It is amazing how quickly this top-rated daytime drama has improved after several missteps a year or so ago. Headwriter Maria Arena Bell, who had been widely criticized upon her first months of aired scripts, now seems a great partner with legendary executive producer Paul Rauch, who has joined her recently as co-executive producer. Rauch is best known for his genre-busting creative vision - particularly as it relates to the now defunct NBC soap opera, Another World. There he brought a respected sense of stage to afternoon television by hiring New York theatre actors for prominent roles. But that is not all of the magic he does. Let's see: hiring acclaimed author Harding Lemay ("Eight Years in Another World") and keeping him for a long, adventure-filled stint as chief scribe resulted in some of the best dramatic television at the time. Also, the stunning sets on Another World (and then on one of its spin-off shows, Texas) played a big part in the overall "look and feel" makeover in serialized drama. By not trying to fix what was not already broken, MAB & Mr. Rauch have successfully concentrated on both returning The Young & The Restless to the class act show of its glory days. The vision of late co-creator and long-time headwriter Bill Bell seems to be one shared by Rauch and the new Bell in charge of story. Not to say that all story and character blunders of past headwriters and execs have been instantly repaired, but daily story telling is, like life - a work-in-progress, and happy days do seem to be here again.
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