The Young and the Restless Confronts a Harsh Reality — Devastating Choices Await!

Cuing up Amazon Prime recently to watch an episode of The Young and the Restless, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. When I went to the soap’s homepage, there were Victor, Nikki and Jack, inarguably the show’s three most recognizable characters. But the daytime drama is called The Young and the Restless, and while the dynamic trio may be restless… well…

Let’s just say that it’s been a minute since they were able to chalk up their misadventures to inexperience and youthful folly.

And that’s when it occurred to me that Young & Restless doesn’t actually have any characters under 30 years old. None that are on contract, anyway. (Faith, Lucy & Co. only recur.) Now I’m not at all one of those people who thinks that to bring in a young audience, you need young characters. I’ve laughed right along with you at the execs who have clung to that notion even as it’s been proven wrong over and over again. But some diversification of the canvas wouldn’t kill the show. In fact, it would help. How? So glad you asked!

For starters, the addition of some teens or twentysomethings would force Young & Restless to hatch the occasional plot that doesn’t revolve around business. It might even corner the romance-averse show into playing a love story. Remember when Young & Restless told those? Back in the day, Nick and Sharon made us swoon, Lily and Daniel made our hearts skip a beat, we head our breath waiting for J.T. and Colleen’s first kiss. Those were good times.

The downside of bringing in the next generation, of course, is that it means that some of the last generation will have to go to make room for them. And I know that nobody likes change. Suggest writing off a character — any character — and suddenly, that character becomes your all-time favorite. “But I love Society Customer No. 7!”

It’s gotta happen, folks. Otherwise, we are stuck with a canvas full of untouchable couples and characters condemned to move from one corporation to the next and from one CEO position to the next while our eyes glaze over. And you know as well as I do that this is what the late, great Bill Bell would’ve done. You’ll recall that he wasn’t afraid to exact major change. If he had been, the Brooks and Foster families would still be front and center, not the Newmans and Abbotts.