So, I've been giving this a lot of thought lately, especially in light of the horrible state that the CBS daytime drama, "The Young and the Restless" is in these days. As many Y&R fans know, the current Executive Producer/Head Writer Maria Arena Bell (MAB) has been chopping this once proud and storied show to pieces without any regard to the show's history or even characters' histories as well. She also has two co-head writers in Scott Hamner and Hogan Sheffer, the latter of which was a head writer at "As The World Turns", another CBS daytime drama that has now gone on to soap opera heaven. It is at ATWT where he won a number of Emmy's for his writing and garnered the show Outstanding Drama Series during his tenure there. After that, things went south for ATWT and he moved on to "Days of our Lives" before eventually joining the staff at Y&R.
The first thing that would need to happen is for Sony Pictures and CBS to finally wise up to the fact that this show has lost 1 MILLION viewers and counting since August of 2010 and to realize that MAB is driving this show into a very early grave. By realizing this, Sony and CBS need to terminate MAB's employment with Sony Pictures and CBS and also terminate the employment of Scott Hamner and Hogan Sheffer as well. But they obviously need to hire a brand new executive producer and new head writers before getting rid of those three. The only reason that MAB is sitting in the driver's seat at Y&R is because she married into the Bell family, which is the family that created "The Young and the Restless" along with their sister daytime drama, "The Bold and the Beautiful". Just because she's a Bell by marriage, does not make her exempt from being terminated for quickly turning this show into a complete farce.
Just for the sake of argument, I will be the one that gets hired to replace MAB as Executive Producer (hey, I know it'll never happen, but this is obviously wishful thinking here.......). Also, new head writers would be in place as well. I can think of a few names of people who can write for this show much, MUCH better than MAB, SH, and HS will ever be able to dream of doing.
So, here is what I would do if I were in charge of Y&R and it is a long list and does include storyline ideas for certain characters in which they would exit from the show and there would also be several roles that will get re-casted.
1: Recast the roles of Lily Ashby, Heather Stevens, and Victoria Newman. All of these roles would be recast with much, much stronger actresses who can stand toe to toe with some of the big heavy hitters on this show. Lily: Davetta Sherwood, Heather: Vail Bloom, Victoria: several to choose from here: Alicia Minshew (provided she does not stay on with AMC after it moves to the internet), Gina Tognoni (same goes with OLTL or whether she'll be okay moving to LA to take on the role).
2: As for a couple of the male roles to recast, I would recast Chance with Tom Pelphrey (he and Jeff Branson (Ronan) played brothers on GL and definitely played antagonists with each other on that show). This next one may end up upsetting a lot of folks and that is recasting the role of Phillip III. Why? Nothing against Thom Bierdz, but he's really not that strong of an actor. So, I would look for an actor around Thom's age who is either openly gay or a straight actor who is okay with playing the role of a gay character and is comfortable in their skin about their own sexuality and is not going to freak out when having to kiss and/or be in a sex scene with a potential love interest. I cannot think of any actors at the moment that would take on this role. Any suggestions folks?
3: Okay, here come the cast cuts in order to bring the show well under budget and yes, there are going to be a few on here that people really want to keep but I feel that they do not add much of anything to the show anymore. So, here goes:
First off: (Yes, I know I'll have tomatoes thrown at me by Daniel Goddard fans): The Atkinson family of Colin, Genevieve, and Cane. They all decide to head back to Australia for good and Lily goes along to try and salvage her marriage with Cane. But it fails, so she comes back to GC being played by Davetta Sherwood and Charlie and Matilda would be slightly aged, not by much, just ever so slightly.
I would have suggested Tucker McCall but now that he is Devon's biological father and Tucker has ties to GC due to Katherine Chancellor being his mother and Devon also has ties to the Winters family. So, Tucker stays. I know that Debbie Morgan (soon to be ex Angie Hubbard; AMC) just started taping either at the very end of August or the first of September, instead of making her a relative of Sofia's, have her be Devon's biological mother, Yolanda Hamilton. I can definitely see major fireworks between her and Stephen Nichols.
Next going would be Sofia and Malcolm Winters. Julie Pace Mitchell cannot act her way out of a paper bag for one thing and it always looks like she's reading her lines from a yellow pages phone book.......not good in my opinion. Darius McCrary will have to go. This recast was a complete bomb and fans have never accepted Darius in this role. We do end up finding out that the baby boy that Sofia is carrying is actually Malcolm's. So, Sofia and Malcolm reconcile and decide to leave GC and head over to Europe so that Sofia can oversee Tucker's McCall overseas division.
Next to go would be Michael Fairman, who plays Patrick Murphy, Katherine's husband. Murphy ends up having a heart attack while on a fishing trip and dies.
