I think people watched Y&R because they wanted to see Adam's desmise.

Jamey, you really must fired up. I can't blame you, though. I am just as irked and confused as you are. That was  A LOT of "inspiration"!! Two pages worth!! LOL!!!!!

Don't worry, I am gonna sneak you in a bottle of poisoned water to feed to your doppleganger so that you can escape without anyone noticing.....wait a minute, you don't have a doppleganger?? Damn, there goes that plan.

Glad to see GH rise in the ratings. These days, I think that GH needs to FINALLY reach up and SNATCH that first place spot from Y&R!!! I think that until another show finally BESTS Y&R in the ratings, Maria Bell and Paul Rauch are gonna continue passing out that tainted Kool-Aid to all the high-ranking execs, and they will keep chug-a-lugging!!!! I tried some of it myself......rancid and bitter, kinda like Y&R nowadays!!!

I am also flabbergasted by the rise in viewership for Y&R viewers, and this is gonna make it even harder for the head execs in charge (HEICs) to realize that sometimes good ratings don't equal QUALITY stories and storytelling. The only way to ensure a revolution could be for people to simply boycott Y&R and stop writing until the ratings drop so low that they HAVE to do something---either hire a new head writer or..........hell, there is no other solution, hire a new head writer!!  I am not a Nielsen family, so my viewership doesn't matter, but we can all agree that the Nielsens need to go the way of the DINOSAUR!!!!!!!!!!!

Maria Bell was doing a FANTASTIC job around the end of 08 and early 09, but then something happened. I am not sure what, but everything went straight to hell in a pine basket!!!!

As long as Y&R stays at the top, the execs will remain complacent and keep believing the garbage that is being spun over there is magic dust, when it's really something quite different, with a much fouler odor (if you get my drift!) To quote my Vicki Rowell again, "Even iron bends." The same viewers who made you #1 in the 80s and 90s can EASILY make you # 4 or #5 in 2010!!! Please don't get it twisted, Maria and Paul!!!!

That picture of Yvonne Zima really makes me wanna fling my laptop out of the window. Would that make me crazy?? I STILL wonder who Yvonne is sleeping with over there, and can I get that person's phone number??? I can't act either, but I would LOVE to get paid an obscene amount of money just to LEARN how to act onscreen, and have EVERYONE pat me on my head and give me lollipops at the end of each work day, even though I SUCK!!!!!!

I think were seeing slowly destruction of the two remaining soaps on CBS; as said before Moonves hates soaps, ATWT and GL fans found out the hard way. No matter what begging and pleading we do nothing is going save them when someone is hell bent on getting rid of you. I see it all the time were I work at when someone about to get fired or laid off, no one talks to you or gives you stairs. Start polishing your resumes guys.

A lot of schools had spring break that week. I think that could have been a factor into why all soap rose, more people home.

Also, people might tune in to see a stunt, but will they stay? At some point people are going say this is too much and tune out. I quit Y&R after that week.

I think this weeks ratings could be interesting for a few of the soaps.

 I am so happy for GH because they are the best soap there..
The Kris Abuse S/L and even the Claudia death trail is good..
I love the mob Clan and the performances are out of this world  

I hope GH will continue the rise in the ratings  because the deserve it 

I guess there is a legit point tptb are making. It is like the Sonny argument that is made. Most online fans hate him, but offline ppl don't or are indifferent. The same logic can be made for the gains w/OLTL and Y&R. The online ppl like the gays, but maybe their "mainstream" audience are more intrigue w/the stories w/Jolie and the teens. And as for Y&R I guess seeing the fan faves no matter what the story is will keep them tuned into the show and the time and time fact that they don't have competiton. Wasn't the ratings under LML (of course not the same numbers) saw gains also?

Of course my argument could be moot w/the pt dkp made w/the spring break arguments.

nope. LML lost viewers.

 OH MY LORD!!!! LMAO!

This just made my day!

Jamey Giddens, I ADORE you!!!!! Thank you for keeping it real!

Folks, MAB and company CAN afford to be complacent because she and her team know they are going to be the #1 Soap regardless of the idiocy of the storylines.  Soaps are supposed to be outlandish and perhpas MAB and her team understands this better than anyone - even us the idiot audience that act as enablers (well I am one of those enablers but I'm tuning out b/c the current storylines don't appeal to me)

MAB is making sure her ass is not going to be shown the door and I don't blame her.  I'll be taking a break from watching though.

