Yes, I'm a fan of "The Young and the Restless". My wife and my mom got me hooked onto this slop back when I had just graduated high school, and before I got my first regular job, Mom insisted that I keep her updated on all her soaps on CBS. While Dee still had another year before she graduated, she asked me to keep her updated on "Young and the Restless". And I've watched all of these off and on for over 35 years.
As most of you know, the daytime soap is a dying artform. The internet, DVRs, shifting viewing habits, and downright pitiful ratings compared to even just seven years ago have drawn closing curtains on "The Guiding Light" and soon "As the World Turns" two of TV's longest running shows. "Y&R" and its sequel series "The Bold and the Beautiful", are still hanging in there, but mostly because the former is still a big money-maker for CBS daytime and the latter has a gigantic international following that keeps the half-hour serial in the black for the network.
Even my personal preferences for daytime have now been whittled down to only "Y&R". Now that I'm no longer working nights, Dee and I spend all our evenings together. The battle for the big screen TV is as bold and bloody as anything seen on Battlestar Galactica, but one thing we can agree on is to sit and watch "Y&R" after we get home and join in together as we MST3K every episode, as each one has some outrageous plot hole you could steer Gallifrey through or scripting that tips off that one set of writers has not been paying attention to what the other set has been writing.
One character, though, has us absolutely caught up in his evil, psychotic ways, and that is Adam Wilson, the sociopathic son of Y&R's complex hero/villain Victor Newman, who has tried to drive his father's ex-wife Ashley crazy, is directly responsible for the loss of her baby and blackmailing a molesting OBGYN into convincing Ashley that her baby was still alive, switching the dead baby with a live one that just so happens to belong to his brother's ex-wife whom he is now married to (!!!), and committing acts of industrial espionage that could land him, his father, and his brother in the county clink. And that's just the stuff he's done recently.
This guy is quickly approaching levels of soap opera evil that haven't been seen since Dr. John Dixon made life miserable for nearly everyone in As the World Turns' hometown of Oakdale. He hasn't quite reached that level just yet, mainly because Adam is mentally and physically ill, and therefore isn't entirely responsible for his own actions. John Dixon was a (OOLALA!!) who knew what he was doing every step of the way. But it is Adam's terrible flaws (and the great acting by actor Michael Muhney, whom I predict is heading for great things after he's done on daytime) and his ability to charm anyone that give him an unsettlingly human face and keeps us coming back for more.
But I do have a feeling his current situation is about to hit the fan. Almost everyone connected to him suspects that he's far more dangerous than even they realized, and his only support, wife Sharon, who's stood by him despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, is finally questioning what she got into by marrying him. I can't wait until tomorrow...
Oh, my God. Did this crap really come out of my head?
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