Next is Jessica Heap as Eden Baldwin. Another useless character. Once the secret about why she and Noah broke up gets out, she ends up leaving town and heads back to France for good.
Back to New Mexico would be Sam, the vet! Sean Patrick Flannery is really useless and is only there to keep Sharon's fragile state from going south anymore than it already has. Also leaving would be Jessica Collins as Avery Bailey Clark, Sharon's attorney and Phyllis' sister. Once Sharon is exonerated of the non-murder of Skye Lockhart, she can head back to wherever she came from.
Also, the actress who plays Hunter, Noah's friend from New York also would be sent packing and back to NY she goes.
Once Heather is recast with Vail Bloom (hopefully) and the current district attorney (can't remember his name) botches a big case and loses his re-election bid, that actor leaves the GC canvas and Heather ends up becoming the DA for GC.
The last two to exit are shockers and I know I'm gonna catch some major flak for this, but I think it's necessary. There will be a major storyline involving these two that will involve bringing back four characters from the past.
Michelle Stafford (Phyllis) and Michael Graziadei (Daniel). Follow along here, okay?
We know that Paul's son Ricky comes to GC to finally get to know his father and find out why Paul never raised him. We get that out of the way. Ricky decides to visit his mother at the psychiatric hospital where she's at since she's mentally unstable and was not competent to stand trial for trying to kill Christine. I would love to get Eva Longoria back for a one or two episode cameo appearance as Isabella Brana. During her visit with Ricky, she gives Ricky a huge envelope full of stuff. But Isabella tells Ricky to not open it but to give it to his father, Paul to open. Once Paul opens that envelope, he finds a ton of "dirt" on Phyllis that Isabella has on Phyllis. In it, it details that Phyllis told Isabella that she tried to run Christine and Paul down and kill the both of them all of those years ago and when that failed, Phyllis brought Isabella to GC to kill Christine yet again. Also in the envelope are a litany of other crimes that Phyllis has committed over the years. So, armed with all of this new information, Paul calls Christine and asks her to come back to GC and that it is urgent and that he cannot discuss it on the phone. Once she comes back and finds out all of the stuff about Phyllis and how Phyllis used a very unstable Isabella to try and kill Christine, Christine mentions to Paul that they should call Phyllis' one time guy pal and partner in crime, Dr. Tim Reid (Aaron Lustig) and have him return to GC. Armed with all of the information that they have on Phyllis and with Dr. Reid's testimony (in exchange for immunity), Phyllis is charged and convicted of 3 counts of attempted murder and whatever else you want to throw in there. She has the book thrown at her and she is sentenced to 25 years to life. That ushers Michelle Stafford off of the show. Now, we turn to Daniel.
He is absolutely stunned and shocked at what his mother has done to Christine and Paul and the many other people that Phyllis has hurt over the years, including himself. Daniel then calls his "Dad" Danny, which brings Michael Damian back for a cameo appearance and Daniel spills all to Danny. Daniel wants to leave GC for good because of what his mother did. So, Danny has Daniel leave GC with him and they continue on a worldwide tour that Danny is doing and Daniel becomes part of the band and crew for Danny.
Obviously, Lauralee Bell, Aaron Lustig, Michael Damian, and Eva Longoria would not stick around long term as all of their appearances are cameo's to usher Michelle Stafford and Michael Graziadei off of the GC canvas for good.
So, all actors/actresses that get cut from the show in total are: 16 but three others will replace the actresses in the roles of Lily, Heather, and Victoria. With the possibility of bringing Chance back in the form of Tom Pelphrey as well as recasting the role of Phillip III. That right there, frees up a ton of money for the show to work with.
By freeing up that money, Sony Pictures and CBS give the veterans of the show some very good contracts and decent money to be paid with, including Melody Thomas Scott.
Also, update and replace some sets that are way outdated. Also, create a brand new opening montage with Beth Maitland (Traci Abbott) singing the theme song for the show. The show would use CGI technology for the new opening sequence. That new opening sequence would then only show the actors/actresses who are on the show for that particular day while still showing the names of the cast members.
Storyline wise, I'd explore why Katherine is being the shrew and vindictive woman that she is. We find out that she has yet another mini-stroke. They are able to determine that her turn into a bitter and vindictive woman started when she had her first couple of mini-strokes. They get the situation under control and Katherine finally starts acting like the Katherine that we know and love.
I would also keep Sharon single for a good long while. Why? I believe that Sharon needs a lot of therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist in coming to terms with the choices that she's made in her life that took her down the very dark road that she went down, all thanks in large part to the death of Cassie, her divorce from Nick, her unsavory relationship with Nick's half brother, Adam. This theraputic storyline for Sharon (Sharon Case) would last a year so that it is told realistically and is not rushed. She will continue after that first year to see her therapist every so often.
