Paula's Soapbox

As you may have read in one of my earlier posts I have decided to stop watching Y&R due to the fact that the writing has made the show unwatchable on many different levels. I have not watched the show in well over a month and from what I have been reading on various message boards I am not alone. Many longtime fans of this once beloved show seem to be very unhappy with the quality of the writing and have either decided to stop watching altogether or complain to as many people as they think will listen, or both. In reading through several of these complaints I discovered that Y&R's writing sunk to yet another low when they decided to not only kill off Victor's dog, but actually show the dog as he was dying after being poisoned. Again, I have not been watching the show but if what I have read in these postings is true, then Y&R is going to have their work cut out for them if they ever decide to restore the integrity and quality of their writing. I cannot imagine why a...

"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." Apparently Y&R's Assistant DA Heather Stevens lives by these words because no matter how many times she fails she continues to try to build successful cases out of thin air. I guess almost destroying her career when she thought Victor murdered Ji Min did not teach her anything about not jumping to conclusions since she had Phyllis arrested for giving Summer peanuts, with no evidence other than a statement from Mary Jane. I am assuming that at the hospital Heather told Paul who had made her suspicious of Phyllis in the first place because he went to Mary Jane's room to question her. I am not sure why he bothered considering that he had to leave seconds after arriving, even after she told him that she would answer his questions at that moment. I guess informing Nina that there was something wrong with Cane's blood was more important, but one would think since Phillip has been off canvas for years now Nina c...

Unlike the villain Y&R has in Adam, they seem to have somehow managed to create a believable soap villain in Mary Jane Benson, aka Paul's sister Patty. Mary Jane embodies everything a soap villain should be. She is manipulative, calculating, and diabolical, but most importantly she holds the potential for future redemption. What makes Mary Jane different from Adam is the fact that she has an excuse for behaving the way she does. She had a nervous breakdown years ago and continues to suffer from mental instability, so it is not entirely beyond the realm of possibilities that she could one day receive help and be completely cured of her psychosis. It also does not hurt that her brother is perhaps the only resident of Genoa City without skeletons in his closet, making it easy to believe that there must be some good in Mary Jane as well. Moreover Victor is using Mary Jane's own weaknesses against her in order to get to Jack, which sort of makes her a victim. In fact one could a...