Please don't anyone hate me here...but the masquerade party on Y&R left me breathless. I thought it was rather eerie at times, and the "gruesome twosome", Ryder and Daisy I found to be quite menacing, as "Mama Bear" to be rather creepy. I have to ask, at one point during the masque Phyllis got up from her chair and grabbed a guy who she thought was Adam but turned out not to be. Who was the guy, or was this a red herring of some sort?
As for Yvonne Zima, she is the younger sister to Madeline Zima who starred on "The Nanny" with Heather Tom's (ex-Victoria) younger sister Nicole Tom. Tom/Zima sisters are friends with the Bells, no?
On a side note, I know it seems to be rather the thing to say nowadays about certain performers/characters on are show who are allowed to stay on and disrupt the fabric of the program we know, but lets not diss them to the max by inferring they are sleeping with anybody behind the scenes. I can't disprove that theory, but still it is kind of degrading thing to say.
Erik

I love you Jamey. Thank you for saying it like it truely is. I can't believe it. Y&R may had it's worst week EVER and is gaining ratings. I don't understand.

Are people watching because they want to feel angry about something? Are there really people out there who are liking this shit?

Or is it all because Adam "died"?

I don't have a clue. I just know that not a single minute of this show deserves that current ratings.

Can't DC get an interview with Maria Arena Bell?  I would like to hear what she has to say to all this crap, asked by people who are keeping it real. And not some journalist who even compare Maria and her team to Bill Bell's work.

I cam

Preach it Jamey! Days & GH are the only watchable shows lately. Y&R should be ashamed of themselves.

Jamey,

I couldn't stop laughing --until I read the stats.  Then, I couldn't stop squishing up my face and saying WTH?

Thanks for starting the way you did; it helped me put the rest of it in perspective.

I know what happened with Maria Arena Bell last year: Paul Rauch and Hogan Sheffer took complete control. She's just a figurehead, just like Dena Higley. Only in this case, it's not a good thing!

Yes I agree with whoever said it was springbreak during those weeks and a lot of high school and college kids were off.  That's the reason for all the ratings gaining viewers.

Just watch for next week or the week after that and the ratings will fall back into place. The kiddies won't be around.

Y&R is a totally mess with that Lauren evil twin mess plus Patty. It makes no sense.

LML ratings eventually went down, but the highest rated story in the last four years for Y&R was the Phyllis as Sheila story.  It was universally panned by on line fans and critics, but the acting of Tracey Bregman, Doug Davidson, and Christian La Blanc was stellar.  Michelle Stafford was good, but she wasn't really Sheila.  It was a short 6 week story with the satisfactory ending of Lauren killing Sheila, and a ratings hit garnering a 4.5 when Lauren kicked down that door, ala Angie Dickinson, to kill Sheila and save her baby along with Phyllis and Summer.  I think this may be why they are now trying this Lauren/Sarah story.

Now, should Sheila have ended there?  Yes, but I bet it will be just like the Pheila one with a quick five or six week run (we probably have two or three weeks left) and in the end we will see Lauren back where she belongs and Daisy and Sarah dead.

I was suprised that MAB would even contemplate yet another doppelganger story, but some act like this show went of the rails just with this story.  This show went off the rails last June when Adam dressed up like Sabrina, causing Ashley to lose her baby, cleaned her up and through her fetus and bloody nightgown in the fireplace, and started of her hysterical pregancy.  Sharon and Ashley giving birth at the same time enabling Adam to make his switch was just as contrived as Patty dying Emily's hair blonde and taking her pace and Sheila having a sister who had plastic surgery to look like Lauren.

Saying all that, besides Zima, these stories are being played by some very talented actors who are giving their all to sell them.  Maria and Hogan are now hacks, but they still have some terrific actors.  But there is a silver lining in all this.  Patty is going to be matched up with Sarah, and I see both doppelgangers being brought down by the beginning or middle of May.  When Sarah goes down, so will Daisy (not sure about Ryder).  Three less psychos on the loose, and maybe Y&R can at least attempt to get back to some character driven storytelling.

These ratings were also effected by the spring break and even when outrageous stories cause a spike in ratings they never last long, just as the ratings after the Pheila story, had a steady decline under LML. 

It saddens me that so many young girls are watching GH.

