Oh, hello there! 2023 is, what, almost halfway over? So, I thought it was time to make a special guest appearance in one of Soap Central's Two Scoops columns. If you're not quite sure who I am, I'm Dan J Kroll -- the guy who started Soap Central 28 years ago. Two years before that, the site operated as an All My Children-only site, but there weren't a whole lot of web sites back in the early 1990s. Soap fans asked me to cover the other thirteen or so soaps that were on at the time... and here we are.
In the interest of full disclosure, some of what will appear in this column was written back in January. There was a mix-up with the schedule, and one of the columnists forgot that it was her week to write the column -- so I swooped in with something, only to have her submit a regular column. I shelved my guest appearance and let the column be written by someone that readers expected to see writing the Two Scoops column.
This week, Tamilu is on vacation in Las Vegas, and I told her that I'd cover for her so that she could do whatever it is she plans to do in Sin City. I didn't ask for details. Soaps have taught me that the less I know about potential debauchery, the better. As I started to write this week's column, I realized that a lot of what I had written nearly half a year ago was still oddly relevant. So, I dusted some of the column off to compare and contrast about how 2023 started and how it's going.
At the time, I lamented that The Young and the Restless was kind of riding on the struggle bus. Here's a quote from the original column: Over the past few years, the show has seemed out of sorts. From the "every day is a new day" experiment under Mal Young to what's happening on the show now, there have been some challenges.
The Young and the Restless seemed to stop trying to be The Young and the Restless and everything that has made it so successful for five decades. Reinvention definitely works. Just ask Madonna. But for quite a while, Y&R's dreams seemed to outpace what the show was actually able to put on the screen. Sometimes there are reasons for that. Other times, I just sort of scratch my head and wonder why the show even goes down a path when the show has no intention of going where the path leads. Storylines play out, and there is often no real payout for viewers. If you are going to ask folks to watch five episodes a week and they do so for several months only to have a storyline fizzle and fade away? Yeah, that's not so good.
Soap villains are tough to get right. They can sometimes come off super cartoonish, or the build-up was so big that it's hard to hit the mark. Look at Ashland Locke. His secret after secret after secret after secret just grew old. It was almost as if when one secret didn't excite fans, the show decided that another, better secret was the way to go. It wasn't, and now Ashland is dead.
Big Bad Jeremy Stark is another example. The way Diane talked about Jeremy? I double-checked my locks when I heard he was coming to town -- and I don't even live in Genoa City. Remember when he showed up at the Abbott mansion and saw Diane in person for the first time? I thought Diane was a goner. Maybe Stark's time in jail mellowed him because, while sinister, Jeremy never really frightened me.
The whole "Hey, Phyllis! What if we have you play possum?" could have been so much better. Or is it opossum? Ophyllis? Having Phyllis pretend to be dead for a longer period of time might have had better payoff for viewers. Maybe viewers shouldn't have known that Phyllis was alive. Maybe remove Michelle Stafford from the credits for a bit to really convince fans that Phyllis was gone.
That didn't happen and... Stark got cut -- literally -- out of the show, and now Stark and Locke are trading what-could-have-been-stories in... wherever they are now. Stark and Locke is actually an awesome name for a law firm.
Now a third baddie has come to Genoa City. Cameron Kirsten arrived unannounced. No advance casting news. No cameos in the weekly preview videos. I think that was smart. A good surprise goes a long way. Will Cameron meet the same fate as Stark and Locke non-attorneys at law? I haven't checked the Vegas odds lately -- and Tamilu is preoccupied and not answering any of my texts -- but after Friday's show, I put the chances of Cameron making it to 2024 at about 1 in 1,000,000.
Unlike Ashland and Jeremy, what Cameron had going for him was that we have actually seen what he is capable of on-screen. He's kidnapped. He strapped a bomb onto Faith. He's held a deadly tool-turned-weapon to Sharon's throat. I'm not cheering for the bad guy here, but at least Cameron is doing something to show that he's the bad guy. Neither Ashland nor Jeremy ever felt this dangerous.
It's interesting that write, er, right now we have no idea who is actually writing the show. A few months ago, Y&R head writer and executive producer Josh Griffith fired a bunch of the show's writing team. Paraphrasing here, but he said it would be easier to streamline the show and make the writing pop more if he had control over pretty much everything.
Now the Writer's Guild is on strike... but someone is still writing the show. Is it Griffith under his EP title? Is it a non-union member writer? I've been approached by some real-world friends who have commented that Y&R has been more enjoyable to watch over the past couple of weeks than it has been in a long time. So, let's hope that the strike ends when the writers are given what they deserve, and we can keep this momentum moving forward.
Here's a fun blurb from my earlier non-published column: It does do me some good to see characters learning from past mistakes -- or at least seeming to learn from their past mistakes. When Tucker swooped into town, I assumed that it would be only a matter of time before he and Ashley were coupled up in whatever smooshed name the kids on social media have given them. Tuckley? Ashker? It can't be Ashtuck because that sounds moderately naughty.
Despite Ashley claiming she was over and done with someone who had proven on more than one occasion to be an Ashtuck, it does seem that my initial take on things might play out. There are so many soapisms at play here -- and they actually work for me. Couple falls apart. One part of the couple wants to reunite, the other does not. Someone annoys the half of the couple that doesn't want to get back together, so the non-couple decides to be a couple to stick it to the annoying person. Then, as is usually the case, non-couple realizes that they are madly in love and becomes a couple.
