A Critic’s Review Of The Young and the Restless: Musical Careers & Rivals

When it comes to The Young and the Restless, every fan has their own opinion – and Soap Hub is no different. For five days, we sat and watched the good, the bad, and everything in between, and now we offer you a handy review, and a cheeky critique, of Y&R’s week that was.

The Young and the Restless: A Critic’s Week In Review

To borrow a quote from a Young and the Restless character, “some things are inevitable.” Things like…

* Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) making a bad situation worse and exposing himself as a misogynistic hypocrite — as if he’s one to talk about sticking around to make a marriage work or to judge someone for being the center of a love triangle.

* The renewed focus on characters engaging in a not-at-all-rousing game of musical careers — Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei), Elena Dawson (Brytni Sarpy), Nate Hastings, Jr. (Sean Dominic), Sally Spectra (Courtney Hope) and Chloe Mitchell (Elizabeth Hendrickson), and Billy Abbott (Jason Thompson).

* The deconstruction of Billy so that he can be built up all over again.

* Sally being dictated to by her baser instincts resulting in the loss of a good thing like Nicholas Newman (Joshua Morrow) — who’s not actually all that good, but as far men on The Young and the Restless go, he is fair to middling.

* The absolute blundering of the classic “Rivals Team Up” trope. I want to get behind Ashley Abbott (Eileen Davidson), Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott), and Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford), really I do. But…but I just can’t.

* The billing of Jeremy Stark (James Hyde) as this soap’s next big bad only for the legend to surpass the man. Does anybody else remember Ashland “The Lockeness Monster” Locke, the character whose motives and throughline were made up as the writers went along?

* Kyle Abbott (Michael Mealor) and Summer Newman Abbott (Allison Lanier) find themselves on opposing sides when it comes to Diane Jenkins (Susan Walters).

Wait a minute! Now that might be something worth watching. That might be the character-motivated strife that’s been missing from Y&R for quite some time. At the very least, that would be a trouble-in-paradise storyline that actually makes some sense, unlike whatever’s going on with that plot-dictated Devon/Abby (Bryton James and Melissa Ordway) mess.

Further Y&R Musings

* So, let me get this straight…it was little Lucy Romalotti that got Daniel into video games and not Electronics Queen Phyllis? Mmmmmm…guess it’s inevitable that Josh Griffith would forget one of Phyllis’s most enduring/endearing skills.

The Young and the Restless airs weekdays on CBS. For an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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