Oh, Young & Restless. We and your whole audience love you dearly. Really, we do. We’ve thrilled to your plot twists and love stories for

decades and have been grateful that you’ve been there for us through thick and thin. But the current state of affairs on the show is… let’s

say “not ideal.” So now maybe it’s our turn to be there for you — by offering up what we hope will be a little bit of constructive criticism.

 

 

Ask pretty much any fan — or read any comment — and you’ll find that the general consensus is that Young & Restless has come to play less like a daytime drama than a business report on the evening news. Almost every storyline seems to revolve around millionaires fighting over their millions. Simply put, we’re not worried about any of them and don’t care about the outcomes. Heck, Cane’s comeback is just a retread of Tucker’s — and we all know what a big impact that didn’t have. It was Glissade, Glissade, Glissade and then pfft.

On top of that, at a time when non-millionaires are being laid off left and right because of AI and worrying about how they will pay for their health insurance if their employers no longer will, you have to ask yourself: What viewer would invest in a plot about all-powerful AI being acted out by people who are so affluent, they probably pay all of their healthcare costs with the loose change that their invisible maids find in their sofas?

Viewers might say that the business-minded storytelling is OK — not great but OK — if Young & Restless was churning out the kind of hold-your-breath, palpitation-inducing romances that it did in the old days. But alas, it isn’t. Kyle is such a tool, we’re not rooting for him to win back Claire (who is much sparkier with Holden, anyway). Billy is too fixated on Victor and his own ego for us to want him anywhere near Sally. Adam and Chelsea feel like they were reunited because no one could think of anything better to do with them.

As for Christine and Danny, their remarriage should feel like a huge deal after so many years apart. But because there’s so little there there now besides nostalgia, we’re not dying to attend that wedding, we’re… ya know… just willing.

And another thing: WTH has happened to the show’s Black characters? Young & Restless’ diversity helped make it and keep it No. 1 for years when Neil, Drucilla, Malcolm & Co. were frontburner mainstays. But the show gave Nate a surprise half brother in Damian, only to write him off in less than a year. It has so little interest in Devon that his wife Abby has been bumped to recurring. Lily — despite being the object of Cane’s obsession — has almost as little to do as Esther. And Amanda comes and goes only as a talk-to for Cane, Phyllis, etc.

We’re not at all suggesting what a grumpy Bold & Beautiful fan recently did (and was shot down by Sean Kanan). We don’t want Young & Restless to go away, we merely want it to go in a different direction. All of its problems are solvable. In fact, all of the pieces are there to return it to its glory days. They just need to be moved around a little, to focus more on passion than power, to make characters rich in personality rather than flat-out wealth, to give us someone, anyone, who has concerns that mirror our own. (“No, sorry, we can’t take the private jet to Paris this commercial break, we’ve used all our PTO for the year.”)