So, remember when Maria Arena Bell told Nelson a gay story was still to come? Well, she lied (nothing new there). Thom Bierdz told the advocate that his six month contract is up, hasn't been renewed, and that he'll appears in 8 episodes in November and then "disappear."
So what was the use of bringing Phillip III back from the dead and undoing all that history to keep Bierdz on the backburner all this time?
I hope Nelson rips Y&R and the writing team over this move.
And thus solidifies one of the great soap opera boondoggles in recent years. This is Y&R's unabortion.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
Okay I'm going to say it. What MAB did with Phillip, is FAR worse than what LML did. Latham's mistake was easily reversible. Whereas MAB went psycho with the most outlandish idea.
I hope more useless characters and deadweight accompany Bierdz on his way out.
But we all know his departure probably just means more time to tell the giant rodent storylines Y&R fans are so eager to see.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
This **** took her a year to plan out and this was the result. BOO!
Crystal like I said b4, and I know you could careless now that you warned us all, girl you were right)
It is getting real hard to defend this woman. What happen to the Y&R that was on this time last yr?
And as for this debacle the story could've been really riveting and timely if they did it w/Chance b/c like Mark said it would've been interesting. The whole Don't Ask Don't Tell angle would've been perfect and John Driscoll is a good enough actor to have pulled that off, but no we have him gone from war vet. to instadetective over night and bossing Paul freaking Williams around and him romancing Chloe which is meh (she and Billy are the next big couple of the show if they play their cards right).
GET IT TOGETHER MARIA! There is no reason for this show to be like this when we saw what you guys (Hogan & Scott too!) were doing last yr.
Posts: 5344 | Location: New York/California | Registered: September 30, 2006
Originally posted by MTSRocks: Okay I'm going to say it. What MAB did with Phillip, is FAR worse than what LML did. Latham's mistake was easily reversible. Whereas MAB went psycho with the most outlandish idea.
Yes! Yes! Yes! LML's mistakes were always fixable. MAB is destroying the fabric of the show.
I don't understand why people are surprised by this. It was a mistake before it even aired. You just had to look at the players with a history in soaps to know no gay storyline would work: Rauch and Sheffer. Maybe now MAB will get the blame she so richly deserves. I'm so sick of reading actors and journalists defending this woman.
As for Bierdz, I thought he was good in his scenes with Cast, but the writing was a disaster, and when I watched the show, I found John Driscoll more painful to watch than Bierdz. It was obvious that the show was playing the "is he gay?" thing so Driscoll was acting as if he were a zombie.
Thank goodness I quit this show. Either MAB changed her mind or she flat out lied. I guess this means that writer (Scott Hamner was it?) who broke the news that Y&R plans no gay storylines was right. So is Rafe on the way out next?
It's too bad because Nina shined when Phillip returned. It really was Nina's storyline. And there's a lot of potential if they recasted the role now that Phillip's return has played out with the originator bierdz had they wanted a better actor who could go toe to toe with Cast, Cooper, Walton, etc and could carry Y&R's gay couple.
If Bierdz is out they should ship out Deacon, Amber, Kevin, Daniel, Victoria, JT, Michael, Gloria, Jeff, Rafe and Jana.
But is Bierdz out for sure? I realize his contract is currently up and he has no more air dates scheduled past November, but Bierdz is encouraging people to be vocal about wanting to see Philip on screen. Given the money situation, they're probably just keeping him on a recurring basis because they obviously can't even afford to honor the existing contracts held by actors in stories they actually want to tell.
That said, the story did turn out to be a DISASTER.
To me, the fact that they only gave him a 6-month deal to begin with shows that they never really had any intention of carrying out the gay storyline.
I think its funny he airs eight times in the last month of his contract, which is not far from the total number of times he aired in the first five months.
Could it be possible that the Y&R folks wanted to follow through, but that Sony killed the gay storyline?
This message has been edited. Last edited by: zackfins,
Posts: 6112 | Location: Florida | Registered: July 05, 2006
I didn't even think about that Zackfins. I bet Song had a hand in this some how. MAB doesn't strike me a flat out liar. But the other two (Rauch/Sheffer) do.
Posts: 34 | Location: San Diego, California | Registered: May 05, 2008
Sony may be using rude and strong-arm tactics where money is concerned, but I doubt they are getting involved enough in storyline decisions to kill the gay story. I really seems like they never intended to do one, or maybe intended to in the way that you keep intending to call your grandmother and never actually doing it.
This has to be one of the biggest back fires in soap history. This story was so built up and dealt with a legendary story, yet turned into a total disaster.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. On one hand I feel like fans never give the actor the chance. Every time Thom Bierdz appeared on screen you constantly hear people attacking him for his bad acting - which I never really thought was all that bad btw.
