part of the show and offers a bit fun, especially thanks to Lauren. It was amusing when Lauren gave Nikki advice on how to behave around a psycho: stand up to her and show her that you're not afraid. Great advice from Lauren, especially since this never impressed Sheila much, which Lauren herself realized when she heard Nikki on the phone with Jordan who wasn't intimidated by Nikki's announcements, but instead was fired up.

What amazes me about Y&R at the moment is that I can't predict the show like some other soaps: I thought the only purpose of Seth was that Jack would become Nikki's sponsor through Seth's relapse, but suddenly Seth has another purpose thanks to Jordan.

I also didn’t see what happened (or could happen) to Ashley coming. I'm not sure yet if it's a spontaneous change of direction in the writing, but it feels more like a story that's actually been in the making for months and suddenly makes sense after a lot of boredom and frustration.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

It was amusing when Lauren gave Nikki advice on how to behave around a psycho

Yeah, she also handled the situation with Shawn Garrett, Lauren's (pre-Sheila) stalker really well. She and Paul didn't really take it seriously until he buried her alive.

 

[Monzo]

Since CBS airs Champions League on Tuesday and Wednesday, the weekly ratings average for the soaps has declined with Tuesday and Wednesday as the weakest days of the week. The loss compared to other days is around 10 to 15 percent. Champions League starts live at 2 p.m. eastern time, which would preempt the soaps in other time zones, but are they? Is a station allowed to decide whether to air the Champions League or soaps or is it forced by CBS to air the live program (Champions League)?

If the Champions League starts at 12 p.m. or 11 a.m. (depending on the time zone), what does that mean for the soaps? Do they air after the game? I don't have the impression that they are preempted by all stations, otherwise Tuesday and Wednesday would be significantly weaker in ratings. Why does CBS risk losing viewers if the two soaps are preempted on two days for weeks in certain markets? Of course there is the option of watching the soaps online, but mostly the (often older soap) viewers who watch their show live don't necessarily search for it online.

Since Jordan threw Seth in front of a car on a Tuesday and he died, it would have been a shame if viewers in certain markets didn't see the whole thing, including Nikki's reaction to it.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

I assumed CBS would simply not broadcast their soaps nationwide (since that's usually what the networks do) but it turns out be time-zone dependent in this case.
CBS to Fully Preempt 'The Talk' for UEFA Champions League Games, Soaps Preempted on The West Coast (soapoperanetwork.com)

I feel sorry for the Pacific/Mountain time zone viewers who aren't tech savvy enough to find it online, but perhaps some of the individual stations might time-shift the episodes (air them at another time) if enough people complain.

 

[Monzo]

I wonder if other viewers think that when it's mentioned that Victor and Nikki's 40th wedding anniversary is coming up, it doesn't make sense. Nick, who is not even the couple's firstborn, has an adult daughter who is already the foster mother of a boy. How did this happen in just 40 years?

So did anyone at Y&R remember how good Eileen Davidson was on Days in her various roles at the same time and therefore gave Ashley a split personality? It's definitely interesting that there are (so far) three personalities and how they interact with each other. Eileen Davidson does her job very well, I remember other storylines with split personality (on other soaps) where the actor seemed overwhelmed.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I wonder if other viewers think that when it's mentioned that Victor and Nikki's 40th wedding anniversary is coming up, it doesn't make sense

Is it the 40th anniversary or are they celebrating the fact that they’ve been married 40 times? Maybe we’re misunderstanding.

Nick, who is not even the couple's firstborn, has an adult daughter who is already the foster mother of a boy. How did this happen in just 40 years?

I’ve never thought about this before. If Nick is the age we’re supposed to assume he is then he became a “grandfather “ at around 37 or so? Not impossible I guess but a little unusual. Then again it is Soap Land and Genoa City. I just think of Nick as being much older officially but according to what they’re telling us that would be correct.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

People also point out that Victoria is 50-ish. As I recall, when Victoria was conceived Nikki was either married to Kevin Bancroft or married him shortly after. She was trying to make Victor jealous and I guess it wasn't working, so she named the baby Victoria and basically humiliated Kevin in front of the whole town. Victor and Nikki did eventually get together, but by then Victoria was about two years old so they can justify her age if you squint really hard. This whole thing where soap characters become really young grandparents (like Nick did) has become so commonplace that I don't even blink, to tell you the truth (B&B's Brooke Logan comes to mind), but the ACTORS rightfully object.