Okay, I have to know, why do people not like Yvonne Zima? I find the Callahan twins rather eerie but fun.
Erik

Bunting---

Trying to understand why Maria Bell, Hogan Sheffer, Scott Hamner and Paul Rauch do ANY of the ridiculous things that they are doing nowadays is guaranteed to make your head hurt every time, my friend. Banging your head up against the wall will accomplish the same effect, but it will be a lot less painful than remembering how GOOD this show used to be, and how BAD it is becoming. I just try not to analyze it too much, but I do wish that they could go back in a time machine to the end of 2008 when, in my opinion, the show was damn near perfect. Adam hadn't been demonized yet, there was no Patty or Sheila 3.0, and pretty much all the stories were operating on full cylinders, and everything was wonderful in Genoa City. I know that can't happen, but I always have YouTube to remind me of the good times.
 

Llanview76-- I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't like Yvonne Zima because I find her to be BORING, completely lacking in stage presence with no "star qualities" and a piss-poor actress overall. A good villain or villainess is supposed to make you feel a full spectrum of emotions---anger and rage one minute, then sympathy and empathy the next minute. They should also have the ability to scare the crap out of you at a moments notice, and they should be unpredictable and intriguing.

The actor who plays a good villain character is not supposed to simply stand there and recite lines, they are supposed to be so damned good that you can't take your eyes off the screen while they are on. I think about my favorite villain characters in soap history/actors---Michael Zaslow, who played Roger Thorpe on GL, Kimberlin Brown who played Sheila on B&B, Anthony Herrera who played James Stenbeck on ATWT, and ALL of these actors exhibited these qualities.
 
Yvonne Zima seems to be the wrong actress to play a villainess character. I think she is working on this show simply because Maria is friends with someone who knows her agent, or because someone called in a "favor" to get her a job. I see no other logical reason why she got the job, except for the fact that there were a LOT of other actresses who were worse than her, but I also can't imagine anyone being THAT bad, especially not 100 or 200 other actresses, which is usually the number that auditions for shows like this.
 
I scratch my head EVERY day as I am forced to watch this actress smell up my television set. She has no passion, fire or intensity, and brings nothing to her performances other than mediocrity. Watching this actress recite her lines in a MONOTONE, robotic manner makes me simply roll my eyes and hit the "mute" button until she is off the screen. She just doesn't do it for me, and that is why I don't like Yvonne Zima.

I agree about Yvonne Zima. Her sister, Madeline, was not much better on The Nanny. Not sure what her acting is like now. She was on Californification and Heroes, but I watch neither of those.
All I can say is that I can't wait until this storyline is over. I just want Sarah, Daisy, Ryder, and Patty gone. The show is not enjoyable right now, and I'm waiting and anxious to see what storylines they have in store for this summer. I'm hoping they aren't as stupid and insipid as the ones currently on.

  Lol, Alston, I so appreciate the fact you answer my questions on here. Most of the time I feel some of my questions get glossed over.
  As for Yvonne Zima, my theory is that her last name is Zima, she is Madeline Zima's sister. Madeline played little Grace on "The Nanny", the little sister of Maggie Shefield played by Nichole Tom. Nichole is Heather Tom's sister (ex-Victoria, Y&R; currently Katie on B&B). My theory is the Bells must know the Zimas through the Tom sisters. I definately think Zima has the look to be a diabolical goth girl. And I have to admit the first time I was introduced to her work was during the masque. Maybe it was her costume that did the acting, maybe I just have a curiousness for the bizarre as to what these storylines are playing themselves out as. Maybe I am unaware of my love for Paul Rauch's work since it was so a part of my watching ONE LIFE TO LIVE back in the 80's. I just hope nobody here hates me if I seemed to be a bit captivated by bits and pieces of this story. I have seen classic Y&R episodes from the early 70's to the early 80's so I am aware there is a difference in the direction of where the show is going here. However, what seems to be going on here is pretty universal in Soapdom...there is too much of trying to incorporate high production values and gimmicks than sticking to exploring the characters in front of the camera. Like the masque for example...they could have dispensed with the gas explosion that didn't kill or maim anyone else except the antagonist.
Erik

Llanview76-- I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't like Yvonne Zima because I find her to be BORING, completely lacking in stage presence with no "star qualities" and a piss-poor actress overall.
 

Yep, that pretty much sums up my feelings for why Daisy does not resonate with me and why I switch channels or FF whenever she is onscreen.  She's practically invisible.

I find myself intrigued with Ryder, though.  I was trying not to like him, but there's something about the character and the actor that makes me pay attention to him.  Total opposite of Zima's interminable Daisy.  

Talk about bad... I'd rather watch Mac, than Daisy.  Yeah - I went there. 

To Pure_Diva #25,  I flipped a coin about Mac and Daisy to see which was worse and the darn thing landed on edge!