Then the entire story line was attacked the minute Phillip showed up in Genoa City. People did not like the way Nina, Katherine and Jill started screaming immediately at him when he first showed up. I agree with that argument somewhat because his reveal was not done properly so fans had a right to be upset. And then he revealed he is GAY which I’m sure upset a lot more people once he uttered those words!!!
So with that being said I am not that surprise that the gay storyline never took off and now the actor is out of the show.
To me it seemed as if the fans are partly to blame here. If fans had given the actor a chance and perhaps the story a chance to unfold maybe the writers would have push the gay angle further.
Maybe there aren't too many people on this board who shares this view but I know that there were a lot of Y&R fans who seemed put off by bringing the character Phillip back from the dead only to have him GAY!!!
I watched the episode where Phillip told Nina why he faked his death and that he was gay with my mum - while his explanation made perfect sense to me, my mum on the other hand seemed annoyed with the explanation.
In her view and I guess a lot of women shares this view as well - they just could not get over the fact that he faked his death, left his family for all these years because he was gay. To them it was a bit too much to comprehend how someone who is supposed to be viewed with sympathy could walked away from a loving wife and child for all those years and then come back and we're all suppose to UNDERSTAND!!!
The storyline itself was never going to work from the beginning!!! And immediately fans realized this but I doubt anyone wanted to admit it. Instead we gripe about the bad acting and the stupid story of him running away from everything and everyone who loves him because he feared people would find out his secret.
For any gay individual they would understand this but for the rest of the population this still baffle people how and why gay men would do this to a woman. Just look at all the hate "Brokeback Mountain" got and even Oprah - when she does shows with this issue - her questions always comes across as if she is trying to attack the man because she cannot understand why!!!
Crystal is right about everything she said in one of the above posts. It was a bad idea from the beginning to bring back a beloved character only to make him gay as fans just could no accept it!!! I guess enough TIME has not passed as yet before a storyline like this can be plausible to the public’s opinions. I still want to believe though that the writing was the real culprit here.
It was so obvious that once they revealed Phillip as a gay man the writers did not know what to do with the character. I mean 20 years he has been hiding in the Outback and he has no boyfriend/husband/nothing!!! And another thing that has always confused me is: Cane is suppose to have known Phillip during that period and was involved in this incredible con with him and still the writers expect us to believe that Cane and Phillip did not have a relationship while slumming it out in the Outback!!! LOL
Instead of making Adam “bisexual” or whatever you want to call what he did for that five minutes of his life - because that’s how long “Adam the bisexual lasted” on the show – why didn’t they make Cane the bisexual character.
He and Lily are so darn boring together. I would have much preferred to see Lily having to deal with Cane’s true identity on top of his bisexual past!!! LOL
You make a lot of good points will01, and good suggestions.
There were a lot of problems with the story, which I guess I can see more clearly in hindsight than I did before. But even with the bad idea of resurrecting a legacy character and having him explain his 20-year absence from his family with the shocking revelation that he's gay, the scripts and acting could have sold this so much better. We weren't given any reason to believe that Philip was so tortured by his secret that he had to leave his home and family -- not in the dialogue and certainly not in the acting. Those scenes were a failure from every angle. I think even the people writing it didn't think it made sense, so of course the audience wouldn't buy it.
And it's true, they clearly don't know what to do with Philip. Obviously, when you bring a character back after x years away, the easiest story avenue is having someone from that time in his life either come to town or already be in town as a character we know already. Giving him a romantic history with Cane would not only give Philip some direction, but also create something interesting between Cane and Lily a couple of months down the line once her cancer is over. Two characters with shady histories in the same place at the same time. The story could write itself.
But unfortunately almost no one seems to care about the character or his story, gay or otherwise. I'd like to see them make something useful of the upheaval they've caused with this return storyline, but it's hard to advocate keeping the actor/character around when he's not doing anything.
You cannot blame the fans for a show's inability to tell a good story or an actor's inability to pull off portraying a gay man.
Like i said, the show's first mistake (and this was Bell's) was bringing the character back from the dead. CBS sent a bad message to it's viewers...especially its gay audience, that one has to be so ashamed of themselves for being gay, that it's OK to lie and deceive people because society will never accept you as a gay human being. What is this Y&R...1950???? Great message to send to viewers who are contemplating coming out.
Second, why did it take Phillip 20 years to reappear??? If the show was hell bent on bringing Phillip back, why didn't they do it when Jill needed her son the most...like when Ji Ming died?? Or when Katherine "died"????