Also, Victor and Nikki have been divorced and married so many times that even the "official" Wiki article reads like science fiction. They have something like 35 weddings combined between them and more of them are with others than each other. So we just say they're celebrating their first wedding. I am reminded of one of the funny/silly parts involving Eve Howard, "Aunt Jordan's" equally crazy sister. Eve was planning to kill either Victor or Nikki (maybe both) and sneaked into the house. Their honeymoon luggage was strewn everywhere so she decided to lock herself in this large steamer trunk, with the apparent plan to get shipped along with them and emerge to kill them. They then decided at the last minute to go someplace else after the luggage had been shipped! We only later heard that she'd been discovered and was ultimately locked away in an institution. I can't help but wonder if this whole "anniversary" celebration and plan for a long trip is an effort to recreate this scenario, with Jordan locking herself in a trunk or something similar, since this cat-and-mouse game between them and her has become more like Spy vs. Spy in the Mad magazine cartoons.

 

[DallasFanForever]

They have something like 35 weddings combined between them and more of them are with others than each other

I’ve actually done the official count and you don’t know how close that 35 is to the actual truth. At first I thought 35 was a playful exaggeration but it’s really not that far off. I count 26 marriages between them. That’s quite the run for almost 50 years.

Yet you can count the number of children they both have on one hand.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

I assumed Nikki had about 18 and Victor, about 15, though we don't know if Victor had any other ex-wives prior to his arrival in town. We were led to believe back then that he'd had other marriages. But I guess it's too late to explore that now, unless Miss Jane Pittman is still alive someplace.

You know what would be an absolute scream? They get Steve Burton to guest star as Dylan, who secretly phones his mom Nikki to wish her a Happy Anniversary. Then SB will manage to air on CBS, ABC, and (sort of) NBC all at the same time in three different roles.

 

[CaptainKC]

It has now been almost two years since Diane returned from the dead. What I learned from this is how important it is to have the right actor in the right role. Actually, not much has happened with Diane since her promising return, but an underused Susan Walters is still more interesting to me than Maura West's Diane, who was on fire every single day until she was finally killed by Nikki which was just a relief.

On the other side is Tucker. His storyline is no better than Diane's, but since I don't like Trevor St John in the role, everything about Tucker seems bad to me now, even Ashley, who reacts too un-Ashley-like when it comes to Tucker. Maybe Tucker's storyline wouldn't be so bad if Stephen Nicholas was still Tucker, but right now I wouldn't mind a drunk Nikki killing Tucker the way she killed Diane.

You nailed it. That's why casting is so important. I'm on board with you. Walters shines in the role while West was only annoying. St. John has no charisma. I'm sure there were better actors out there. Heck, they should have retained Robert Newman. Characters who start out as villains can become good guy. And frankly, I've always looked at Victor more than a villain than a leading man.

 

[Monzo]

For me, Y&R has become the soap that I constantly underestimate and I don't know why because there are always plot twists that I didn't see coming, like Ashley's newest, even though Ashley's story surprised me just a few weeks ago. I also didn't expect that Victor would hold Jordan as a prisoner in order to turn her into a human weapon (presumably against Jack). Since Victor's revenge plans usually don't work out as planned, now you can think about who will be the collateral damage, perhaps Cole.

 

[Monzo]

Y&R has made a habit of hiring big daytime names and letting them go after not too long. Genie Francis, Tristan Rogers, Maura West, Debbi Morgan and Michael E. Knight are just a few examples from the last 15 years. I was all the more surprised that Trevor St. John did not share the same fate as the other stars and had to leave Y&R after a few months. I thought that I was the only one who thought that he didn't work as Tucker, but now even the people at Y&R seem to have understood it and are letting him go.

