This goodbye was years in the making. How many years, you ask? Almost 3, if I remember correctly. It has been that long since YR interested me enough to keep me around as a regular Soapnet viewer. I never caught it in the morning since it came on at the same time as AMC, so when I was a viewer of both shows I always watched AMC instead and caught YR during the evening before my ABC reruns started. And for awhile, I loved where the show was going. I grew up on Young and the Restless. Victor and Jack became a normal part of my day and until I ran across AMC, was my lifetime favorite soap. I thought the show was hot and sexy, but had enough drama and cliffhangers to keep me interested, and enough characters to give me balance. But when Y&R started reminding me of B&B with their back and forth Sharon and Nick drama, I couldn't hang anymore because it started hogging up screen time as well. Over the past two years though, I slowly became more and more angry with the show and eventually tuned out entirely. From time to time I read the spoilers or the Two Scoops on Soapcentral so I can see what's going on, but all that those do for me now is reinforce why I no longer watch the show. I'm sure its still interesting and has its intriguing points, in no way am I saying the show is horrible because its still #1 for a reason. I'm just saying its no longer for me.
Now the Nick and Sharon thing goes back at least 5 years, but I was interested for a little while. At first, Nick and Phyllis was ok in theory to me, it gave me a bit of a Mrs.Robinson vibe and I thought it was a change from what I was familiar with. In no way was I expecting or even wanting that to be long-term. I've had a love-hate relationship with Phyllis from the first time I saw her over 10 years ago and when it comes to messing up the cosmic bond that is Nick and Sharon, I'd lean towards hate. lol Despite my previous hatred however, I came to like Nick and Phyllis together. Never loved the two together because it just didn't seem right, but I did like watching some of their chemistry together. But I always secretly wished Nick and Sharon would come to their senses and find a way back to each other. Underneath all my criticism, cynicism and general dislike for most things, I am quite the romantic. Go figure huh. I am a sucker for soap romance and I'll gladly watch a couple reunite, a pillow in my lap and my hands clasped together, all kinds of tears in the eyes. lol When Nick and Sharon finally looked at each other with all that lost love and longing in their eyes up in that cabin a couple of years ago, I breathed a sigh of relief. But when the roads cleared up and they returned to Phyllis and Jack respectively, I was disappointed. Their love isn't something I think is justified correctly with hidden trysts in snowed-in cabins and hotels. Then Sharon had that whole hoe train running for a little while and that entire relationship with Adam pissed me off. I'd rather have seen her with Victor than Adam. Point blank, either put Nick and Sharon back together and stop with the bs, or let them move on.
Speaking of Adam, I couldn't stand him when I first saw him and when he was recast he lost all of his crackers and didn't leave much, if any, room for redemption. The trauma that he put Ashley and Sharon through was disgusting for me to watch and as stupid as they made Ashley through her pregnancy was stupefying. Do you really expect me to believe a woman as strong and capable as Ashley deluded herself into thinking she was pregnant for months, into thinking she could trust Adam of all people above her own brother? Come on now! Sharon has always been a bit of a damsel in distress, another of my sore points with the show, but the way they dumbed Ashley down in order to carry that storyline through was insane. I'm not one for baby switches anyway; I wasn't a viewer when AMC's Bianca and Babe did it but I hated reading about it, I couldn't stand it when OLTL switched Jessica and Starr's daughters, and this storyline repulsed me as well. I couldn't wait for Adam to get his. He's not at a Sheila level, where he's just the crazy character with no redemption and no conscience that coincidentally is always a treat to see. He was irritating, insane, and I wasn't interested in watching him redeem himself. I didn't care. At least with Sheila, I don't want her to redeem herself because then she wouldn't be the deliciously evil bitch that she is. I don't ever want to see Sheila normal. Ever. lol I don't ever want to see Adam....again. lmao
I hated that the Carlton family is pretty much gone, felled by the same lake coincidentally. It was sad when I watched Colleen's death and part of me was hoping she'd come back, even though I'd already read casting spoilers and Tammin Sursok was definitely not returning to the show. I still tried to hold a little hope that maybe this was a last-minute change and she'd wake up from a coma or something or at least that there'd be hope she could return, but when Victor got her heart I knew it was a done deal. It was very sad for me, but I did like the dramatic feel of everything. Speaking of Colleen, that whole mess with Patty and/or Dr. Emily was nuts to me. Patty was unhinged on....at least 5 different levels and I wanted to see her gone more than I wanted the show to redeem her or have her get hers for what she had done to other people. I knew the Dr.Emily bit was partly to keep Stacy Haiduk around because she is a good actress; I was familiar with her work on AMC, where she coincidentally played yet another nutball; but double roles like that usually don't go over very well for me. And this one was no different. She isn't with the show now and wasn't much of an interest to me when she was, but it did spice things up slightly, even if it was only for a little while.