What was the point of sending an impostor?? We all know when Bell created Cane, this whole fiasco of a gay story was not even created. Bierdz was not even a blip on Y&R radar. It was only after Maria got a call from Bierdz that she decided to rewrite Cane's whole story....and what a disservice it was to the character, and Daniel Goodard that Bell totally destroyed Cane....and Goodard's performances sucked as a result.
Having Chance be a gay marine serving in the Armed Forces would have been a great story to tell. Driscoll is a fine actor and would have been great bringing this story to life. But having them make a handsome guy in his mid 20's become a virgin.......i almost fell off my chair laughing at the sheer stupidity of Bell and Shefer's lack of talent.
Plain and simple, if your last name is Bell, you must simply be a homophobe who believes gay people should not be a part of daytime television.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: MARKPGH,
If they wanted to give Philip an excuse for faking his death, they should have just had him realize that he could not beat his alcoholism. He could have honestly felt that Nina & Chance would be better off without him. By making his reason for staying away his homosexuality, it really damaged his character. To let TOLERANT women like Jill & Kay think he was dead for no good reason? It’s not like they’re die-hard religious types. Jill is no Mary Williams! I can almost see Phillip wanting to spare Nina but then what about Chance? Phillip really thought it was better to play dead than give Chance a father who happened to be gay? Seriously? Really? Can no one else on the board see how warped & twisted & HOMOPHOBIC MAB & HS and SH’s writing is? I don’t care if HS is gay in real life. That doesn’t stop the basic premise of this story form being very homophobic. How people don’t see this is beyond me.
Of course, The Ram story was another shining moment of homophobia. Where is Rafe? His aunt? What a horrible presentation of a young gay man – so desperate for off-screen hugs that he sells his poor aunt out! And Adam is exactly the kind of character a homophobe would write. By making Adam “choose” to be gay when it suited him, Y&R presented homosexuality as a choice! Not as something that you are born into. [Let’s not start with some pathetic apology about how Adam is bisexual when no such type story was written.] To make it even worse, Ram lost whatever chemistry they had with the recast. What a totally failed story. Now Y&R wants us to buy that Sharon is going to want to have sex with a “gay” guy? I know, I know. It’s Sharon. She would have sex with her shoe if she could figure out how to work it.
I completely agree that Y&R made a major mistake by not making Chance gay. The story would have written itself! It could have been brave & poignant & realistic. Unlike Phillip & Adam, he wasn’t previously established as straight. We could have believed that Chance was born gay and was struggling to find a way to be true to himself while still being allowed to serve his country. It’s just very sad that Y&R blew such an incredible opportunity for some short-tern stunts that led nowhere.
It’s sad that TB has to beg people to write in for him. Why bring him on if there was no real plan for Phillip?
will01 - You make interesting points, but I think you made them backwards. You say not enough time as passed where this storyline would be acceptable to the audience. I say too much time has passed. He faked his death, like, 15 or 20 years ago. So he was a man coping with his sexuality in the late 80s or early 90s (I don't remember when exactly Phillip's death storyline took place) -- not, say, the 1950s. If he were struggling with homosexuality back then, maybe -- maybe -- we could understand how he'd rather be thought of as dead than homosexual. But not in the era of "Angels in America."
I'm a gay man, and even at my most closeted, I wouldn't be able to understand another gay man concocting an elaborate, ridiculous scheme and abandoning his son for twenty years and then strolling back in like he'd just stepped out for afternoon tea. I could maybe have accepted this over time, if Phillip was shown to be legitimately tortured and earned forgiveness, but that would mean more than the six months he was under contract for, and more than one or two episodes a month -- that's a year or two of intensive storytelling and character redemption. So it's definitely not the fans' fault that we weren't accepting this storyline. The writers just chose not to put the proper work into it.
As played by Bierdz, Phillip never seemed tortured at all. He never seemed conflicted, or guilty, or even uncomfortable about his sexuality. He looked kinda sleepy, kinda bored, kind of indifferent. The performance is a major issue, because he's in the driver's seat trying to sell us on the idea that Phillip was so devastated that he would fake his death, hire an impostor, provide blood samples to perpetuate the ruse -- all because he likes dudes! Not only has Phillip not expressed sexual interest in men since he arrived in Genoa City, in Bierdz's drowsy, lazy, slack performance he doesn't seem to have interest in anything -- like his adult, abandoned son; or his grieving, heartbroken wife; or his devastated family. MAB, Rauch, and Sheffer failed, Bierdz failed, and now they're cutting their losses on the worst storyline of the year (makes OLTL's Stacy look like freakin' Luke & Laura), and one of the worst storylines of the decade.
Lynn Marie Latham was bad, but none of her storylines achieved the legendary suck status this one will. This is up there with AMC's unabortion and DAYS's Melaswen.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