Even though Trevor St. John didn't work as Tucker for me, Steve Burton as Nikki and Paul's son remains Y&R's worst casting/writing decision in recent years. To this day, I don't understand why they had so much faith in Steve Burton's connection to Y&R that they decided he had to play Nikki and Paul's lost child.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

Jill Farren Phelps, the Y&R Executive Producer who hired Steve Burton, had many bad habits. Among them (too many to recount here!) was her frequent hiring of actors she had worked with in the past for her current projects. She would instruct the writers to create a role for this favored actor regardless of whether the show needs him or her simply because the actor was someone she liked. There was even an industry-wide, derogatory term for those actors who turned up at whatever show she was ruining/running--FOJ's, or "Friends of Jill". Burton was one of the FOJ's, but like I said--Y&R was already "full" and didn't need to create another character. No matter; it happened anyway. He was shoe-horned into Y&R in a clumsy and obvious way just because she wanted him to work for her. His character remained on the show until JFP finally got fired, and (surprise!) he was written out soon after her ouster.

From the get-go, I thought TSJ was wrong for the role of Tucker due to the age gap. Tucker should be played by a man in his mid-60s. All the arguments made when TSJ was hired for the part still apply so no need to repeat them. I wonder if they can recast with an age-appropriate actor, or if Tucker will now have to be "fifteen years younger than he ought to be" for good.

 

[Monzo]

Y&R still knows how to surprise me. Besides Sharon's hallucinations of Cameron, which I didn't see coming, Lucy's story is developing in an interesting direction. When Lucy and Faith started hanging out despite their age difference, I thought that was only happening because the show no longer has a teen scene, but then I realized that there is a plan behind it and suddenly Lucy reminds me more and more of her grandmother Sheila: Faith isn't as enthusiastic about Lucy as Lucy would have liked, but how will Lucy - whose DNA includes not only Sheila but also Daisy and Phyllis - react? At the moment Lucy is pulling herself together, but for how long? Actually, now would be the right moment to free Sheila from her B&B boredom and bring her to Genoa City to get to know her granddaughter Lucy.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Actually, now would be the right moment to free Sheila from her B&B boredom and bring her to Genoa City to get to know her granddaughter Lucy.

I have to agree with this. A Sheila return to Genoa City is long overdue. I think it would definitely spice things up a little. So many characters with old scores for her to interact with.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

I think they fear (with some justification) that they can't bring Sheila into Y&R because she just isn't a "guest character," given her unique history with the townsfolk. If they brought her back, she would "take over" and leave a lot of the established cast playing second fiddle to her. It would make "Aunt Jordan" seem like a glorified extra.

Besides, the show seems determined to be a business-centered program (fighting over CEO jobs, corporate mergers and acquisitions) so Sheila's brand of mayhem just would not fit with the tone of the program.

 

[Monzo]

Speaking of Aunt Jordan, I really liked her original run and her other returns, but I was less enthusiastic about the last one: I thought it was a great twist that Victor's cage was back in use in the basement of his ranch - and it was obviously important to Victor that the cage was rebuilt after the original ranch burned down thanks to Sharon, but Victor broke Jordan far too quickly for my liking. She was just a complete wreck when she was freed by Cole and Michael, but I expected her to stand up to Victor much longer in the cage.

Another thing that bothers me about Jordan is how easily Claire was able to escape her great aunt's mindset. Claire is happy and naive now, but that doesn't suit her. I still hope that Claire rediscovers her dark side, but there is no sign of that at the moment.

I wouldn't mind if the married couple Sheila and Deacon came to visit for a week or two so Sheila could get to know Lucy. This could lay the groundwork for a longer return from Sheila if she ever feels Lucy needs her. Deacon's visit would also be of interest to one or two residents, such as Nikki.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I wouldn't mind if the married couple Sheila and Deacon came to visit for a week or two so Sheila could get to know Lucy. This could lay the groundwork for a longer return from Sheila if she ever feels Lucy needs her. Deacon's visit would also be of interest to one or two residents, such as Nikki.

I always wished they did more crossovers between the two shows but I think in Sheila’s case, as stated above, I’m not sure how’d she fit in in present day Genoa City. It does seem like a completely different place from the last time she was there but I’d still like to see it regardless, at the very least just for the interactions with certain characters from her past.

 

[Monzo]

Why do you think no one talks about Y&R anymore? It's still the most watched soap and it offers big drama (Sharon just killed Heather - didn't she?), but no one seems to care anymore. Is it because Y&R was once so good that no matter what any headwriter offers now, nothing can compare to its heyday?