Maria Arena Bell Kills Y&R

Earlier today Tristan Rogers tweeted "seems Colin is leaving GC." What a very low blow to fans who have come to see Colin as one of the highlights of The Young and the Restless.  Tristan is one of the finest actors in daytime.  He's the one who created the iconic role of Robert Scorpio and never gave us a dull moment.  But when he went to Y&R as Colin, even die-hard Scorpio fans came to not only accept him, but embrace this new character of Colin.  I am a former General Hospital fan who quit daytime altogether due to terrible stories and the destruction of once great soaps on ABC.  But Tristan and Jess Walton's great chemistry made daytime fun again and worth watching.

But in my careful study of Y&R, I began to see the downfall of this soap, and a death charge led in full force by head writer Maria Arena Bell.  But she is not alone in that dastardly deed.  The CBS execs are fully responsible for allowing someone to drive a popular soap into the ground.  From the top down, the fault lies with CBS, who may just be allowing their daytime lineup to die, just like Frons has done with All My Children and One Life to Life.  CBS knows their ratings are down, but yet they allow Bell to continue her power-hungry reign of terror.  Sony supposedly has big issues with Bell, but yet no one has the cojones to do anything about releasing her yet.

With Bell, where does one begin with the problems there?  First, she has no direction or clarity in her writing. Plots are begun, they begin to grow into something interesting, and then they flounder miserably- over and over again. She adds characters with all the attention span of a gnat. I am convinced that Y&R should install a revolving door at the gate so that the rotation of entering and exiting characters can go more smoothly.  New actors are introduced and we are led to believe that they are going to be a great part of the landscape.  But then fans get yanked around according to the senseless whims of MAB.  We're supposed to take it and say thank you?  No thank you.

MAB's efforts to write a decent story misses the basic points of writing that most high school literature students know.  A plot has a certain dramatic structure that moves through exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement (Hey MAB, try googling that).  Yet MAB avoids basic writing techniques and is devoid of creative storytelling that connects viewers to the story.  How long will CBS allow this farce to continue?  My guess, all the way to thy daytime graveyard.

Case in point, Tristan Rogers.  What a great addition he was to the cast.  But now MAB has put her kiss of death on Colin. Things were going well until MAB saw Genie Francis on Oprah and made her power play to grab her up for Y&R.  This was also a chance to thumb her nose at ABC.  Francis was obviously promised a strong role, opposite of Laura, the poor doormat on GH.  But Francis went from a GH doormat to a Y&R "crazypants."  This move came on the tail end of MAB undoing an early fail of killing Cane, and then writing him back into life. Her efforts just completely miss the mark.

Well, maybe CBS will get their way and garner some of their own here-today-gone-tomorrow daytime cook/talk shows in place of Y&R and B&B.  But where does that leave MAB?  Without a job.  She's only shooting herself in the foot... reloading, and shooting again... reloading and...