"Restless Style" closes its doors for good. Nick ends up working for Jabot, not entirely wanting to jump into bed with his father again at Newman and being dumbed down by Victor all the time, like in times past.
As a result of Phyllis' conviction, Nick gets full custody of Summer and Lucy ends up being returned to Billy and Victoria, who've already added another child to their family thanks to a miracle pregnancy for Victoria (remember the couch sex they had???).
Michael finally tells Victor that he's done being Victor's lapdog and to go find himself another attorney. Leslie (Angell Conwell) becomes a part of Michael's law firm and she does have a relationship with Neil that is not only healthy but very adult. They do end up getting married.
After the Cane debacle, Lily remains a single mom with twins. She does go to work at Jabot as a model and ends up taking ballet like her mom Dru did.
Nikki is now sober and back in GC. But she is definitely not wanting another go around with Victor. She's had enough of his abuse over the years. She remains single and also works at Jabot. Nikki and Jill learn to cope with sharing Katherine as a shoulder to cry on when needed and for sage advice as well.
Adam ends up paying the piper for destroying evidence that could have cleared Sharon. His eyesight is returned to full capacity after the trial that he went to at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. At the same time, Adam begins examining his life and starts to realize that the choices he's made has hurt a lot of people and begins the road toward redemption by starting to make amends to those he's hurt so badly.
Chloe finally makes amends to Billy and Billy is now allowed to see Delia whenever he wants, especially after Delia gets through her medical crisis. Chloe goes on to have a meaningful relationship with Ronan, much to Nina's chagrin as well as Kevin's. Nina and Paul start having a wonderful relationship that eventually leads the two to get married, especially after all that the both went through with their own adult kids.
Katherine sells controlling interest in Jabot to Jack and after doing so, he fires Jill and hires Nikki instead. Jill ends up working at Chancellor Industries. Jack takes Jabot to new heights and Jabot outsells Beauty of Nature. All of the Abbott kids, minus Traci who decides to stay in New York with Steve are back at Jabot and running the family business like their dearly departed father John had always wanted. Newman Enterprises starts falling apart little by little and Victor becomes more of a tyrant than in times past and drives his family away, including Victoria and Abby. Both Victoria and Abby start a business of their own and it proves to be quite successful. Katherine and Tucker slowly work toward mending their relationship as mother and son.
Ashley and Tucker reconcile and their marriage gets stronger every day. They do continue to battle as their respective companies go head to head business wise. It makes for some healthy competition.
Tucker and Devon slowly work on getting to know one another but their is still a lot of friction because of the fact that Tucker wasn't a part of Devon's life for more than 20 years. Roxanne (Tatyana Ali) returns to GC and she and Devon get serious. They too get married.
Gloria finally dumps Jeffrey after she finds out he was cooking the books to pay off bookies with Gloworm money. She continues to run Gloworm to this day. Jeffrey is hauled off to the klink for his crimes.
Paul's sister Patty (Stacy Haiduk) is the one that murdered Diane Jenkins. Due to her psychological instability, she ends up at a psychiatric hospital not far from Genoa City, which allows for Paul to visit her on occasion. Patty did have some help in offing Diane but she refuses to give the person who helped her up. As a result of what Patty did, Paul and Patty's mother, Mary has a massive heart attack and she ends up passing away. Paul looks for his father Carl to no avail. So, Paul buries Mary (off camera) and there is no funeral.
The reason that Eden broke things off with Noah was because Eden came home to their flat in Paris to find Noah in bed with...........................a MAN! Noah finally admits to Eden that he is indeed gay. When Nick, Sharon, Faith, and the rest of the Newman clan find out about Noah's sexual orientation, they are very accepting and will always love him unconditionally. However, Noah's friendship with Devon suffers a huge blow when Devon goes on an anti-gay tirade and Noah ends up getting bullied big time in college. Katherine and Jill learn about what happened to Noah and they call Phillip and he returns (new actor playing Phillip) and helps Noah cope with what happened to him. Noah wants a relationship with Phillip but Phillip nixes it due to the huge age difference. Phillip just wants to be a friend to Noah. Both of the guys end up doing a "It Gets Better Campaign" for Walnut Grove Academy as well as GCU.
Paul begins to wonder why Ricky hasn't been dating anyone. He asks Ricky if there's anyone special in his life and Ricky says no. After a little more prodding from Paul, Ricky admits that he's gay as well. Noah and Ricky meet and begin dating.
Okay, that's all I've got so far. This took me nearly 2-3 hours to put together. I hope that you all enjoy this and please do leave your comments and suggestions. However, please refrain from personal attacks against me or using foul language of any kind as I do not appreciate it.
Thank you,
Michael Andrews; Saint Louis, Missouri
