Here’s Why Young and the Restless Needs to Lighten Up

Lately, The Young and the Restless has aired multiple mental health storylines and multiple corporate shark arcs featuring toxic fights, takeovers, and takedowns. A messy custody battle is brewing, and a sordid one-night stand has now turned into a ‘who can keep the secret from their significant other longer’ game. While many elements of these stories are entertaining, there is one thing in common. Overall, the tone is dark and sometimes depressing. On our wish list for Y&R: Lighten up and have more fun.

Bring the Fun

Lately, we’ve been seeing more and more comments like this:

Don’t get us wrong — some characters aren’t bogged down in darkness. But those stories aren’t front and center. Mariah (Camryn Grimes) and Tessa (Cait Fairbanks) are happy with their baby and their jobs. However, they spend most of their time standing around talking about other people’s problems. The happiest storyline that we love is Alan and Traci.

Born out of Ashley’s DID arc, the relationship between these two is refreshing to witness. We love Alan (Christopher Cousins) for Traci (Beth Maitland). But the two aren’t on as much as we’d like. And now they’re off to Los Angeles together. Hopefully, we’ll get to see some of their trip, or at the very least, when they hit up Genoa City on their way back to Paris.

We hang on to these crumbs of happiness because it’s a bit of a palette cleanser between important educational opportunities like the Connor OCD story and whatever’s going on with Sharon (Sharon Case — who teases who’s funnier, her or Joshua Morrow). Even the plot twists that should be fun — like Adam and Chelsea’s (Melissa Claire Egan) one-night stand — aren’t turning out to be. Instead, we dread Sally (Courtney Hope) getting hurt again. And Adam (Mark Grossman) being in the doghouse again is the last thing we want.

The heavy-handed family drama with Jack (Peter Bergman), Diane (Susan Walters), and Kyle (Michael Mealor) isn’t hitting the wild, juicy trainwreck potential it should be. Meanwhile, we aren’t digging the fact that Lily’s position at Abbott-Chancellor is in jeopardy because Victor (Eric Braeden – who praises Team USA here) wants to bring Billy Boy (Jason Thompson) down. Instead, he wants to install Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) as the head Chancellor. Meanwhile, Lily (Christel Khalil) can do the job solo.

Since it is the summer, we want to see more fun, flirty stories, not business breakdowns and battles. We get that business arcs are in Y&R’s DNA, but there have to be other ways of featuring the family companies other than for melodramatic meltdowns. And as great as it is to see Linden Ashby again (he’s just soooo good), Cameron’s haunting Sharon in the dead of summer is beyond dark.

What happened to the great teenage takeovers of years and decades past? What about more romance with happy couples? Give them obstacles they can fight together. Dark drama is always needed, but when it’s piled on like it is now, it’s a lot. Maybe spread the storylines out. Mix them up with heartfelt, heart-lifting, and even funny stories. Introduce some in the fall, or wait for the winter. The summer season is for loving, living, creating, and basking. Not everything has to be educational, combative, or toxic, especially not at this time of the year.