I have to admit I did enjoy the recent popping up of stars of YR's yesteryear, like Traci and occasionally Danny or even Snapper this past August. It helped take me back to a time when soaps reigned supreme during the day, a time when love in the afternoon wasn't all that hard to find. Unfortunately, those visits never lasted long and before I knew it, they'd quickly gone back to wherever they were before, leaving me with shells of what my favorite soap had become. I know that the soap isn't going to and I guess shouldn't be expected to maintain the same flow as it did nearly 20 years ago (man were the 90s really 20 years ago??) but As I mentioned in the OLTL blog, I am not a huge fan of recasts, especially if the role is synonymous with one name. I think you already know who I'm referring to here. Shemar Moore is Malcolm Winters to me, all day long. With him on Criminal Minds now I know there's no chance he'd be reprising the role and the character does have history in Genoa City, so I figured that at some point there would be a recast. However, I did think the writers would pay a little more attention to continuity and at least a similar look to the character, hell the same skintone would have been okay with me. However, instead of the milky chocolate, smooth voiced character I was used to I got a dark chocolate, Eddie Winslow-sounding character masquerading as Malcolm. I just couldn't get used to it and I'll admit I wrote him off pretty soon. Nothing against Darius McCrary, I just associate Shemar Moore with Malcolm Winters and don't really think the role can handle a recast after so long. Also, I just don't think he embodies the sexiness that was part of Malcolm's general allure. Not that McCrary is unattractive, but he doesn't ooze sex in the way that has become synonymous with Malcolm. Call me closed-minded, I couldn't accept a recast, even if I do like the actor.
I don't know many soap fans these days who don't know about the trouble behind the scenes with Victoria Rowell and....well, depends on who you're asking. Some say the trouble is with Michelle Stafford, some say its with Stafford and Peter Bergman, yet others still say its with her own soap daughter, Christel Khalil. And even more say its simply staffers that have the issues with Rowell and she is exaggerating them to portray herself as the victim in the story. At the end of the day Rowell claims that she had interest in portraying Drucilla again and I do miss my Dru. But I think things have become too sticky for her to ever have a clean return to the show. Which is unfortunate because Rowell really is a good actress and her last storyline with the Carmen Mesta mess was, I felt, undeserving for someone with so much longevity and history with the show. Neil really hasn't seemed to find his way since Dru's exit and I think Lily could have really benefited from having her mother there with her through her fight with cancer. I haven't seen anything from Nate Jr. in years, Devon hasn't had a stable female in his life since she's been gone, and Olivia really doesn't have much purpose now that her sister is gone, she already had her little thing with Neil and her friendship with Ashley is over, not to mention Brad is gone now as well. That family is hurting without Dru there and as the only family of color on the show, it's sad for me to see that through the years the Winters family has slowly fallen.
Its a defeating thing for me over the years to watch the soap that I grew up on slowly change and evolve. I guess it would be okay for me if the changes didn't seem so....drastic I suppose. No more Gina's, no more scenes (in recent memory anyway) at Nick and Sharon's old house, no more love in the afternoon. I have been trying to like the show because its the one I grew up on, but over the years I've fallen out of love with it. The teen scene from my years has been long grown and excluding one whose face is no longer even the same, is gone. Brittany's been gone for years, JT is now gone and so is Mackenzie, yet again. The characters I grew up watching, Gina, Danny, even the Newmans' old butler, are gone. In place are new faces, new locations, alot of older characters but the majority are not together. In short, the show is still amazing and the cast is great, a set of wonderful actors and actresses. But just like with OLTL, its no longer for me.
So on that note, I bid Genoa City a fond farewell as well. From time to time I suppose I could catch an epi on Soapnet, but unless the show pulls it out of the fire for me and brings me something to escape to, something not so full of pain and hurt like it has been in recent years, I won't be back. I love soaps because they're a happy place for me, somewhere that happiness at some level still exists. But yet on every show, someone's dying or in jail, or beating a charge, or something. I want my drama and cliffhangers, but to tell the truth, I still kind of miss the campiness of old. I miss the telltale happiness and love that definitely isn't present in large forms in our day anymore, the kind that instills just a little hope and belief in your own situations. I miss characters we can root for, characters who encounter obstacles just like us and don't undergo four personality shifts in as many years. I miss typical whodunnits and the occasional murder. I also miss the days where spoilers and more about the actors weren't bigger news than the characters they played and the shows they were on, the days where you only heard those things if it was huge news, and not a daily occurrence. I understand wanting to bring us closer to some of our favorite actors and actresses, but especially in the case of casting news, makes us miss out on a welcome thrill. I miss true suspense but unfortunately with the age of the Internet, those days are long gone as long as someone on a set is willing to spill. The Internet's not all bad and in fact is my favorite thing, it gives people and blabbers like me a voice, but I miss genuinely being surprised by a change or a twist. I miss not being able to guess who did it, not being able to tell what was going to be on my screen in a month, I miss waiting on the edge of my seat waiting with held breath for the next show. And for even a little while after I became an avid spoiler and scoops reader, I was still in some suspense with Young and the Restless. Maybe its so much time on the air, maybe its that old plot twists still work, I'm not sure..but nothing feels new, young or particularly restless to me. I feel restless watching the show because I miss the YR of old. Hell, maybe the issue is me not liking change. lol Let's go with that one. lol In any case, I think excluding a few episodes from time to time, my regular viewing of this show is done as well. And so that closes this here rant. Mandy out.
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