It's the plot of nearly every successful rom-com movie. We've seen it a squillion times before, but for whatever reason, we all still ooh and ahh over it.
What we don't see all the time is forgiveness, be it in the real world or the fictional one. I didn't expect to hear Diane say that she'd forgiven Summer for Summer's role in keeping quiet about Phyllis' faked death. And I definitely wasn't expecting Diane to say that she'd go to bat for Summer and try to get Kyle to forgive her.
I've seen the comments on the Soap Central message boards and social media feeds that Y&R is doing whatever it can to "prop" Diane, essentially bending over backwards to make her look like the patron saint of Genoa City with little regard to how it makes other characters look.
I can see how it might be perceived that way. Diane faked her own death, and most everyone seems to have forgiven her. Perhaps if Phyllis had stayed "dead" for a decade-plus, she might be more readily forgiven. Timing is everything.
I will admit that I like Mulva, er, Susan Walters. She holds my attention whenever she is on the screen -- even when her character is doing things that might otherwise annoy me. What I don't particularly care for, though? Jack and Diane as a couple. They might be two American kids doin' the best they can, but the little ditty I want to hear about is Jack and Phyllis.
It's not that I think Jack and Phyllis are perfect for each other. I am not even sure that they are each other's soul mates. There's just something about the way the two characters connect. At first, I thought it was just Peter Bergman and Michelle Stafford's undeniable chemistry. Then I remembered that the Phack was not whack nor did it lack when Gina Tognoni gave Phyllis a crack. My apologies to Dr. Seuss.
I am not sure what I would do for Diane romantically if she were no longer with Jack. Would Diane just get written out? That seems like a waste. At the moment, though, with Diane being "redeemed," I am not entirely sure what else there might be for her. Perhaps some other drama took place during her time away from Genoa City. But I don't want her to turn into the female Ashland Locke with the "Oh! There's another secret that we didn't tell you about!" routine.
Proving that I am a walking contradiction, I want to know every single secret that Audra has. Every time Audra enters a scene, I find myself grumbling, "Oh, here comes this chick." She shows up everywhere she isn't wanted or needed, and there's something about that that I love. When Kyle was drowning his sorrows at the bar, Audra sidled up to chat him up. Will she be a foil in Kyle and Summer's getting back together? I kind of think so. Do I want her to be? I kind of think so.
It's not that I don't like Summer and Kyle as a couple. What I don't like is how quickly they have wanted to end their union of late. Mom fakes death? Divorce! Another mom fakes death? Divorce! Forgot to pick up ice cream at the grocery store? Divorce and blocked on social media! No one wants to seem to do the work anymore to stay together.
Speaking of doing work, here's a gem I wrote back when Daniel first returned to Genoa City: I have no idea what is going on at the artist formerly known as Hamilton-Winters-ChanComm-Chancellor-Winters-Summers-Springs-and-Falls. I'm not sure that the folks running it do, either. It's amazing to me that any of these fictional soap companies are even still in business. No one seems to ever really be working, and the ones that are in charge often seem clueless. Folks are always at their desks and scribbling furiously in notepads, but what are they really doing? I know that my notepads have a lot of fun doodles on them, but I also know that I do work. Your Honor, I'd like to submit this Two Scoops column as Exhibit A.
Chancellor-Winters is developing a new video game arm of its company. That's great, but it feels a little behind the times. I wonder if it will be in the same wing as their groundbreaking LaserDisc company.
Daniel's return started off a little rocky. The whole video game thing was about as action-packed as Billy's podcazzzzzzzzz. The idea that he and Lily might be paired romantically was totally telegraphed, but surprisingly, that didn't take anything away from the storytelling. I like that Michael Graziadei's Daniel is on the canvas because a lot of the Phyllis story would not have worked if Daniel had been "busy."
I also like that we've gotten to meet a now-grown Lucy. There's a great deal of storyline potential there, but the show has struggled with its younger set. Charlie and Mattie Ashby were never utilized to their full potential and were shipped off to other parts of the country. Moses Winters was a blink-and-you-missed-him kinda character. Faith's storyline, though, is the bomb! Too soon? Seriously, though, since the role was recast in 2021, Faith has had little in the way of meaningful story.
I do think there is plenty of meaningful story ahead. What will happen to Sharon in the wake of her stabbing Cameron? Will it be deemed justifiable stabicide, or do we have a trial looming? Will the bomb attached to Faith be safely defused, or is someone about to get seriously hurt? Is a fourth villain booking a trip to Genoa City? If there is, will he or she read this column, realize that death is imminent, and decide to reroute to Port Charles or Salem? Will Ashley and Tucker get married? What about Jack and Diane? Is Audra about to make this a cruel summer for Summer?
All of these questions and more will be answered... by someone other than me. Vance will be here next week with his regularly scheduled Two Scoops column and then Tamilu will be back (fingers crossed!) from Las Vegas in two weeks. Until next we meet up in this space, you can keep tabs of all my Random Acts of Dan @danjkroll on all social media platforms.
What are your thoughts on The Young and the Restless? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- and there are many ways you can share your thoughts.
