A Tale of Too Many Genoa Cities

A Tale of Too Many Genoa Cities

September 1, 2011

Sorry…had to skip a couple of days. Tuesday, I went to the dentist, and yesterday I had the headache from hell. I did manage to watch two days worth of episodes through the haze of my pain, and, as usual, a couple of thoughts kept running through my head.

The Y&R has always been a little clumsy about juggling story lines. It doesn’t help, perhaps, that the cast is so big and there are so MANY story lines, but still. You would think that with a stable of, what, six, eight writers (I’ll have to count next time the credits come on), one of them could be in charge of assigning different plots to different days, and maybe mixing it up a little so that that doesn’t get to be too predictable.

But no. One week, it’s all about Diane’s murder and all the suspects skulking about, trying to avoid suspicion, and the next week we’re back to Noah and Devon and their music deal with Tucker, which, frankly, I had forgotten about and which, frankly, is not nearly so interesting or exciting.

And, speaking of plot management, to go off on a tangent, there were a couple of plots that never seemed to get off the ground that, I would have thought, would have made great story lines for luring in younger viewers over the summer.

Who is this mousy little girl named Hunter, other than someone Noah apparently rescued from the streets of New York? What ever happened to her getting an internship at Restless Style? That could have been a great tie-in to the murder plot if she was somehow privy to conversations (and other activities) between Nick and Phyllis. Or what about a romance with someone? Devon comes to mind as a likely candidate. Although, speaking of Devon, whatever happened to Roxanne? Is she out working on a Ph.D. at GCU?

Or what about the rehab thing? In retrospect, it was obviously just a plot device to bring Eden back into the story, but they could have done so much more with it! Abby spending the summer in rehab hating Eden would have been a great story to attract a young audience.

So, as I said, this week Y&R seems to be picking up old story lines that were almost forgotten: Noah’s music (with Hunter appended to scenes like a coffee cup at Crimson Lights), Sofia’s pregnancy and the baby-daddy drama, the Cane and Lily saga, the search for Tucker’s long-lost son.

In the meantime, Diane’s murder is still unsolved, Chance is still missing somewhere in the Middle East (we must be really worried about him!), Chloe and Kevin have broken up and there’s been nary an awkward meeting between the two, and Eden is suddenly a barista quietly serving coffee? What was the point of bringing HER back to Genoa City?

It’s as if a lot of people finished their vacations or semesters at school and headed back to do some filming over the summer. But it’s fall now, and everyone should be headed BACK to school, not re-settling into old story lines.

Again, a lot of clumsiness with the juggling of story lines.

Which brings me, tangentially enough, to the subject of the opening credits.

Have you ever wondered why certain players, who have only the most minor of roles, like Devon and Kevin and even, to a certain extent, Paul, are featured in the opening, and others, like Lily and Adam and Lauren, are not?

It makes me think that some of those young actors must have really good agents who were able to broker that kind of prominence.

I don’t watch The Bold and the Beautiful, but I’ve occasionally watched their opening credits. It seems to me that they do a much better job of featuring everyone in the cast (it must be pretty close to everyone—there are so many, and they go by so fast). One cannot escape the impression that Y&R has been contractually obligated to highlight the REALLY BIG players in the opening  (and by big, I  mean the actors, not the characters), while conveniently neglecting the other actors who, perhaps, do not have such persuasive agents.

If you’ve noticed, there are about six actors who almost always figure prominently in the opening, no matter who else comes next. Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott, who have been on the show since the 70s and were movies actors in their own right before the Y&R, might rightfully be considered heavy hitters. But then, so was Jeanne Cooper, and she doesn’t get nearly the prominence of the other two—and SHE has been on the show since it’s very beginning (you know all those allusions to Jill being a manicurist; she was Kay’s personal manicurist who got pregnant by Philip Chancellor III—and they’ve been hanging tenaciously to those plot threads for almost 40 years).

But Greg Rikaart? Michael Graziadei? Bryton? (By the way, Bryton, what are you? A male Beyonce? You have a perfectly good last name—I’ve seen it in the closing credits—USE IT.) Who are these guys, that they should figure in the opening credits to the exclusion of people like Michael Muhney or Daniel Goddard?

The Y&R theme song, which belongs to the ages since Nadia Comaneci took it to the Olympics, is slow and contemplative, and does not lend itself to the fly-by credits of B&B, but it does seem that they could put a little more work into changing them up to highlight ALL of the key players (it might even take a couple of weeks of cycling through) instead of showing Eric and Melody and Sharon and Joshua (even when he was supposed to be dead) and Michelle EVERY SINGLE TIME and allotting the little time left to players who often aren’t seen for weeks at a time. For instance, I know that Doug Davidson has also been with the show almost since the beginning, but his character, too, is often plotless for weeks at a time. Yet he still makes the cut for the opening credits. (And I still want to know what happened to Maggie Sullivan…)

And speaking of doing a little more work, some of those opening pictures need some serious updating. I mean, how many years ago was Paul involved with that Leana Love character? Yet they still show Doug Davidson taking his clothes off with her on the beach. And Peter Bergman—the 80s called; they want their hairstyle back. Melody Thomas Scott had that cute pixie hairdo for about ten minutes, but we keep seeing it in the credits. And how many relationships ago was Phyllis involved with Jack?

HERE’s an idea: Why not take all of those wonderful headshots that appear on the Y&R website and float them dreamily across the screen during the theme song? That would be more fair and more CURRENT and more reflective of the various story lines. And don’t even get me started on the balance of black to white actors in the opening credits…

As with the topic above of juggling plot lines, it seems to me that a soap with the moniker the YOUNG and the Restless, almost belies itself by giving such strong press (and story lines, truth be told) to its stable of older (and I do mean OLDER) characters. Let the older characters be the schemers, the bosses, the wise counseling figures, and leave the sexy romancing to Chloe and Ronan or Chance and that hunky new vet character and the feisty black lawyer Leslie Michaelson (and whatever happened to HER?).

Yes, I suppose the romance between Jill and Colin was nice (however implausible), and perhaps it was a bit of a bone thrown to the ego of a long-time player (Jess Walton)—and Tristan Rogers still has it going on, despite his age. But is anybody buying this romance between Jack and Genevieve?? I mean, he goes from the likes of Sharon, Diane and Phyllis to…Genevieve? I don’t think so.

I’ve got to get going; I’ll save my rant about why is Y&R trying to revive Genie Francis’ career for perhaps my next. Maybe I’ll be up to another entry tonight, after I see today’s episode (always DVRed—the sponsors are making next to no money off of me!).

In the meantime, I’d love to hear what YOU’D like to talk about. Drop me a line, Genoa City Fans! Write me at lisalea10@yahoo.com

Texas Missy, the 35-Year Fan